The National Environment Management: Air Quality Act (Act No. 39 of 2004) (hereinafter “the AQA”) reformed the law regulating air quality in order to protect the environment. AQA is characterised by a paradigm shift from managing air pollution exclusively by the control of emissions from individual point sources to a holistic approach based on controlling ambient concentrations in the receiving environment. 

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DEFF) emission limits were promulgated in the form of Minimum Emission Standards (MES) in 2010 and amended in 2013 and 2018. The MES identifies a list of activities (Section 21 of AQA) that result in atmospheric emissions and obliging such emitters to obtain Atmospheric Emission Licenses (AELs) for the listed activities. The online South African Atmospheric Emission Licensing and Inventory Portal (SAAELIP) was established for the management of AELs as well as the estimation and reporting of atmospheric emission inventories. The National Atmospheric Emission Inventory System (NAEIS) is part of the SAAELIP integrated online portal (Figure 1).

NAEIS aims to provide accurate, current and complete information on all significant sources of identified atmospheric emissions, including greenhouse gas emissions from South Africa.  The information obtained from NAEIS is utilized by DEFF to inform policy formulation; establish and maintain a national emission database and for the Republic of South Africa to meet its reporting obligations for any international treaties to which it is bound. NAEIS requires that data holders must report emissions from the preceding year (period of January to March) and submit the reports to NAEIS by 31st March of every year.

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