Air quality legislation

National Environmental Standards for Air Quality

In 2004, National Environmental Standards for Air Quality were introduced under the Resource Management Act and amended in 2011.

The standards:

• Ban particular activities that discharge significant quantities of dioxins and other toxins into the air.
• set limits for allowable levels of air pollution
• set targets for meeting the air quality standards in polluted airsheds
• require all new wood burners installed on properties up to 2ha to meet a design standard
• require landfills over 1 million tonnes of refuse to collect greenhouse gas emissions

The Richmond Airshed is a Gazetted Airshed under this National Environment Standard.  Within this airshed, the Council is required to:

• report on any exceedances in the airshed
• monitor levels of PM₁₀ in that part of the airshed where there is one or more people, and where the standard is breached by the greatest margin or the most frequently
• report on air quality when and if the standards are exceeded
• monitor to measure the effectiveness of the management options it adopts to improve air quality
• have no more than one exceedance per year of the 24 hours PM₁₀ standard of 50 ug/m³
• If the airshed air quality does not meet the specified standards, resource consents for new discharges of particulates will be restricted.

Read more about the National Environmental Standards for Air Quality on the Ministry for the Environment website.

Council uses the following methods to meet our requirements under the Resource Management Act 1991:

• policies to manage specific air quality issues in our District
• rules relating to wood burners, discharges for industrial and trade premises, and outdoor burning
• education and advocacy to promote the use of cleaner domestic heating sources, operation of wood burners and best practices for outdoor burning
• the Good Wood Scheme

National Direction for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Industrial Process Heat

Central government has released new national direction for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Industrial Process Heat. The Council is required to give effect to the National Policy Statement (NPS) objective and policies and observe the National Environmental Standards (NES) regulations from 27 July 2023. The NES regulations prevail over any relevant TRMP rules relating to greenhouse gas emissions from industrial process heat. 

This national direction provides nationally consistent policies and requirements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from industries using process heat by:  

• prohibiting discharges of greenhouse gases from new low to medium temperature coal boilers immediately and from existing coal boilers after 2037 (after this date no further consents can be issued)
• requiring resource consent to be held for new and existing fossil fuel boilers that emit 500 tonnes and above of CO2-e per year, per site
• requiring resource consent applicants to prepare and implement greenhouse gas emission plans and set out actions to reduce emissions. 

For more information, see:

• National Policy Statement for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Industrial Process Heat (external link)
• Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Industrial Process Heat) Regulations 2023 (external link)