What sustainability standards exist in Georgia
On international markets the label sustainability standards usually refers to voluntary certifications and ESG reporting frameworks. Georgia has no such specialized standards regime — and this must be said plainly, at the outset. What does exist in Georgian law is a catalogue of binding environmental norms established by the Law of Georgia on Environmental Protection: these are the only standards that carry legal force and whose breach produces real adverse consequences. This page explains which norms exist, who establishes them, and what that means for your business.
The purpose of establishing environmental protection norms is to determine norms for the impact of activities on the environment that ensure the ecological balance of the environment. To this end the law regulates: qualitative norms of the state of the environment; permissible limit norms of emission of harmful substances into the environment and of pollution of the environment by microorganisms; norms for the use of chemical agents in the environment; ecological requirements for products; and norms of environmental load. These four pillars are what a company operating on the Georgian market should treat as its sustainability standards.
Fundamental principles — the frame for applying the norms
Environmental norms do not operate in isolation. They are complemented by the fundamental principles of environmental protection, with which state governance bodies and natural and legal persons — regardless of ownership and organizational-legal form — are obliged to comply when planning and implementing activities. These principles determine how each specific norm is read and applied to you.
The law defines the risk reduction principle, under which the subject of an activity must take appropriate measures to prevent or reduce the risk of harmful impact on the environment and human health; the sustainability principle, covering the use of the environment and natural resources where no threat is created to the development of society; and the priority principle, under which a more expensive, less risky action is given priority provided its cost does not exceed the costs of compensating the damage caused by the less expensive action. The principle of paid nature use establishes that the use of land, water, forests, flora and fauna, subsoil and subsoil natural resources is chargeable, and the polluter pays principle obliges the subject of an activity to compensate the damage caused to the environment.
In addition, the principles of maintaining biological diversity, waste minimization, recycling, restitution, environmental impact assessment, public participation in decision-making and access to information all apply. When complying with the norms, these principles together form the rule of interpretation: where doubt exists, the option less harmful to the environment must be chosen.
Qualitative norms of the state of the environment
The qualitative norms set limits in three directions. First, permissible limit norms for the concentration of substances harmful to human health and the natural environment and for the quantities of microorganisms in atmospheric air, water and soil. Second, permissible limit norms for noise, vibration, electromagnetic fields and other kinds of physical impact. Third, permissible limit norms for radiation impact.
The procedure for determining these norms is strictly regulated: the qualitative norms of the state of the environment are determined once every 5 years by the regulation on qualitative norms of the state of the environment, which the ministry of internally displaced persons from the occupied territories, labour, health and social protection elaborates, in agreement with the ministry of environmental protection, and approves. This means that qualitative requirements are periodically renewed, and your compliance system must be able to track these updates.
Permissible limit norms for emissions and pollution
The permissible limit norms for the emission of harmful substances into the environment and for pollution of the environment by microorganisms are developed for each specific source of pollution, taking into account its technological features and the background pollution of its location, in such a way that the concentration of emitted substances and microorganisms on site does not exceed the permissible limit concentration level.
These norms are determined once every five years by the regulation on permissible limit norms for emissions and pollution, which the ministry elaborates and approves. Note an important difference here: while the qualitative norms are set by an act of the health ministry, the emission norms fall within the competence of the environmental ministry itself, and both are source-oriented — that is, they derive from the technological parameters of your specific installation.
Chemical agents and ecological requirements for products
The catalogue of norms also covers norms for the use of chemical agents in the environment and norms of environmental load. Ecological requirements for products are even more concrete: in the production, transportation and storage of mass-consumption products, the permissible limit norms of harmful impact on the environment and human health must be taken into account.
A separate rule concerns foodstuffs: the permissible limit norms for the quantity of chemical substances in food products are established according to the procedure determined by the legislation of Georgia. For food producers this means that when assessing compliance they must be guided not only by environmental law but also by the general rules established by food-safety legislation.
What this means for your business
First, there is no separate sustainability certificate whose acquisition would automatically satisfy the law; compliance is the fulfilment of precise, source-tailored norms. Second, the norms are periodically renewed once every 5 years, so a one-off audit is not enough — continuous monitoring is required. Third, if your activity is a source of harmful impact, take into account the polluter pays principle and assess the risk of having to compensate damage. Knowing all four groups of norms and reacting promptly to their renewal is precisely the minimal legal hygiene that Georgian law offers to business under the name of sustainability standards. Legal.ge.