COMMENTS ON THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS’ DRAFT AIR QUALITY OFFSET POLICY

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), acting for several environmental justice organisations, submitted comments on the Department of Environmental Affairs' (DEA) Draft Air Quality Offset Policy. The CER and its clients oppose the use of offsets in principle, arguing they serve as a "cheap option to avoid compliance" with emission standards and could undermine the constitutional right to a healthy environment. The submission highlights significant gaps in the draft policy, including a lack of clear criteria for determining offsets, poor institutional capacity for monitoring and enforcement, and failure to address equity and distributional effects.

• The CER and its clients—groundWork, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance, and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance—oppose the use of offsets as a tool to bypass legal compliance, suggesting that allowing such practices for one corporation will lead others to claim it as a right based on "equal treatment".
• The draft policy is criticised for bypassing the intended policy-making process, specifically by publishing a draft on air quality offsets before the DEA had completed a broader discussion and debate on environmental offsets as previously planned in November 2013.
• There is a significant concern regarding South Africa's institutional capacity to manage offsets. The CER notes that monitoring and enforcement of existing authorisations and permits are already poor, particularly at the municipal level, and that adding offset responsibilities would exacerbate these constraints.
• The CER argues that the draft policy fails to adhere to the "mitigation hierarchy"—which requires avoiding, minimising, and repairing harm before considering offsets—and instead sends mixed messages that could allow proponents to move directly from avoidance to offsets.
• The draft policy is criticised for focusing almost exclusively on human health and particulates (PM) and sulphur dioxide (SO2), while ignoring the impacts of other pollutants and the effects of air pollution on ecological infrastructure, such as water resources, biodiversity, and agricultural productivity.
• The submission identifies several equity and distributional risks, including the potential for offsets to unfairly favour certain communities over others and the risk that regional pollution levels could increase while only localised pollutants are reduced.
• The CER highlights a decline in the performance of the Environmental Management Inspectorate (EMI). Between 2011 and 2013, there was a reported 45% decline in proactive inspections per year and a 122% increase in non-compliances annually.

APA

Centre for Environmental Rights (2014). COMMENTS ON THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS’ DRAFT AIR QUALITY OFFSET POLICY. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CER-submissions-on-Draft-AQ-Offset-Policy_21-Feb-2014_final.pdf?x21779

Chicago

Centre for Environmental Rights. COMMENTS ON THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS’ DRAFT AIR QUALITY OFFSET POLICY. 2014. https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CER-submissions-on-Draft-AQ-Offset-Policy_21-Feb-2014_final.pdf?x21779.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Centre for Environmental Rights |title=COMMENTS ON THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS’ DRAFT AIR QUALITY OFFSET POLICY |date=21 February 2014 |url=https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CER-submissions-on-Draft-AQ-Offset-Policy_21-Feb-2014_final.pdf?x21779 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{centreforenvironmentalrights2014comments, author = {{Centre for Environmental Rights}}, title = {{COMMENTS ON THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS’ DRAFT AIR QUALITY OFFSET POLICY}}, publisher = {Centre for Environmental Rights}, year = {2014}, month = feb, url = {https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CER-submissions-on-Draft-AQ-Offset-Policy_21-Feb-2014_final.pdf?x21779}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }