Regularize your company with an environmental instrument (within 8 months)
In Guatemala, every project, work or industry must have an approved Environmental Instrument and in this sense must comply with the provisions of the Environmental Evaluation, Control and Monitoring Regulation.
Through this regulation, the entire structure, requirements and procedures related to environmental instruments, also known as Environmental Impact Studies, which are approved by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources -MARN-, are established.
The current Regulation was approved in July 2016, and established a grace period of two years, expiring in July 2018, so that all companies that did not have an approved environmental instrument could regularize their situation, paying a fine for a value of Q. 5,000.00 (US$ 700.00) regardless of the impact category of the project. After that term, the fine could increase from Q. 5,000.00 (US$700.00) to Q. 100,000.00 (US$14,000.00).
However, the extension was extended when on July 10, 2018, the reforms related to the Environmental Evaluation, Control and Monitoring Regulation were published in the Official Gazette, in which the term was extended until January 3, 2020 for Existing projects, works and industries that do not have an Environmental Instrument, can present the corresponding corrective, keeping the value of the fine of Q. 5,000.00 (US$ 700.00) regardless of the impact category of the project.
There are two types of environmental instrument that can be submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources:
- Environmental Impact Study (EIA): it is the environmental instrument, which must be carried out for activities or projects that have not been carried out, and its environmental impact will be predicted. Here it is established how the impact will be mitigated, from construction to operation. This environmental instrument does not generate a fine.
- Environmental diagnosis: It is the environmental instrument that contemplates the evaluation of the impact of all the activities that are already built or operating and that already generated the environmental impact. This establishes the way in which it will mitigate the impact it is already generating (in water, noise, air, and others). This environmental instrument does generate a fine.