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Coordination centre for environmental information
Informed citizens act with greater environmental awareness.
Up-to-date and innovative environmental information is the basis for the development of environmental awareness and for active participation of citizens, and therefore a factor of democratic policy.
Since the adoption of the Environmental Information Act in 1993, citizens have been granted access to environmental information. This has been a major step towards greater transparency and public friendliness in environmental administration.
With the Environmental Information Act as amended in 2005, access to environmental information will be improved and made easier. Since 14 February 2005, the Austrian Umweltbundesamt has been responsible for the coordination of environmental information.
The task of coordination involves the improvement of links between public authorities and other persons subject to the obligation to make information available, as well as the harmonisation and editing of environmental information and data so that they are understandable, exact and comparable, and as up-to-date as possible. This is achieved by using existing technologies such as websites, SMS, e-mail etc.
The amended Environmental Information Act
The new EU Directive on public access to environmental information, which transposes part of the Aarhus Convention (public access to information) into European law, provides for an expansion of public access to environmental information.
With the 2005 amendment to the Environmental Information Act, Austria has transposed the EU Directive into national law. The aim is in particular to provide public access to environmental information for Austrian citizens.
The new features include a broader definition of the rights of access to information, the expansion of public authorities which are under the obligation to provide information, shorter deadlines for public authorities to supply information and the obligation to disseminate environmental information actively to the public. Such information concerns the state of environmental components such as air, water and soil, as well as environmental factors such as materials, energy, noise, radiation or waste, and measures of administration, either adopted or still at their planning stage, that may have an impact on environmental components and environmental factors etc.
The right of access to environmental information reaches its limits where the protection of personal data according to federal constitutional law is concerned, as well as of business and company secrets. The environmental data catalogue according to § 10 of the Environmental Information Act, a meta-information system for environmental data, will be replaced by direct access routes that are regularly improved.