French industry goes green

The French “Green Industry” law (Loi “Industrie verte”) n° 2023-973 of October 24, 2023, was recently implemented with the dual aim of creating new jobs and promoting “cleaner” manufacturing in France.

The new law contains several provisions that not only seek to facilitate the establishment of new industrial sites in France but also to rehabilitate brownfield sites, including:

• The adoption of a national green industry strategy for the period of 2023-2030.
• The introduction of industrial land planning at the regional level.
• The improvement and acceleration of administrative procedures and processes to decrease pollution, such as:
  
  • The environmental authorisation procedure has been simplified, allowing for public consultation and the application review to be carried out simultaneously.
  • The environmental authorisation procedure has also been eased by allowing project developers to carry out environmental compensation operations in advance by producing or acquiring biodiversity restoration units.
  • A simplified special procedure has been created for “industrial projects of major national interest” (to be identified by decree). In particular, grid connection procedures will be accelerated and building permits will be issued by the French government and no longer by local authorities.
  • An administrative fine has been introduced to sanction the illegal transfer of waste outside of France.
• An extension to the deadline requiring car park operators to install solar PV panels on parking lots of more than 10,000 square meters by 18 months (moving it from 1 July 2026 to 1 January 2028) under certain conditions which incentivise the acquisition of solar PV panels produced in Europe.

The newly implemented law also sets out to help finance “green industry” by mobilising public and private funds. Notably, it enables the Banque de France to collect corporate data on sustainability issues for the purpose of producing a “climate indicator” which would be available to companies and financial actors.

Finally, the “Green Industry” law devotes an entire chapter to public procurement. There are new measures which bidders need to be aware of, including:

• An increased consideration of environmental criteria in the evaluation of tenders: these criteria will have to be expressly cited in the selection criteria for public procurement contracts.
• The introduction of new grounds for exclusion from public bids, particularly for companies failing to comply with the obligation to report their environmental performance by drawing up a greenhouse gas emissions balance sheet.

Various decrees will be issued to specify the terms and conditions of the implementation of certain of these new measures. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the authors of this article should you have any queries on this new law, or if you would like to keep up with the latest developments related to the decrees to be issued.