The environmental protection expenditure for industry, in 2013, was 1,391 million of euro of wich 958 million of euro were investments in equipment and plant for pollution control and special anti-pollution accessories mainly end-of-pipe equipment and 433 million of euro were investments in equipment and plant linked to cleaner technologies (\u201cintegrated technology\u201d). The large enterprises with 250 and more\u00a0 persons employed made74.1 percent of end-of-pipe investments and 53 percent of investments linked to cleaner technology.<\/p>\n
Between 2012 and 2013, the investments on environmental protection of industrial enterprises decreased by 16.9 percent.<\/p>\n
The significant reduction of investments on environmental protection is the result of different dynamics between the dissimilar company sizes. In small and medium-sized enterprises there was an 8.6% increase in spending , while in firms with 250 or more employed there was a decrease of 25.4%.<\/p>\n
The investments on environmental protection accounted for 4.2 percent of the total gross fixed investment made \u200b\u200bby industrial enterprises; the environmental investments per persons employed were equal to 358 \u00a0euro.<\/p>\n
31.2 percent of the environmental protection expenditure (41.6 percent in 2012)\u00a0 includes protection and remediation of soil, groundwater and surface water, noise and vibration abatement, protection of biodiversity and landscape, protection against radiation, research and development, activities leading to indivisible expenditure and activities not elsewhere classified\u00a0 (Other environmental protection activities).<\/p>\n
In particular, in manufacturing, the weight of environmental investments to total gross fixed investments was 2.9 percent. The biggest expense (14.9%) was made by industry in the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products .<\/p>\n
Overall, industrial companies produced mainly investments to remove the pollution after it has been produced, instead of integrating their systems with “clean” technologies, which help to protect the environment from the effects of the production process.<\/p>\n