Environment: Austria wants to check Amazon and Co. more closely
Controversial logistics centers such as those in front of Graz are to be subject to an EIA in the future. With a view to the energy transition, the permits should be there more quickly. Project opponents are no longer allowed to raise unlimited new objections.
Vienna. Online trade is booming – and with it the construction of logistics centers for suppliers. Amazon is setting up a 5.7 hectare distribution center on a green field in the south of Graz near the Liebenauer Gurtel. The largest logistics center in the country is to be built near Villach by 2026 on 46 hectares. Massive truck and car traffic included. Unlike shopping centers, power plants or production facilities, projects of this kind in Germany have so far gotten away without in-depth examination of the effects on the environment.
That should change now. “Austria is the world champion in soil sealing,” says Environmental Protection Minister Gewessler (Greens) to the “Presse”. They are “collected big online retailers, take better care of our floors”. Large logistics centers, but also chalet villages in the middle of the green meadow should no longer be allowed to be implemented in the future without an environmental impact assessment (EIA). In the forthcoming amendment to the EIA Act, the permissible use of land is to be reduced and logistics centers are to be explicitly included on the list of projects subject to EIA.
But that is only part of the changes that the Ministry is making in the area of the approval process facility.