The German Government has approved a draft act significantly overhauling the country’s environmental criminal law. The Government Bill aims at implementing the EU Environmental Crime Directive largely by way of an 1:1 transposition, though with selective extensions. After controversial discussions, it differs from the earlier Ministerial Draft in several important respects, including codified corporate fine criteria and new covert investigative powers.
Background
On 29 April 2026, the German Government adopted a Government Bill for a new act strengthening the criminal protection of the environment. The driver is the Environmental Crime Directive, which updates the EU framework on environmental criminal law (read more).
The Government Bill at a glance
The bill deliberately avoids goldplating the Directive following criticism during the consultation process. That said, the bill is by no means minimalist. Several of its reforms go to the heart of how environmental crime is prosecuted in Germany.
Corporate fines – higher caps, codified criteria and legal succession
Companies cannot be held criminally liable under German law, but there is the possibility to impose administrative fines under the Act on Regulatory Offences (Ordnungswidrigkeitengesetz, OWiG). With regard to such corporate liability, the Government Bill goes materially further than the Ministerial Draft.
As foreseen in the earlier draft, the maximum corporate fine for intentional offences rises from €10 million to €40 million and for negligent offences from €5 million to €20 million. In addition, the Government Bill introduces statutory fine assessment criteria covering the gravity of the underlying offence, the degree of corporate culpability, the company’s compliance measures and its financial circumstances. For the first time, companies will thus have a statutory framework against which to measure their own risk and align their compliance structures.
For relevant businesses and compliance officers, the quadrupling of maximum corporate fines combined with codified sentencing criteria demands a review of environmental compliance programmes. The new regulations codify criteria that regulators in Germany and abroad have long considered in practice, but they will now carry formal statutory weight.
A wider criminal net: new and expanded offences
On the substantive criminal law side, the Government Bill introduces a range of new and expanded offences that – taken together – cast a significantly wider net than the current law. The most notable amendments are the following:
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“Ecosystem” as a new protected environmental medium: As requested by the Directive, the term “ecosystem” is introduced as a protected medium alongside the existing categories of soil, water, air, flora, fauna and human health in the relevant offences in the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, StGB). A statutory definition of this term will be inserted into the StGB that corresponds to the Directive’s definition.
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Attempt liability as a new cross-cutting element: Implementing a requirement of the Directive, the Government Bill introduces attempt liability across a broad range of intentional environmental offences in the StGB including air and water pollution, illegal waste handling and the unlawful operation of installations. This is a structural shift of considerable importance: where previously only the completed offence was punishable in several of these provisions, investigators will now be able to pursue conduct that falls short of causing actual harm, provided the attempt itself is established.
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Stiffer new penalties for catastrophic environmental harm and organised crime: Where intentional conduct causes catastrophic environmental consequences (e.g., a major oil spill) a sentencing range of one to ten years will apply. In less serious cases, the range is six months to five years. In addition, where certain waste and radioactivity offences are committed in a commercial manner, an elevated sentencing range of six months to ten years will apply.
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Energy emissions as new unlawful conduct: The bill expands the catalogue of unlawful conduct in the relevant provisions to include the emission of certain forms of energy, specifically noise, vibrations, thermal energy and non-ionising radiation. This brings German law into line with the Directive’s requirements.
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Air pollution offences — two significant amendments:
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Product marketing variant in air pollution offences: Reflecting a provision in the Directive introduced against the backdrop of the diesel scandal, placing a product on the market will be criminalised where its widespread use is capable of causing significant harmful atmospheric changes – specifically, atmospheric changes capable of causing severe harm to human health, or of lastingly polluting water, air or soil, or of causing significant damage to animals, plants or ecosystems. This is a meaningful extension of the traditional pollution offences in German law.
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Vehicles in the scope of air pollution offences: One of the more nuanced differences to the Ministerial Draft concerns the operation of vehicles. Where the Ministerial Draft had proposed to abolish the vehicle exemption entirely, the Government Bill retains a modified version of that exemption: criminal liability for air pollution arising from vehicle operations requires that the individual vehicle itself releases a significant quantity of substances. Compared to current law, the exemption is considerably narrower, but compared to the Ministerial Draft, this is an area where the Government Bill has pulled back. For affected companies, a careful assessment of the new threshold remains advisable.
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Offshore activities – a new dedicated offence: A new provision creates a specific criminal offence for establishing, operating or decommissioning offshore oil and gas installations without authorisation, where this is capable of causing harm to human health or significant damage to animals, plants, water, air, soil or an ecosystem (carrying up to five years’ imprisonment). This provision, absent from the Ministerial Draft, implements the Directive’s requirements concerning offshore hydrocarbon activities. For companies with offshore operations, this is a direct compliance trigger requiring a review of German permit status and operational governance frameworks for relevant installations.
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Unlawful execution of major projects – a new general offence: Alongside the new offshore provision, the Government Bill introduces a new criminal offence of broad application: executing a project that is subject to an environmental impact assessment obligation or screening procedure without the requisite permit, planning approval or other authorising administrative act or in contravention of a prohibitory order is criminalised where it is capable of causing significant harm to environmental media, including ecosystems. The offence carries up to five years’ imprisonment and is directly relevant to developers and operators of large-scale infrastructure, industrial and energy projects.
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Unlawful water withdrawal: The existing offence of water pollution is extended to cover the unlawful withdrawal of water from a body of water where this causes a materially adverse change to its properties. According to the explanatory memorandum of the Government, this closes a gap in the current law and aligns the criminal framework with the broader water protection objectives of the Directive.
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Ancillary legislation overhauled: The Government Bill makes changes to ancillary statutes beyond the Criminal Code. Notably, the Plant Protection Act (Pflanzenschutzgesetz) and the Chemicals Act (Chemikaliengesetz) receive genuine new criminal offences – in particular, the first-time criminalisation of certain violations of the EU Plant Protection Regulation and the unlawful release of fluorinated greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances. The Federal Nature Conservation Act (Bundesnaturschutzgesetz) is substantially restructured and expanded, including a new provision criminalising violations of the EU Invasive Alien Species Regulation for the first time. Separately, the criminal provisions on illegal waste shipments – previously housed in the Waste Shipment Act (Abfallverbringungsgesetz) – are migrated into the StGB, consolidating the legal framework for illegal waste handling within the Criminal Code.
New weapons for investigators: covert powers enter environmental law
The telecommunications surveillance (Telekommunikationsüberwachung, TKÜ) catalogue will be significantly extended. Particularly serious environmental offences and serious chemical offences will now qualify as predicate offences for covert surveillance. This is a significant step: law enforcement will be able to deploy covert investigative tools against environmental offenders on a statutory basis. The Ministerial Draft contained no equivalent provision.
Next steps
The Government Bill will now be subject to the ordinary legislative procedure, i.e. it will be transmitted to the Bundesrat and the Bundestag. The implementation deadline under the Environmental Crime Directive is 21 May 2026. Parliamentary proceedings will need to move swiftly if Germany is to transpose on time – making the Government Bill’s careful balancing act between faithful implementation and meaningful domestic reform all the more notable. Further amendments during the parliamentary process remain possible, though the direction of travel is set by EU law.
