The recently published standards concern personal protective equipment for respiratory organs and eyes, special clothing, dielectric gloves and personal protective equipment that is to be used as fall protection during works at height.

GOST R ISO 13688-2016 “Occupational safety standards system. Special protective clothing. General requirements” contains requirements for ergonomics, safety, size labelling, wear and tear and general labelling of protective clothing.

Starting from 2 May 2017, all employers must organize a special introductory training on civil defence for all newly employed personnel. This requirement was introduced by Decree No. 470 of 19 April 2017.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology published draft decree that would regulate state environmental inspections. According to the draft Decree proposed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology, all organisations are to be assigned an environmental risk category. The draft Decree sets out criteria for assigning any organization to an environmental risk category.

Russia has started public discussions on the proposed amendments relating to the extended producer responsibility concept (the EPR).  The EPR requires manufacturers and importers of listed products to either organize utilization of such products (including packaging) or to pay environmental charges for the utilization. 

Organisations paying environmental fees (i.e. those performing air emissions, wastewater discharges or waste disposal) may be granted more flexibility for the payment of such fees in advance, if the published draft regulation is adopted.

The current procedure for the calculation of quarterly advanced payments of environmental fees requires the payers to pay in advance ¼ of the environmental fee paid for the previous year. As a result, some organisations are likely to significantly overpay their environmental fees.