Environmental data & transactions

3 June 2025

5 min read

Over the last 5-10 years the amount of environmental information that can be publicly accessed has grown considerably. This presents both challenges and opportunities for clients and their advisers in transactions.

Datasets are emerging (and being updated) in relation to vast range of environmental data, including data in relation to:

• Contamination and pollution (for example, contaminated land registers, which includes sites that sites are subject to active enforcement action by environmental regulators)

• Registers of enforcement action by environmental regulators, such as EPAs, in relation to the issuance of statutory notices and orders and criminal sanctions, prosecutions and other matters

• Registers of sites that are subject to environmental licences, approvals or permissions

• Data about natural hazards, such as bushfire hazard areas that are subject to regulatory controls because of their sensitivity to bushfire and data about historic bushfires

• Modelling data about projected flooding, climate change, sea level rise and extreme temperatures

• Biodiversity such as datasets that show the potential or known presence of threatened species and ecosystems that may be protected under State or Territory and/or Federal environmental laws

• Areas and sites protected under Aboriginal cultural heritage protection laws and other heritage laws

• Planning and development matters such as zoning and planning controls, development applications and decisions.

Disclosures in property transactions

Certain environmental and planning information is required to be disclosed in property transactions.

There are vendor disclosure requirements in the principal property laws of the State or Territory in which a property is located. These mandate disclosure of certain information to a purchaser. But this is often not the end of the story.

Depending on jurisdiction, there may well be additional requirements under environmental legislation to also disclose environmental information to a prospective purchaser.

A good example of this is in Victoria, where the key disclosure requirements for a section 32 statement are mandated in Section 32 of the Sale of Land Act 1962. This includes (but is not limited to) particulars of any notice, order or reports of a public authority or government department (section 32D(a)). Commonly, notices and orders issued by EPA Victoria, such as Site Management Orders, Environmental Action Notices, Improvement Notices, and Notices to Investigate, fall within this category and are disclosed, but specific document types are not listed in the legislation. As a side issue, it is worth noting that as a broad category for disclosure, there is potential for other report types to fall within the disclosure regime as different report and notice types develop over time, including through amendments to, and introductions of, environmental and other laws.

But in addition to the vendor disclosure requirements of section 32, the Environment Protection Act 2017 requires other information to be disclosed (in some cases to lessees as well as purchasers). Examples of disclosure requirements* under the Environment Protection Act include:

• section 214(1) which provides that if a preliminary risk screen assessment statement or an environmental audit statement has been issued in respect of a site, the person in management or control of the site must provide a copy of the preliminary risk screen assessment statement or the environmental audit statement (as the case requires) to any person who proposes to become the person in management or control of the site; and

• section 39(1) which provides, with respect to contaminated land, that a person in management or control of contaminated land must minimise risks of harm to human health and the environment from the contaminated land so far as reasonably practicable. For the purposes of subsection (1), minimising risks of harm to human health and the environment from contaminated land includes (but is not limited to) carrying out various activities which include under section 39(2)(e) provision of adequate information to enable any person who is reasonably expected to become a person in management or control of the contaminated land to comply with the duty to manage contaminated land. Such information is not simply governmental documents but other documents in the possession of the vendor about contamination.

Whilst the EP Act does not stipulate the manner and form of the disclosures, legal commentators have offered the view that it may be a breach of a contract of sale if the required disclosures are not made at an appropriate time.

Similar environmental law-led disclosure requirements apply in Queensland under the Environmental Protection Act 1994. These are being integrated expressly into the new the Property Law Act 2023 and Property Law Regulation 2024, which will come into operation on 1 August 2025.

Purchaser due diligence supplements vendor disclosure

Vendor disclosures may provide some information about planning and environmental matters, but they are not the end of the story. The caveat emptor regime applies and buyers are encouraged to perform their own environmental due diligence particularly around natural hazards.

The amount of information available that sits outside the disclosure requirements is considerable and may be very much of interest to a prospective purchaser. Matters such as bushfire hazard, flood hazard, climate change hazards and other natural hazard information may be relevant to a transaction. Information about planning and environmental matters such as areas of biodiversity significance and recent development applications might be relevant depending on how a purchaser intends to use or develop their site.

Transactional support

In many cases, clients will be aided by environmental due diligence in relation to proposed transactions.

Obtaining publicly available data from public sources or independent search providers can be an incredibly useful step in a transaction, when acting for both buyers and sellers. However, this is no substitute for professional advice on the particular circumstances and assistance interpreting information gathered. Specialist environmental consultancy and/or legal support may be needed in order to undertake appropriate due diligence. Environmental due diligence will typically look at both the information that has been disclosed and gather and review new information from publicly available data sets. It may also, if needed, undertake more specialist and detailed contamination and other assessments, involving visits to a site, including sampling if needed.

Please contact us if you have any questions about environmental law support in relation to a property, project or corporate transaction.

Further information

I recently co-presented at an InfoTrack X Lotsearch webinar on Managing environmental risks in property transactions using the latest data which is available on demand. This webinar includes information from Lotsearch about some of their environmental and planning searches available on contamination, bushfire and development matters.

* Not an exhaustive list

The legal stuff

Environment Express posts aim to provide high-level and thought-provoking information about contemporary environmental law issues.

All the information in this article and on this website and any downloads are intended only to provide a summary and general overview on matters of interest.  They are for general educational purposes only.

The information is general in nature and not intended to be comprehensive. It is not legal advice, strategic advice, consulting advice or product advice. It does not establish a lawyer - client relationship.  Guthrie Legal makes no recommendation as to particular searches or search providers or the steps which should be taken in any particular transaction.

You should always seek independent legal or other professional advice on specific cases and before acting or relying on any of the content.

Whilst attempts have been made to ensure that the content is current at date of publication, Gabrielle Guthrie and Guthrie Legal do not guarantee its currency.  Laws and contemporary practices change over time, including as a result of case law.

© Gabrielle Guthrie and Guthrie Legal 2025

Please contact us for permission if you wish to reproduce any of the content on this website.

Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation