Access Environment

Search Access Environment to find detailed information about environmental approvals and registrations in local communities and to locate Ontario facilities on an interactive map.

Using this map based online tool, you can search for:

  • Environmental Compliance Approvals (ECA)
  • Renewable Energy Approvals (REA)
  • Environmental Activity and Sector Registrations (EASR)
  • Pesticide Licenses
  • Permits to Take Water (PTTW)

Note: Environmental Compliance Approvals (ECAs) include all Certificates of Approval (CofAs) previously issued under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) and approvals previously issued under s.53 of the Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA).

Access Environment displays the following information:

  • approval or registration number
  • business name
  • facility address and location on an interactive map
  • type of approval or registration from the ministry (view a PDF or HTML copy)
  • date of issue
  • status of the approval (approved, amended, revoked and/or replaced)
  • status of the registration (registered, removed)

Access Environment also provides access to copies of approval documents including ECAs, REAs and EASR registration confirmation letters.

Note: Geographic references for approvals data are continually being updated. In some cases, the number of pins mapped may not reflect the total number of records.

Search tips

General

  • You may start a search session by selecting the type of approval you wish to find on the left side under Operational Layers.
  • In the middle of the page you can search by typing in an approval number or clicking I want to…
  • You may conduct searches in Basic and Advanced Search portals.
  • In Basic Search you may search by one and only one search criteria.
  • In Advanced Search you may search by one or more search criteria.
    • To access Advance Search, select tools on the top right of the map, then Advanced.
  • In addition to entering values in the search criteria fields, you may initiate a search directly on the map by clicking on the proximity of the area in which you would like to search for environmental approvals.
  • The maximum number of search results the system can display at a time is 1,000. You will need to adjust your search criteria to obtain all records.
  • You may access, view, download, save and print an approval document
  • You must press ESC or the X to return to the form or search results table.
  • If you click on a pin on the map, the system will highlight the environmental approval(s) for that coordinates on the search results table.
  • If you highlight a record on the search results table, the system will mark the pin on the map for that record.

Search by criteria

  • When searching with the Business Name criteria, you may start with a partial business name and narrow your search down in light of the first set of search results obtained. For example, you may start with entering “Toronto” as Business Name value and then narrow the search down by entering, City of Toronto and Municipality of Toronto values.
  • When searching with the Business name criteria, you may want to try various business name combinations to obtain full records. For example, you will need to search for “City of Toronto” and “Municipality of Toronto” in order to obtain full records.
  • When searching with the Address criteria, entering a full address string i.e. Street Number, Street Name (and Direction), and Municipality or, at least Street Name and Municipality, will provide best results.
  • When searching with the Municipality criteria, you may enter the name of a city, town, municipality or geographic township in Ontario.
  • When searching with the Address criteria, you may also enter lot, concession numbers with municipality or geographic township.
  • When searching by the “Search Radius” criteria, you must enter Address and Municipality data.
  • When searching with status, use “active, approved, amended, revoked and/or replaced” for ECAs and REAs.
  • When searching with status, use “registered, removed” for EASR registrations.