Performance based environmental regulation has a history extending over more than two decades. Performance-based ‘framework standards’ are contained in quasi-regulatory instruments such as ‘State Environment Protection Policies’. The works approval process arguably functions as a non-transparent form of process-based regulation. That is, environmental regulators exercise a substantial measure of control over the productive processes that emitters of significant pollutants are able to employ by requiring proposed works that would significantly change existing processes (or implement new ones) to be assessed and approved prior to construction. This process has the objective of enabling a ‘whole of process’ approach to emissions management to be adopted by effectively requiring company management to take these issues into account in plant and process design. This process-based element is then supplemented by the imposition of specific performance-based emissions standards, tailored to the individual licensee, as part of the licensing process which governs the ongoing operation of the plant.