By Automated Environmental · Last reviewed July 2026. General information for Victorian businesses — not legal advice.
An EPA improvement notice is a formal direction from an EPA Victoria authorised officer requiring you to act to comply with the law or to address likely harm, by a deadline stated in the notice. It is one of five remedial notices under the Environment Protection Act 2017, and in practice the type that most commonly directs a business to develop and implement an Environmental Management Plan (EMP). You must comply by the due date, though you can apply for more time and, in most cases, seek a review.
EPA's authorised officers issue remedial notices when a business is not complying with an aspect of the Environment Protection Act 2017 or needs to address waste or contamination. There are five types:
The improvement notice is the forward-looking one: it targets the gap between how you manage environmental risk and what the law requires. That law is usually the general environmental duty (section 25): eliminate or otherwise reduce risks of harm to human health and the environment from pollution and waste, so far as reasonably practicable. If an officer concludes your systems don't demonstrably do that — often after a site visit — an improvement notice is how you're made to fix it. For the general first-response playbook, see Received an EPA notice in Victoria? What to do next.
Every notice is site-specific, but the wording follows patterns you may recognise from your own letter. Improvement notices commonly direct a business to "develop and implement a documented Environmental Management Plan, prepared by a suitably qualified person", or to "develop a site-specific Environmental Management Plan for the premises, prepared by a suitably qualified independent entity", or to engage a suitably qualified person by a stated date. Deadlines are hard calendar dates — "By [date] you must…" — not aspirations.
Three words carry most of the weight. Documented: verbal routines don't count; EPA wants a written plan it can read and hold you to. Site-specific: the plan must address your premises and your risks — a generic template can't answer it. Suitably qualified: the author matters, and if your notice says "independent entity", a plan written in-house won't satisfy it. The notice-to-plan path is deliberate — EPA's own guidance notes it may require a management plan through other means, such as an improvement notice. If yours directs an EMP, The EPA told you to get an EMP covers contents, cost and deadline.
If your notice's wording is ambiguous, don't guess. Automated Environmental offers a free notice read-back: send EPA's letter through the EPA notice page and a consultant replies within one business day with a plain-English read of what it requires and your deadlines — free, confidential, no obligation.
Yes — by application, not assumption. You can apply to EPA to extend your time to comply, or to amend the notice's requirements. The application must be lodged at least 10 business days before the due date — itself a reason to scope the work in week one, not week five. If a council issued your notice, contact the council instead.
The application needs substance: your reason, an outline of the proposed changes including new timeframes, what you've already done to comply, and supporting documents or data. EPA considers whether the change would give better long-term results, manage the risks more effectively or clarify what compliance requires, whether factors beyond your control — weather holding up critical works, supply delays — are the obstacle, and whether you're making all efforts to comply. EPA aims to advise the outcome within 5 business days; until then, keep complying with the notice as written.
Improvement notices are one of the four remedial notice types eligible for review. The route depends on who issued yours — check the notice itself:
An independent review officer assesses whether the notice was the correct and preferable decision; it may be affirmed, varied, or set aside and substituted. You can request a stay — permission not to comply during the review; EPA must decide that within 2 business days or the stay is granted automatically. The outcome is due within 10 business days of your application — silence means the notice is affirmed. If you disagree, you can go to VCAT within 15 business days of the decision. Unless a stay is granted, keep preparing to comply while the review runs.
An EMP that answers an improvement notice is both a working management system and a regulator-facing record: it describes the site and its setting, maps the activities creating risk across air, land, stormwater, trade waste and waste streams, assesses those risks, sets out controls that eliminate or reduce them so far as reasonably practicable, assigns responsibilities, and builds in monitoring, incident response and training so the plan is demonstrably implemented rather than shelved.
Measure any draft against the notice's own words — documented, site-specific, suitably qualified — limb for limb. And a notice being complied with or revoked confirms you met the notice, not that EPA has endorsed your EMP; the plan stays yours to maintain, and the duty keeps applying.
The deadline is a hard date written into the notice and enforceable. You can apply to EPA for an extension, but for an improvement notice the application must be lodged at least 10 business days before the due date, and you must keep complying unless EPA changes the notice.
Yes, improvement notices are reviewable. If an EPA or council authorised officer issued it, you can apply for an internal review within 10 business days of receiving it and can request a stay. If a delegate of EPA issued it, you apply to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) instead.
Not always, but it is the notice type that most commonly does. Many improvement notices expressly direct the business to develop and implement a documented, site-specific EMP prepared by a suitably qualified person. The exact wording of your notice defines what you must deliver and by when.
Sometimes. If the notice asks for a plan prepared by a suitably qualified person and someone in your organisation genuinely fits that description, an in-house EMP can satisfy it. If it specifies a suitably qualified independent entity, an internal document will not meet the requirement.
Related reading: The EPA told you to get an EMP · Received an EPA notice? What to do next · EPA notices explained: the five types · What is an EMP?
This article is general information, not legal advice. Notices carry hard deadlines — if you've received one, get advice specific to your situation promptly.