Impact Analysis of the Mining Industry on Ukraine's Environment
Data for 2020–2024
The mining industry is one of the foundational sectors for Ukraine's economy, accounting for a significant share of industrial production and budget revenues. At the same time, its activities are accompanied by a substantial impact on the environment, including the generation of significant volumes of waste, pollution of water resources, and emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere.
Systematic and transparent analysis allows for evaluating this impact based on objective data rather than subjective assessments. Quantitative indicators make it possible to determine the scale of the industry's environmental load, track its dynamics, and correlate it with national environmental impact indicators.
On this page, we show what proportion of Ukraine's annual environmental load is attributed to the mining industry, as well as the dynamics of indicators by year. To do this, we combined a list of 3389 companies reporting under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Ukraine with official state statistics regarding air emissions, water discharges, and waste generation.
Research Methodology
The purpose of the analysis is to evaluate the contribution of Ukraine's mining industry to the national annual environmental load indicators, as well as to determine the dynamics of these indicators over the years.
- To form the list of analysis subjects, a list of enterprises that annually report within the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Ukraine and are classified under the relevant sub-sectors of the mining industry is used.
- For each enterprise, a unique identifier (EDRPOU or RNOKPP code) is determined to ensure correct matching with official statistical data.
Calculations are based on official annual data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine for the respective years, in particular, using the following reporting forms:
- No. 2-TP (air) – "Report on emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmospheric air from stationary sources of emissions" (annual form):
total volume of emissions (excluding carbon dioxide);
volume of carbon dioxide emissions. - No. 1-waste (annual) – "Report on waste generation and management":
volume of waste generated during the year. - No. 2-TP-water (annual) – "Report on water use":
discharged into surface water bodies of return (waste) waters (total).
- Indicators for individual enterprises obtained from State Statistics data are aggregated to the "mining industry (EITI)" level by summing the corresponding values for all enterprises included in the sample.
- In parallel, for each year and each metric, the corresponding national indicator ("Ukraine") from official statistics is used.
For each environmental metric and each year, the following are determined:
- the absolute value of the indicator for Ukraine as a whole;
- the absolute value of the indicator for mining industry enterprises (EITI);
- the share of the mining industry in the national indicator, calculated by the formula: EITI Share (%) = (Mining industry indicator / Ukraine indicator) × 100.
This approach allows for evaluating the relative contribution of the sector to the overall environmental impact at the national level.
During the analysis process, the data is checked for:
- presence of gaps;
- abnormal values (sharp fluctuations, zero indicators, atypical orders of magnitude).
If methodological changes or temporary absence of data are detected, the relevant information is indicated in the notes to the graphic materials.
The analysis has the following limitations:
- the study covers only enterprises included in the EITI reporting list, which does not necessarily reflect 100% of Ukraine's mining sector;
- official statistical data may undergo changes due to updates, revisions of classifications, or data collection methodologies, particularly under martial law after 2022;
- the results obtained characterize the sector's contribution to national indicators and are not an assessment of the environmental performance of individual enterprises without considering additional contextual factors.