Environmental and sustainability regulation in Colombia: a guide for companies

The environmental and sustainability rules that reach a company in Colombia today fall into five blocks: the environmental permits behind the operation, the annual filing to the Single Environmental Registry, the national carbon tax, waste and circular economy duties, and sustainability disclosure for issuers and supervised financial entities. On top of that come two external pressures with hard dates: the EU's imported deforestation rules and the data requests European customers pass down the chain.

No single statute pulls all of this together. This guide organises the pieces block by block, says who is bound by what and when, and links to the detailed explanation of each rule.

Who regulates what

Before the rules, get the map of authorities straight. Environmental competence in Colombia is widely distributed, and knowing who you answer to saves time.

1. The general framework: licences, permits and authorisations

The institutional base is Law 99 of 1993, which created the National Environmental System (SINA) and split competences between the ministry, the regional autonomous corporations and the urban environmental authorities. The implementing rules are compiled in Decree 1076 of 2015, the single regulatory decree for the environment sector, which is where environmental licensing, water concessions, discharge permits, air emission permits and hazardous waste management live.

For a plant or a project this becomes a file: which authorisations you hold, what limits they set and what you have to demonstrate periodically. Everything else hangs off that, because the other reporting duties are triggered precisely by holding those authorisations.

2. Climate: national targets and emissions reporting

Two statutes carry Colombian climate policy. Law 1931 of 2018 set the directives for climate change management and created the sectoral and territorial climate change plans, plus the national tradable emission allowance programme. Law 2169 of 2021 put numbers and dates on the targets.

The targets written into law

• Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 51% against the 2030 reference scenario in the national contribution, with a ceiling of 169.44 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2030.
• Reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
• Cut black carbon emissions by 40% against 2014.
• Bring net natural forest deforestation to zero by 2030.

What is coming for companies: the ROE

Article 16 of Law 2169 created the mandatory GHG emissions report (ROE), which will require public, private and mixed legal entities to report direct and indirect emissions according to emission-level and company-size criteria the Ministry of Environment will set. The data will be public.

As of August 2026 the ROE is not yet enforceable, because the implementing resolution is missing. A platform pilot ran between November and December 2025 and a draft resolution went out for comment in July 2026. The practical reading is simple: the reporting duty is coming, and companies that already hold an emissions inventory built to a recognised standard will handle it as a data upload rather than a six-month project.

One more point that often gets missed: the national tradable emission allowance programme exists under Law 1931 of 2018, but its design is still in development and it is not operational. Colombia does not have a functioning compliance carbon market today.

3. Tax: the national carbon tax

The national carbon tax applies to the CO2 equivalent content of fossil fuels burned for combustion. It was created by articles 221 to 223 of Law 1819 of 2016 and reformed by Law 2277 of 2022.

• 2026 rate: 29,070.49 pesos per tonne of CO2 equivalent, set by DIAN Resolution 000003 of 2026 and effective from 1 February 2026. It is indexed every 1 February by the previous year's inflation plus one percentage point.
• Coal: phased in at 50% of the full rate in 2026, 75% in 2027 and the full rate from 2028.
• Filing: every two months, and the tax is deductible from income tax.
• Carbon neutrality non-accrual: a taxpayer certifying carbon neutrality can avoid accruing up to 50% of the tax, with a certificate that cannot be reused for any other tax benefit.

That last point is what turns the carbon footprint into a financial decision rather than a reputational one. It is also where most claims failed: not for lack of credits, but for being unable to show that the neutralised tonnes match the fuel invoiced in the period.

4. Operational environmental reporting: RUA and RETC

The Single Environmental Registry is now the broadest reporting duty and the one most companies underestimate. Resolution 0839 of 28 August 2023 replaced the previous scheme, consolidated reporting into a single IDEAM-run application and adopted the pollutant release and transfer register, which is generated from the same data.

It binds anyone holding an environmental licence, an environmental management plan, permits, concessions or other environmental authorisations, plus generators required to report hazardous waste. Filing is annual, per establishment, to the environmental authority with jurisdiction.

The consequence is that 2026 was the first reporting year for every sector outside manufacturing. Plenty of services, logistics, retail and agribusiness companies discovered the obligation with the year already closed and without water, energy and waste data organised by site.

5. Waste and circular economy

Three fronts take up most of the work.

Single-use plastics

Law 2232 of 7 July 2022 bans placing on the market, selling and distributing certain single-use plastic products, on two timelines. The first group (checkout bags, bags for wrapping publications and advertising, bag rolls in retail outlets, stirrers and straws, balloon sticks and cotton bud sticks) has been banned since two years after the law took effect, that is since July 2024. The second group, which includes disposable tableware, containers for non-prepackaged food and packaging for fresh fruit and vegetables, is banned at eight years, in 2030. There are defined exceptions, including medical and hygiene uses and production destined for export.

Packaging

Resolution 1407 of 2018, since amended, implements extended producer responsibility: every producer must draw up, file with ANLA, implement and keep updated an environmental management plan for packaging waste, individual or collective, with quantitative recovery targets against the weight placed on the market in the base year, and annual progress reports.

Hazardous waste

Hazardous waste management and the generator registry sit within the regulatory body of Decree 1076 of 2015 and, under Resolution 0839 of 2023, reporting is folded into the RUA application.

6. Sustainable finance and disclosure

The Colombian Green Taxonomy, published in April 2022, is the official system for classifying which activities and assets count as green. The Financial Superintendence issued instructions on its adoption through External Circular 005 of 2022.

On sustainability disclosure there are two key rules. External Circular 031 of 2021 requires securities issuers to disclose social, environmental and climate matters on a financial materiality basis, referencing the TCFD and the SASB standards. External Circular 015 of 3 October 2025 requires supervised entities to run an environmental, social and climate risk management system, with an implementation plan filed with the SFC by 3 April 2026 and up to 18 months to complete implementation.

On IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 it pays to be exact, because a lot of wrong information circulates: they are not mandatory in Colombia. The Technical Council of Public Accounting published its strategic direction in February 2026 and a roadmap in July 2026 for progressive, differentiated and initially voluntary convergence. No decree brings them in. The situation differs from Mexico, where they are already enforceable for issuers.

7. What arrives from the European Union

If you export or sell to European companies, three EU rules reach you without being Colombian.

• Deforestation Regulation (EUDR): application was postponed to 30 December 2026 by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650. It covers coffee, cocoa, palm oil, cattle, rubber, soy and wood, which is a large share of Colombian agricultural exports, and requires geolocation of plots of origin and documented due diligence.
• CBAM: the definitive regime has been running since 1 January 2026, with a de minimis threshold of 50 tonnes of net mass a year aggregated per importer. It affects exporters of iron and steel, cement, aluminium and fertilisers to the EU; electricity and hydrogen are always in scope.
• CSRD: after Directive (EU) 2026/470 it only reaches EU companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than 450 million euros in net turnover, with first reports for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027. It does not bind you directly, but it reaches you as a supplier: those companies need value chain data, within the limit set by the voluntary standard adopted in July 2026.

Calendar of what is already fixed

Where to start from zero

1. Inventory your environmental authorisations by establishment. That defines almost all of your reporting duties.
2. Check whether you were already required to file the RUA and which window your tax ID falls into.
3. Calculate your carbon footprint, scopes 1 and 2 as a minimum, using the GHG Protocol or ISO 14064. It serves the ROE, the carbon tax and whatever customers and banks ask for.
4. Review your carbon tax exposure and whether the non-accrual mechanism pays off for you.
5. Look at your export chain: if you sell into the EU, EUDR and CBAM have dates, and traceability cannot be improvised.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a law in Colombia requiring a sustainability report?

Not as a general rule. The duty to disclose environmental, social and climate information currently falls on securities issuers under External Circular 031 of 2021 of the Financial Superintendence.

Is GHG emissions reporting mandatory in Colombia?

It is created by article 16 of Law 2169 of 2021, but as of August 2026 it is not enforceable because the implementing resolution is still pending.

Which companies have to file the RUA?

Those requiring an environmental licence, environmental management plan, permits, concessions or other environmental authorisations, plus generators required to report hazardous waste. From 2026 the duty also reaches non-manufacturing sectors.

Does Colombia have a carbon market?

It has a tradable allowance programme created by Law 1931 of 2018, but its design is still under development and it is not operational. What does work is the voluntary market tied to the carbon tax non-accrual mechanism.

The common denominator across all of this is the same data: energy and fuel consumption, water, waste and emissions, by establishment and traceable back to the invoice. Manglai gathers it once and serves it to each framework. Start with our carbon footprint solution.