On 12 November 2025, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Directive (EU) 2025/2360 on Soil Monitoring and Resilience, better known as the Soil Monitoring Law. It is the first specific European legal framework devoted to soil protection, a natural resource which, unlike air and water, had until now had no legislation of its own at Community level. Its regulatory significance is obvious, but its practical impact is still little understood: the new directive directly affects industries with legacy soils, property transactions and any development involving a change of land use.
Spain has three years to transpose it into national law, a window that will close no later than 2028. But experience tells us that companies and developers who wait until the last date will pay a higher cost in terms of permitting, asset valuation and investment decisions. These are the practical implications that already need to be anticipated.
A paradigm shift: soil as a monitored resource
According to EU Council data, more than 60% of European soils are currently in poor condition, as a result of unsustainable uses, pollution, overexploitation and the effects of climate change. The new directive pursues a long-term objective —healthy soils in Europe by 2050— and does so with five key instruments:
A public inventory of potentially contaminated soils. Each Member State will have to identify, register and publish the sites where contamination is suspected or confirmed. The immediate consequence for companies is obvious: many industries with legacy soils will appear in these inventories, with the reputational, land registry and asset valuation consequences that entails.
Harmonised monitoring of soil health. Common descriptors and soil health classes are established, linked to European target values and national trigger values. This means that the technical criteria cease to be national and become European, with approved analytical and sampling methodologies.
Monitoring of emerging pollutants. PFAS, pesticides and microplastics are explicitly included, a significant change from earlier frameworks focused on heavy metals and hydrocarbons. Chemical, agri-food and process industries will have to review their discharge records in the light of these new parameters.
Risk-based management of contaminated sites. The gradual, risk-based approach is enshrined, with particular attention to protecting vulnerable populations (children, older people, pregnant women) and ecosystems. For site owners, this may mean both more obligations and more legal certainty, depending on the case.
Principles for mitigating land take. The directive introduces criteria to limit sealing (covering with concrete or asphalt) and the removal of topsoil during construction, two common occurrences in industrial, logistics and infrastructure projects.
What it means for industry and property transactions
For industry with legacy soils, the main risk is appearing in the public inventories of potentially contaminated soils without prior knowledge of their actual condition. The recommendation is clear: carry out your own preliminary investigation before the authorities begin theirs. A well-executed phase I investigation and, where appropriate, phase II now makes it possible to quantify the risk, plan the works and avoid surprises in a possible asset transfer or plant extension.
For transactions involving industrial assets and developable land, the new directive will make soil environmental due diligence even more important. Institutional buyers, already highly sensitive to this issue, will demand more robust reports with methodologies aligned to the European descriptors. Sellers who fail to anticipate this requirement may see their asset valuations penalised or, outright, deals dropped for «unbounded environmental risk».
For developers of infrastructure, logistics parks and renewable energy plants, the land take mitigation principles will have a practical translation in future environmental impact studies. The need to occupy unsealed land will have to be justified in greater detail and, in some cases, compensation or restoration measures designed. Projects that already incorporate these criteria at preliminary design stage will have an advantage in permitting.
What we recommend doing now
Given this scenario, we recommend three actions to industries, developers and public administrations:
A preliminary audit of soil risk at your own facilities, especially at sites with more than 20 years of activity or with historical potentially polluting activities (chemicals, metallurgy, waste management, former service stations, etc.).
A review of environmental due diligence in ongoing property and M&A transactions, aligning methodologies with the European descriptors that will be rolled out in the coming months.
Integration of soil sealing mitigation principles into urban development, industrial and infrastructure projects already being drafted, to avoid late reformulations during environmental permitting.
At auma auma we support industries, developers and public administrations in the investigation, characterisation and management of potentially contaminated soils, as well as in integrating these criteria into environmental assessment and due diligence processes. The new Soil Monitoring Law is not just one more piece of legislation: it is the recognition, finally at European scale, that soil is an environmental and economic asset to be managed with the same rigour as water or air.