The turn of heavy equipment

As occurred with cars and trucks some years ago, off-road equipment emissions will be controlled by Proconve from 2015 on

Brazil is going to become the first Latin-American country to have legislation for pollutant and noise control in off-road equipment. Starting from January 1st, 2015, all new equipment—produced in the country or imported—will have to attend the levels established in the first phase of the Program of Air Pollution Control of Automotive Vehicles for Agriculture and Construction Machines (Proconve – Mar I). The act follows the standards established in the resolution Conama 433, published in July, 2011 by the National Environmental Council (Conama), following the same control standards of  North-American (EPA Tier III) and European (Euro Stage IIIA) agencies.

According to Conama, equipment will be approved by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), in the same way of all previous homologations of Proconve, that formerly were directed only to road vehicles, such as cars and trucks. Since all off-road equipment manufacturers are of foreign origin, they are accustomed to engine technologies that meet Tier and Euro Stage standards in advanced phases. Their transfer to Brazil will therefore be more natural and less traumatic.

Some simplifications will also be foreseen for imported equipment in the future, such as the simple acceptance of engines already certified in the international market as meeting American or European standards. This measure will be used for engines with low volume of sales in Brazil and will follow the same rules used for trucks in the Proconve-7, which includes engines with less than 100 units sold per year. But for off-road equipment, considering their lower volume of sales and the high variety of engines, this limit will be reduced to 50 units per year.