The legal order in Brazil does not require environmental licensing of pharmacies that do not manipulate chemical formulas. Nevertheless, licensing has been required by some environmental bodies due to the wrong interpretation of standards on the subject.

In the State of Rio Grande do Sul, environmental licensing is treated in Resolution 288/2014 of the State Council of the Environment (Consema), which attributes to the municipalities the licensing of the projects and activities that cause or may cause environmental impact of local. In this context, the environmental bodies of several gauchos municipalities are notifying retailing pharmaceutical establishments requiring them environmental licensing, under penalty of fine and / or interdiction of activities.

Some municipalities consider pharmacies as chemical, pharmaceutical and / or fertilizer distributors. Others consider them wholesale trade of pharmaceuticals. Finally, frameworks incompatible with the activity developed by pharmacies and drugstores are allocated, which are retailers of pharmaceuticals (without manipulation), cosmetics and perfumery and personal hygiene products. And this activity is not provided for in the Annexes to Resolution Consema No. 288/2014 and therefore is not subject to environmental licensing.

The obligation to licensing the projects practicing the distribution or wholesaler trade of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and fertilizers and, on the other hand, the licensing dispensation for the retail trade activity is fully justifiable from a technical point of view . While the distribution agglomerates large volumes of products, and even the possible fractionation of them, with evident possibility of causing pollution and environmental degradation, retail trade can never cause this impact, as well as the quantity to be reduced, it works with medications doubly or triple packaged.

Ultimately, for the lack of legal forecast, either by the unlikely possibility of causing environmental impact, it is concluded that environmental licensing is not required in relation to retailing pharmaceutical establishments that do not practice the manipulation of formulas.