Abstract : Best Available Techniques (BATs) in Europe have become crucial for
the industrial sectors concerned with the Industrial Emission Di
rective
(IED) and for other sectors like the nuclear industry. In the IED, the
creation and revision process to define a list of BATs which will be used
as a reference by operators and environmental authorities is known as
the “Sevilla Process”. The decisi
on process is based upon exchange of
information between stakeholders, analysis of data and expert
judgement. Several methods to assess technique performances
compared to BATs from reference documents or to support the
determination and the application of
BATs have been developed.
However, existing tools integrate either the European or the local level
but not both levels. This situation makes the application of BATs highly
dependable of expert judgements. In order to contribute to strengthen
the robustness
of BAT determination and application, the authors argue
that there is a need for an integrated method to help to define a list of
BATs and to support the decision for their application.
This paper first introduces the context in which the BAT concept is
u
sed. In a second section, a methodological approach to analyse an
industrial sector so as to identify its key environmental issues is
presented. Then, the results of this sectoral analysis are used to select
installations considered as representative of th
ese issues in a view of
illustrating the current situation in the sector and fuelling the
discussions between experts. To illustrate the latter section, examples
from the Food Drink and Milk and the nuclear industry are given.
Finally, the proposed methodo
logy to analyse an industrial sector and to select installations which are representative of key environmental
issues is discussed and perspectives for selecting BATs are given.
