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BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES(BAT) FOR PREVENTING ANDCONTROLLING INDUSTRIALPOLLUTIONActivity 3:Measuring the Effectivenessof BAT Policies

Best Available Techniques (BAT) forPreventing and Controlling IndustrialPollutionActivity 3: Measuring the Effectiveness of BATPolicies

This document was approved by the Expert Group on Best Available Techniques in May2019, and is published under the responsibility of the Joint Meeting of the ChemicalsCommittee and the Working Party on Chemicals, Pesticides and Biotechnology.Please cite this publication as:OECD (2019), Best Available Techniques (BAT) for Preventing andControlling Industrial Pollution, Activity 3: Measuring the Effectiveness ofBAT Policies, Environment, Health and Safety, Environment Directorate, OECD.Photo credits: Cover LALS STOCK/Shutterstock.com OECD 2019Applications for permission to reproduce or translate all or part of this material should bemade to: Head of Publications Service, RIGHTS@oecd.org, OECD, 2 rue André-Pascal,75775 Paris Cedex 16, France

ABOUT THE OECDAbout the OECDThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is anintergovernmental organisation in which representatives of 36 industrialised countries inNorth and South America, Europe and the Asia and Pacific region, as well as the EuropeanCommission, meet to co-ordinate and harmonise policies, discuss issues of mutual concern,and work together to respond to international problems. Most of the OECD’s work iscarried out by more than 200 specialised committees and working groups composed ofmember country delegates. Observers from several countries with special status at theOECD, and from interested international organisations, attend many of the OECD’sworkshops and other meetings. Committees and working groups are served by the OECDSecretariat, located in Paris, France, which is organised into directorates and divisions. TheEnvironment, Health and Safety Division publishes free-of-charge documents in twelvedifferent series: Testing and Assessment; Good Laboratory Practice and ComplianceMonitoring; Pesticides; Biocides; Risk Management; Harmonisation of RegulatoryOversight in Biotechnology; Safety of Novel Foods and Feeds; Chemical Accidents;Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers; Emission Scenario Documents; Safety ofManufactured Nanomaterials; and Adverse Outcome Pathways. More information aboutthe Environment, Health and Safety Programme and EHS publications is available on theOECD’s World Wide Web site (www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/)This publication was developed in the IOMC context. The contents do not necessarilyreflect the views or stated policies of individual IOMC Participating Organizations. TheInter-Organisation Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC) wasestablished in 1995 following recommendations made by the 1992 UN Conference onEnvironment and Development to strengthen co-operation and increase international coordination in the field of chemical safety. The Participating Organisations are FAO, ILO,UNDP, UNEP, UNIDO, UNITAR, WHO, World Bank and OECD. The purpose of theIOMC is to promote coordination of the policies and activities pursued by the ParticipatingOrganisations, jointly or separately, to achieve the sound management of chemicals inrelation to human health and the environment.BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES (BAT) FOR PREVENTING AND CONTROLLING INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION OECD 2019 3

FOREWORDForewordThe Best Available Techniques (BAT) concept is an evidence-based, multi-stakeholdertool that supports the establishment of legally binding emission limit values inenvironmental permits, to effectively prevent and control industrial emissions to air, waterand soil. The European Union’s Industrial Emissions Directive defines BAT as "the mosteffective and advanced stage in the development of activities and their methods ofoperation, indicating the practical suitability of particular techniques for providing the basisfor emission limit values and other permit conditions designed to prevent and, where thisis not practicable, to reduce emissions and the impact on the environment as a whole".By implementing BAT-based policies, governments and industry enable a high level ofenvironmental and human health protection and contribute to achieving progress towardsSustainable Development Goals, notably Target 12.4 on the environmentally soundmanagement of chemicals and waste. Further, the enforcement of BAT-based emissionstandards ensures a level playing field for industry and fosters more efficient operations.The implementation of BAT or similar concepts generally requires a high level ofresources. There is thus benefit in sharing experience and knowledge amongst OECDmember and partner countries on this issue. The OECD Joint Meeting of the ChemicalsCommittee and the Working Party on Chemicals, Pesticides and Biotechnology, at its 54thmeeting in February 2016, approved a new project on BAT for preventing and controllingindustrial chemical pollution. The project has been conducted with the financial assistanceof the European Union.The OECD’s BAT project sets out to strengthen the performance of BAT policies andpractices around the world by exchanging best practices amongst countries that alreadyhave a BAT-based policy in place, and by providing guidance to governments consideringadopting a BAT-based approach.The project consists of three activities: (i) compile information on policies and practicesembodying BAT; (ii) exchange experiences on how to gather information on techniquesand establish BAT; and (iii) assess methodologies for evaluation of the effectiveness ofpolicies and practices embodying BAT or similar concepts by using Pollutant Release andTransfer Register (PRTR) information or emissions monitoring data. The first two activitiesresulted in the following reports:i.Activity 1: Policies on BAT or Similar Concepts Across the World.ii.Activity 2: Approaches to Establishing BAT Around the WorldThis report is the final output of the third activity and presents the first comprehensive,cross-country analysis of data and methodologies for evaluating the effectiveness ofpolicies that aim to prevent and control industrial emissions using BAT or similar concepts.With ten chapters addressing specific countries or regions, the report examinesopportunities for, and barriers to, BAT policy impact assessment in Chile, the EuropeanUnion (EU) (including specific references to Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom),BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES (BAT) FOR PREVENTING AND CONTROLLING INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION OECD 2019 5

6 FOREWORDIndia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Korea, New Zealand, the People’s Republic of China (hereafterChina), the Russian Federation and the United States (US). In doing so, the report providesimportant guidance to countries seeking to evaluate their policies’ effectiveness or wishingto design data systems that can facilitate such evaluations. Where necessary, the report alsocomplements the Activity 2 report with new information on the countries’ BAT policies.The key findings from the ten country and region chapters are presented in Table 13.1.Information analysed in this report was collected through: (i) extensive contact withnational experts, notably the members of OECD’s designated Expert Group on BAT,through a survey and subsequent information exchange; and (ii) desk research, based onthe consultation of online websites, publications and other resources. The draft report wasreviewed at the Third Meeting of the Expert Group on BAT in October 2018.The report presents existing methodologies and projects for evaluation of the impact ofindustrial emissions policies using BAT or similar concepts, and demonstratesgovernments’ diverse approaches to such evaluations. It provides examples of assessmentstudies carried out at the local, national and supranational level. Further, the report providesan overview of available quantitative data, such as emissions and activity data, in all thecountries and regions covered. The first chapter of the report outlines considerations anddata needed for analysing the impact of a BAT policy. For those countries that haveadequate data readily available, i.e. Chile, the EU and the US, the report conducts ananalysis of SO2 and PM emission trends in the primary copper and aluminium productionsectors (Chapter 2. ). Due to limited information on the characteristics and emission limitvalues applying to each of the facilities investigated, as well as the recent or ongoingimplementation of new BAT-related requirements, the analysis does not draw definiteconclusions regarding the impact of the industrial emissions policies of each of the threejurisdictions.In the absence of countrywide, facility or installation level emissions monitoring data, casestudies can provide revealing insights into the effects of a policy at the local level. Thereport includes case studies from several different industrial sectors, including leadsmelting, leather tanning, aluminium production, pharmaceutical manufacturing, coppersmelting, large combustion plants, oil refinery, waste incineration, the chlor-alkali industry,common effluent treatment plants, zinc smelting, and the pulp and paper industry.Besides quantitative data sources, the report draws on qualitative information, i.e.stakeholder opinions, on the effectiveness of BAT-based policies. The stakeholdersconsulted for the development of this report include representatives of government,environmental NGOs, industry and academia.BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES (BAT) FOR PREVENTING AND CONTROLLING INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION OECD 2019