The WGC BREF covers the management and treatment of channelled and diffuse emissions to air arising from a variety of sources associated with chemical production processes, incl. emissions to air of carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic pollutants or CMRs. The BREF sets binding minimum performance standards for installations, aiming to prevent / minimise the negative impact that such operations can have on the environment.
The BAT conclusions were published in the Official Journal of the EU (OJEU) in December 2022.
The publication of the BAT conclusions in the OJEU sets a four-year deadline for installations across the EU to comply with the requirements. However, if the BAT conclusions are published before an installation’s permit is issued, the installation must comply with the requirements immediately.
The BREF is available here.
The outcome of the drafting process in a nutshell
Significant progress has been made regarding the abatement of diffuse emissions (such as fugitive emissions from e.g. equipment leaks, and non-fugitive emissions from e.g. tank venting or bulk storage), through a new approach underpinned by a management system for preventing, reducing and quantifying such emissions. This is a major step forward because diffuse emissions represent a high fraction of the total emissions from chemical installations.
Nevertheless, EEB regrets the absence of a stronger focus on emissions prevention, through the clear promotion of the use of high integrity equipment (HEI) as the main technique for fugitive emissions (equipment leaks) abatement. As the text stands, the use of HEI (which is already standard practice in the sector in Germany), is merely featured as an option among other techniques.
We further regret that mass flow thresholds (below which thresholds the BAT-Associated Emission Levels or BAT-AELs do not apply) are still retained in the final text for channelled emissions (such as stack or chimney emissions). This means that emission limits may be set, or not, in such cases, depending on whether the emission source in question will be classified as a ‘major’ or a ‘minor’ source respectively by the national or regional competent authority. This includes harmful emissions of volatile organic carbons (VOCs), even for activities, such as the production of organic compounds, the production of polymers or the production of pharmaceuticals which are large emitters of VOCs with about 40 000 tonnes emitted to air each year. Mass flow thresholds (although lowered) were even retained for the sum of VOCs classified as CMRs. What makes the situation worse is that the methodology of calculating the pollutant mass flows (in order to compare against the mass flow thresholds) is not clarified in the final text: ‘(…) where waste gases with similar characteristics, e.g. containing the same (type of) substances/parameters, and discharged through two or more separate stacks could, in the judgement of the competent authority, be discharged through a common stack, these stacks shall be considered as a single stack’, the text reads.
This vague formulation could lead to the ‘splitting’ of emission points (so-called ‘salami tactics’): operators may slice up their emissions into multiple stacks, each discharging below the BAT threshold. Some EU member states, such as Germany, would likely be able to cut emissions under the new BREF because they currently calculate pollutant mass flows based on a ‘virtual stack’ approach that adds up all relevant waste gas flows at installation level rather than at the level of individual stacks. But member states that do not use a virtual stack approach face the prospect of operators using the above-mentioned tactics.
Contacts
Aliki Kriekouki, Senior Policy Officer for Industrial Production: aliki.kriekouki@eeb.org
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Documents archive from the drafting process
1. Kick-off Meeting (KoM) of the technical working group (September 2017):
- The KoM report, incl. decisions taken on the scope of the review and the key environmental issues to focus on, is available here.
- The KoM background paper, summarising the stakeholders’ positions on key issues is available here.
2. First draft of the BREF (D1) (November 2019)
- The D1 of the BREF is available here.
- The EEB comments on the D1 are available here.
3. Second draft (D2) of the BAT conclusions (April 2021)
- The D2 of the BAT conclusions is available here.
- The EEB comments on the D2 are available here.
4. Final Meeting (FM) of the technical working group (July 2021)
- The background paper of the FM, summarising the stakeholders’ positions on key issues is available here.
- The Commission’s assessment on dissenting views following the FM is available here.
5. The meeting of the IED Forum
- the opinion of the Forum is available here.