Policy paper

Establishing the Best Available Techniques for the UK (UK BAT)

Updated 20 December 2022

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/establishing-the-best-available-techniques-for-the-uk-uk-bat/establishing-the-best-available-techniques-for-the-uk-uk-bat

Best available techniques (BAT) aim to prevent or reduce emissions and impacts on the environment.

Techniques include:

  • the technology used
  • how your installation is designed, built, maintained, operated and decommissioned

Industrial installations with specific types of activity must use BAT to prevent and reduce emissions to air, water and land.

The UK BAT system will be the mechanism by which the techniques can be established through an evidence led, collaborative approach.

Background

BAT was adopted and applied across the European Union (EU) by the European Commission as BAT Conclusions (BATC) under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) (Directive 2010/75/EU).

Existing EU BATC continue to have effect in the UK through the EU Withdrawal Act 2018. They are available in best available technique reference documents or BREFS.

The UK no longer needs to meet the requirements of any new EU BATC - except for Northern Ireland (NI) where Article 4 of the NI Protocol sets out the sectors remaining under EU IED.

UK BAT conclusions

The future development of UK BATC will be led by:

  • UK Government
  • Scottish Government
  • Welsh Government
  • Northern Ireland Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA)

The government response about the development of UK BAT to improve industrial emissions sets out the broad principles of the UK BAT regime.

BATC will be determined through an evidence based approach with industry, regulators, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

BATC will be published as statutory instruments and used as the basis for permit conditions for industry.

The UK BAT system will take between 1 to 3 years to create a set of BATC depending on the complexity of the industrial sector. The order of BATC to be reviewed will be announced in advance to give interested parties an opportunity to express views.

Technical working groups

UK BAT will be established by technical working groups (TWG) for the relevant industrial sectors.

These groups will include expert members from:

  • industry
  • trade associations
  • academia
  • non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
  • UK regulators

The draft UK BAT Conclusions (BATC) will be published for comment and public consultation.

When BATC is agreed it will be published as a statutory instrument and used as a basis for environmental permit conditions.

Current situation

The first 4 industry sectors to establish BATC groups will be:

  1. Ferrous metal processing – galvanising (FMPG).
  2. Ferrous metals processing – forming (FMPF).
  3. Textiles (TXT).
  4. Waste gas treatment in the chemicals sector (WGC).

The TWG’s will be established from September 2022. It is anticipated that the BATC for the industry sectors above will be published in the second half of 2023.

Contact us

If you have any questions email UKBAT@Defra.gov.uk.

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