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Integrated Supply Chain Information

4 IPPC and EMAS

• 4.1 Data collection and environmental aspects - IPPC and EMAS
• 4.2 Environmental improvements based on BAT
• 4.3 External reporting requirement
• 4.4 Synergies between IPPC and EMAS

Both the IPPC directive and EMAS regulation have the facility, site and industrial activity in focus. It therefore seems reasonable to analyse similarities and synergies between IPPC and EMAS, but also to discuss further links to the product oriented approach in the Eco-labelling and a possible future EU-EPD scheme.

The main questions to be answered are:

• What are the possible synergies between the activities required of an IPPC listed industrial activity and the requirements of an EMAS registered organisation, for instance reviews, data collection and compliance monitoring and use of BREF documents?
• Do EMAS and the IPPC require the same and/or overlapping/duplicating activities regarding e.g. reporting requirements?

4.1 Data collection and environmental aspects - IPPC and EMAS

The permit system in the IPPC framework aims at ensuring that operators of industrial activities must take preventive measures against pollution, to secure in particular that

• the best available techniques are applied
• no significant pollution is caused,
• the waste that cannot be avoided is recovered or safely disposed of,
• energy is used efficiently,
• accidents are prevented and their consequences limited and
• the site of operation is at a satisfactory state when the installation closes. (IPPC directive, article 3)

This integrated, holistic approach should ensure that the total number of the many environmental issues relevant for an industrial facility is considered and data are collected.

The similarities and differences of the environmental aspects to be considered in IPPC and EMAS by a company are compared in Table 3.

The overlap of environmental aspects, for which the companies must collect data and control are obvious, although they are not described in the same way and in the same detail. The IPPC directive indicates in most cases the effect of the environmental aspects to be reduced and/or controlled, while EMAS identifies the aspect of an activity to be considered. EMAS seems to be broader in its inclusion of aspects such as indirect environmental aspects, which include the environmental aspects of its products. Environmental aspects of the company's products are not mentioned in the IPPC directive, but could be included if the product influences the company's contribution to the environmental effects.

Table 3 Environmental aspects in IPPC and EMAS

It would be helpful to companies, if the listed environmental aspects were further coordinated in the use of terms and definition - it would facilitate the use for both purposes.

It is also interesting to see how industrial facilities must review and control the environmental aspects.

An IPPC facility must send an application for a permit to the authority. The application must include a description of the activities and processes, inputs and outputs, and the related pollutants as follows:

• The installation and its activities
• The raw materials and auxiliary materials, other substances and the energy used in or being generated in the installation
• The sources of emissions from the installation
• The conditions of the site of the installation
• The nature and quantities of foreseeable emissions from the installations into each medium as well as identification of significant effects of the emissions on the environment
• The proposed technology and other techniques for preventing or, where this is not possible, reducing emissions from the installation
• Where necessary, measures for prevention and recovery of waste generated by the installation
• Further measures planned to comply with the general principles of the basic obligations
• Measures planned to monitor emissions into the environment” (IPPC directive, article 6)

An application for a permit must also include a non-technical summary of the details referred to in the above-mentioned indents.

This application will have several similarities with the demands of the Initial Environmental Review in EMAS.

An organisation participating in EMAS must establish its current position with regard to the environment by means of a review. The aim should be to consider all environmental aspects of the organisation as a basis for establishing the environmental management system.

The review should cover five key areas:

1. Legislative, regulatory and other requirements to which the organisation subscribes;
2. An identification of all environmental aspects with a significant environmental impact, qualified and quantified as appropriate, and compiling a register of those identified as significant;
3. A description of the criteria for assessing the significance of the environmental impact;
4. An examination of all existing environmental management practices and procedures;
5. An evaluation of feedback from the investigation of previous incidents”.

Both application and review are descriptions of the situation of the company at a certain time. The application and the review document will also give a description of how operational control and monitoring and measuring of environmental aspects and pollution are carried out for the time being.

After having prepared the initial review, an EMAS company will “establish and maintain documented procedures to monitor and measure on a regular basis, the key characteristics of its operation and activities that can have a significant impact on the environment. This must include the recording of information to track performance, relevant operational controls and conformance with the organisations environmental objectives and targets” (EMAS Regulation, Annex 1- I.A5.1)

Thus for an IPPC listed company, the requirement of an environmental review in EMAS will be rather easy to fulfil, because the task is similar to establishing an IPPC application. And in the later dialogue with the authorities issuing the application and meeting the measuring and monitoring requirements in the permit the EMAS procedures can be helpful ensuring that the requirements are met.

When EMAS II was launched, it was emphasized that an EMAS registered company should also look into the environmental aspects of its products. These aspects are as mentioned above not explicitly covered by the IPPC directive. The IPPC directive only set requirements for the site based emissions and has no life cycle or product chain approach. An EMAS applicant would therefore not be helped by its IPPC application in relation to the review of the environmental aspects of the products. Depending on the sector, the company belongs to, it may be able to find guidance in the BREF guidance notes. Otherwise the company may seek guidance in the Eco-label or the EPD documents.

EMAS is open for participation of any organisation dedicated to improving its overall environmental performance. Several organisations participating today in EMAS are not IPPC listed companies. These organisations, for instance the service industry, hospitals, public administrations have nothing similar to an initial review or an IPPC application, when they start running for EMAS. Some less polluting industrial companies may have gathered some data and information to authorities, which might be helpful.

There is an obvious synergy in a co-ordination of the requirements in an IPPC application and the requirements in EMAS regarding the initial environmental review. Companies preparing for an EMAS registration and thus requesting information regarding purchased products at its supplier may find it easier to process the received information if the structure and content of an IPPC application and that of an EMAS review was more similar.

4.2 Environmental improvements based on BAT

One of the basic IPPC obligations of an industrial facility is to take all the appropriate preventive measures against pollution, in particular through application of best available techniques (BAT).

Over the years, various definitions of BAT have been used in the framework of EU legislation as well as in other contexts such as international conventions. The Directive includes a comprehensive definition that is supplemented by 12 specific considerations listed in an annex. It provides for the determination of BAT not only in a general sense but in specific cases as well.

“BAT shall mean the most effective and advanced stage in the development of activities and their methods of operation which indicate the practical suitability of particular techniques for providing in principle the basis for emission limit values designed to prevent and where that is not practicable, generally to reduce emissions and the impact on the environment as a whole”. (IPPC directive, article 2,11)

“Available” does in this context mean those techniques developed on a scale which allows implementation in the relevant industrial sector, under economically and technically viable conditions, taking into consideration the costs and advantages, whether or not the techniques are used or produced inside the Member State in question, as long as they are reasonably accessible to the operator".

This means that BAT can actually vary from one plant to another because costs and benefits can obviously vary. The fact that costs and benefits are elements in the definition of BAT also means that BAT inevitably is a balance between different environmental impacts and associated costs.

When applying for a permit the applicant must investigate and assess the possibilities of implementing BAT. The applicant must be able to explain (account for) the choice of technology and how it is related to BAT.

There are similar considerations to be made in meeting the requirements in EMAS. EMAS requires that the participants are committed to continual improvement of the environmental performance beyond the emission limit values in an IPPC permit and other legal environmental requirements, since it is expected that an EMAS registered company complies with legislation.

“Continual improvement of environmental performance' shall mean the process of enhancing, year by year, the measurable results of the environmental management system related to an organisation's management of its significant environmental aspects, based on its environmental policy, objectives and targets; the enhancing of the results need not take place in all spheres of activity simultaneously”. (EMAS Regulation, Article 2b)

This means that a participating company in EMAS year after year must set objective and target for improving the performance and set out action that will ensure that the targets are met. The EMAS regulation does not set performance requirements as the authorities set emission limit value when issuing an IPPC permit. The performance requirements in EMAS are set by the company it self.

AS an IPPC listed industrial facility the company is aware of the BREF-documents. These documents may be a helpful checklist for EMAS companies – listed as IPPC facility or not - in order to identify what is accepted among experts as BAT and how the performance can be improved. These can also be used in the dialogue with suppliers and other stakeholders in the product chain on how to improve the product seen in a life cycle approach. Therefore BREF-documents should be published in a way making them more readable and visible also for other companies than IPPC facilities.

4.3 External reporting requirement

Annex III of the IPPC Directive lists the relevant pollutants to be considered to fulfil the requirement of reporting to the EPER (European Pollutant Emission Register). 50 pollutants have been selected based on the environmental significance of the industrial emissions of pollutants and including pollutants for which international reporting requirements already exist.

In addition to the list of pollutants, a threshold value for each of the substances has been specified. The purpose for applying these threshold values is to avoid the need for industry to report insignificant emissions. In general, an industrial facility will usually exceed threshold values for a limited number of pollutants, so that the reporting burden for industry in practice will not be excessive.

In the IPPC directive facility is defined as an industrial complex with one or more installations on the same site, where one operator carries out one or more activities. The advantage of this choice is that industry is allowed to report the total emission of each pollutant released by a facility and exceeding its threshold value. To simplify the reporting obligations for the EPER, it is only required to report the total of the industrial emissions of the facility for all pollutants for which the threshold values are exceeded. These data are accessible to the public from the EU EPER website and similar websites at the national Environmental Protection Agencies. It is data of high validity as they are controlled by the local or central authorities although different approaches are applied in the Member States.

In EMAS there is also reporting requirements. The industrial facility must prepare an environmental statement.

The organization must produce environmental information in the form of an environmental statement, to be validated by the environmental verifier. This information must be available for the public. The environmental statement is a tool for communication and dialogue with the public and other interested parties regarding environmental performance.

The minimum requirements for the environmental statement are:

1. A clear and unambiguous description of the organisation and a summary of its activities, products and services;
2. The environmental policy and a brief description of the environmental management system
3. A description of all the significant direct and indirect environmental aspects
4. Description of the environmental objectives and targets
5. A summary of the data available on the performance of the organisation
6. Other factors regarding environmental performance including performance against legal provisions with respect to their significant environmental impacts; (EMAS regulation Annex III)

In EMAS the requirement is also based on the total emission of the facility – not detailed emission on each activity/product. The requirements says a summery of data, but in general verification terms all data on all significant environmental aspects should be mentioned, which should include at least what is required to be reported to the authorities.

This means that an EMAS registered facility must prepare a report, which covers more than emission data, but as a minimum includes the same data already reported as a consequence of the IPPC-directive. These IPPC data will thus be a subset of the EMAS Statement. There is a significant synergy foreseen, if this type of data were applied also in down stream value chain communication (EPD, eco-labels).

4.4 Synergies between IPPC and EMAS

There are some advantages and benefits for companies working with both the IPPC requirements and EMAS mostly because the schemes are site and facility based and both have focus on improving performance of the whole site and the technology used. These can be further exploited, and authorities, competent bodies and other advisors to the IPPC companies and EMAS applicants ought to communicate these synergies more adequately to the companies to reduce their hesitance to EMAS, because of the risk of a big workload

Better management of environmental aspects

Implementing EMAS makes it easier to comply with the requirements of the IPPC Directive, for example when it comes to preparing applications and monitoring reports. The burden of having both systems will not double up because of several overlapping activities. Participating in EMAS (or another Environmental Management System, EMS) might make the IPPC workload less time consuming, as EMAS gives the company a management system, which organises and structures the work and gives a systematic approach. This also counts the other way around. Having an IPPC application in place gives a quick start to the initial environmental review in EMAS.

The EMAS initial environmental review and IPPC application have similar elements

Both information systems require that the participating company establishes an overview of its current environmental position. Overlapping environmental aspects must be considered and it should be further co-ordinated, especially with respect to terms, definition and structure of the documents.

Guidance on initial environmental review with links to IPPC and BREF

In many member states guidance documents for individual sectors and for SME's have been developed, for instance instructions on how to prepare an initial environmental review. These guidance documents might establish links to the IPPC and the BREF-documents, but it would be helpful to have the link right up front in the EMAS regulation. The EU EMAS Guidance on identification of environmental aspects and assessment of their significance (Available from the EU EMAS homepage) mentions in a toolbox that the company should “review its documents (e.g. safety datasheets, licences)”, but the similarities of the data and how they can be used are not further explained.

BREF documents includes valuable information

BREF documents should be used more widely and published in a form and a language, which is useful to a broader audience than IPPC listed facilities, for instance their suppliers and downstream users. The BREF documents will help EMAS companies identify technologies for continual improvement of their performance.

Less work on reporting to authorities

Reporting of emission data in the EPER format will require additional workload for the facilities except for companies with an EMS. For them it is a limited additional effort to provide information on emissions in the EPER format. In case a facility has an environmental management system (EMS), the environmental aspects of the facility are already documented and reported in the system.

The data collected by an IPPC company in relation to its application are controlled by the authorities and are therefore data of high validity also in relation to an EMAS registration and to the validation of the EMAS statement, although the data required for the statement encompass more environmental aspects than is covered by the IPPC.

EPER type information is valuable in the relation to products

The EPER type information (summary of emissions of up to 50 hazardous substances) is a subset of the EMAS statement and could be applied also in down stream product chain communication tools (EPD, eco-label).

The site-specific emission reported to the EPER can be used as an assessment tool to estimate environmental loads for downstream products, if adjustments are conducted. If the EPER should be applicable for downstream value chain communication tools, the following adjustments must be implemented.

1. Today, the EPER sums up the emission of 50 groups of hazardous substances. No differentiation of the substances is applied. To be applicable for Life Cycle Investigations, a quantifiable graduation of the 50 substance groups must be elaborated in order to estimate the toxicity potential for each substance group. It is recommended, that a determination of toxicity scores for the 50 substances in the EPER register be elaborated by a central EU body, since commonly accepted criteria are essential to the credibility of such method.
2. The EPER are site specific, whereas the EPD and eco-label background data documentation are product specific. Hence, a conversion factor must be used in order to estimate the emission from the functional unit based on the total site emission of a substance group listed in the EPER. To assign a reliable conversion factor, the responsible person must have a thorough knowledge of the production site. The more specific the production at the site is, the better the conversion factor estimates will be. If the product diversity of the site is large, it is more difficult to assess the conversion factors with reasonable precision, as the individual mass flow of each product has to be estimated.

The revised EMAS from 2001 (EMAS II) has emphasised a focus on products. This is not emphasised in the IPPC directive and most EMAS companies will have to find guidance elsewhere since no guidance on how to include the product dimension into the management system is available.

In table 4 below some of the main activities in EMAS and IPPC and product related issues are listed. The table compares how these elements are reflected in the more product-oriented schemes and includes a very rough scoring (one to three marks, where 3 is the highest) on the rate of significance of the activity in the different schemes. The scoring illustrates the rate of significance and gives an idea of where to look for more synergies.

Table 4 Scoring of activities in the different schemes

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Version 1.0 February 2006, © Danish Environmental Protection Agency