Best Available Techniques

The Best Available Techniques (BAT) concept has emerged as a key policy tool to prevent and control industrial emissions, thus ensuring a high level of environmental and human health protection. BAT and similar concepts constitute essential elements for setting emission limit values and other permit conditions for industrial emissions in many countries around the world.

BAT are the most effective and advanced stage of processes, facilities, or methods of operation, which indicate the practical suitability of particular measures for limiting discharges.

The BAT scheme provides details on how to design, establish, and evaluate BAT in order to prevent and control the emission of industrial pollutants in a country. It is developed in three steps:

• Designing a BAT policy
• Establishing BAT
• Evaluating a BAT policy