E-participation for the Determination of Best Available Techniques in Industrialising Countries
Hannes Schollenberger, Jutta Geldermann

French-German Institute for Environmental Research (DFIU / IFARE)
University of Karlsruhe (TH), 
Hertzstr. 16, D-76187 Karlsruhe
E-mails: {hannes.schollenberger; jutta.geldermann}@wiwi.uni-karlsruhe.de
Tel: +49-721-608-4584; Fax: +49-721-758909

Abstract 
Best Available Techniques are an essential element in European environmental legislation as required by the Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC 96/61/EG). The purpose of this directive is to achieve a high level of environmental protection as a whole (art. 1), especially with respect to the prevention or, where not practicable, the reduction of environmental problems while simultaneously avoiding a shift from one medium to another.
Transferring the existing approaches from Europe to industrialising countries requires the adaptation of the underlying criteria used by the metric developed for technique assessment [Schollenberger et al. (2005)]. Due to differences in the economic, legal and technical conditions, and as a consequence of higher growth rates, criteria for the determination of BAT must be reassessed for industrialising countries. Additionally, the prevailing technology standards and different priorities concerning the affected environmental medias (air, soil and water) must also be considered.
The determination of these local preferences is a complex issue. One approach could be to employ similar methods to those used in life cycle analysis (LCA) to derive the weighting factors. [Daniel et al. (2004)] gives a good overview of methods for the evaluation of environmental effects (e.g. impact categories and equivalency factors, system material input per service-unit (MIPS), sustainable process index (SPI), critical volumes, Eco-indicator, etc). Since also further aspects, such as investment or operating costs, must be included, the impact assessment should be combined with multi-criteria and decision support instruments [Azapagic & Clift (1999), Geldermann & Rentz (2004), Seppälä et al. (2002)]. 
One example is the regional context of the analysis. For example different perceptions to VOC-emissions might lead to different weightings depending on the already existing air concentrations in the specific region. These preferences can be obtained by consensus formation using e-participation. Thus, stakeholders can contribute directly to the determination of BAT and play an active in the implementation of environmentally friendly techniques. 
References
Azapagic, A., Clift, R., (1999): Life cycle assessment and multiobjective optimisation; Journal of Cleaner Production 7; pp. 135-143.
Daniel, S., Tsoulfas, G., Pappis, C. P., Rachaniotis, N., (2004): Aggregating and Evaluating the Results of Different Environmental Impact Assessment Methods; Ecological Indicators 4; pp. 125-138.
Geldermann, J., Rentz, O., (2004): Multi-criteria analysis for the assessment of environmentally relevant installations; Journal of Industrial Ecology (accepted).
Geldermann, J., Schollenberger, H., Treitz, M., Rentz, O., (2004a): Multi Objective Pinch Analysis (MOPA) for Integrated Process Design; Operations Research 2004: Annual International Conference of the German Operations Research Society (GOR) jointly organized with the Netherlands Society for Operations Research (NGB); Tilburg.
Geldermann, J., Treitz, M., Rentz, O., (2005): Integrated Technique Assessment based on the Pinch-Analysis Approach for the Design of Production-Networks; European Journal of Operational Research; (in press).
Geldermann J, Treitz M, Schollenberger H, Rentz O. Modeling and Integrated Assessment of Mass and Energy Flows with Suppy Chains. Research Methodologies in Supply Chain Management. Oldenburg, 2005.
Schollenberger H, Geldermann J, Treitz M, Rentz O. Best Available Techniques for Industrializing Countries: The Example of Chile and China. Proceedings of the First Conference of Environmental Science and Technology. New Orleans: American Academy of Sciences, 2005.
Seppälä, J., Basson, L., Norris, G. A., (2002): Decision analysis frameworks for life-cycle impact assessment; Journal of Industrial Ecology 5 (4); pp. 45-68.
Treitz, M., Schollenberger, H., Bertsch, V., Geldermann, J., Rentz, O., (2004): Process Design based on Operations Research: A Metric for Resource Efficiency; Clean Environment for All: 2nd International Conference on Environmental Concerns: Innovative Technologies and Management Options; Xiamen, P.R.China.

Related Web links
Authors’ home pages: 
	H. Schollenberger: http://www-iip.wiwi.uni-karlsruhe.de/forschung/technik_html/index.html
	J. Geldermann: http://www-iip.wiwi.uni-karlsruhe.de/forschung/technik_html/index.html
Software used in the projects:
MOPA (based on Matlab)
Project Web pages:
PepOn - Integrated Process Design for the Inter-Enterprise Plant Layout Planning of Dynamic Mass Flow Networks 	
http://www-iip.wiwi.uni-karlsruhe.de/ forschung/ technik_html/projekte/vw/vw_engl.htm