Consultation on modernising environmental permitting for industry

The British Standards Institution (BSI), the UK’s National Standards Body, works with industry and other stakeholders to define and develop standards to raise and enhance performance. These standards are best practice and voluntary, whereas Best Available Techniques and other standards developed under the environmental permitting regime for industry are the legal requirements for installations to operate. These different systems for setting standards should be complementary. 

We will aim to ensure alignment and coherence between the two standards regimes and work with industry and BSI to avoid contradictory requirements. To help reduce administrative burdens, we will also explore options to allow operators to demonstrate compliance with legal requirements under environmental permitting through use of voluntary standards supported by sufficiently robust assessment and certification.