Review of life cycle thinking in the best available technique (BAT) context: implications for improving BAT policies from value chain and rebound perspectives

The best available technique (BAT) principle means that we employ the most efficient economically feasible technologies to reduce emissions. Until now, the BAT regulation has largely focused on the installation level, disregarding how the interaction between different industry sectors might affect the environmental impacts of production. However, as circular economy strategies gain importance, it’s becoming evident that we need to consider the value chain perspective more systematically in BAT policies. The purpose of this review is to analyse and synthesize the literature in the cross-section of BATs and life cycle assessment (LCA), including both LCA case studies and discussion papers on the BAT policies from circular economy and value chain perspectives. Our review reveals that LCA is a relevant tool for the environmental assessment of BATs. However, making life cycle thinking a more integral part of BAT processes, such as BREF development, raises concerns about making the already complicated and time-consuming processes even heavier. More user-friendly LCA tools and data sources would help to increase their use in the industry and policymaking. We also find that there is a research gap regarding system-level analyses on the environmental impacts of BATs, which can reveal broader cross-sector and rebound effects of implementing BATs. We provide recommendations based on the review and our own views on how the value chain and rebound perspectives could be better considered in the context of BATs in the future. We introduce a concept of a “ fixed budget analysis ” for BAT, which could be used for exploring the potential rebound effects of various BAT alternatives.