Industry and Air Expert Team Meeting Stuttgart 18-19 October 2023

The Industry & Air Expert Team Meeting 2023 took place on 18 and 19th October, in Stuttgart and online. It was organised together by the International Department of Ministerium für Umwelt, Klima und Energiewirtschaft Baden-Württemberg in Germany under the umbrella of European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL). Many thanks we could use their building and to the helpers from the Ministry and our German colleague Oliver Wolf. Could not have made it such a success without their help and also the IMPEL secretariat colleagues! 

Focus of this event was to provide an update on IMPEL Projects that are running in 2022-2024 under the Industry and Air Expert Team, especially the Supporting IED Implementation project and an outlook to the next period 25-27 where we will have to identify subjects for the next 3 year period. It was clear that people trust F2F meetings again because this time it was fully booked with 50 people from 20 countries and 15 more to join online. In total almost 26 countries joined the meeting. Good to notice that these type of mainly F2F meetings gives a real energy boost to the network. 

We were welcomed by Director General Dr. Michael Münter, Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy sector Baden-Württemberg. After some formalities and introduction to the online chair Deniss Pavlovs, myself as the on-site chair and expert team leader and new deputy Paula Vehmanperaa we started speed networking. After this energetic event we were all ready for the rest of the program.  

Andres Grangler, Regional Council Tübingen, Environmental Department, Head of Unit for Industry and Municipalities, gave us a presentation on the IED implementation in Baden Württemberg. Recognisable that a lot of practitioners in Baden Württemberg don’t know the IED text so much. State laws and permits are the one they use.  

Representative of the DG ENV of the European Commission Mr. Camille Siefridt informed us about the latest developments in the revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive. We are now all curious on the final outcome of the negotiations on 28th of October. From France Jérôme BAI reported from the learning from incidents meeting in Marseille last 23-24 May and gave a heads up for the meeting in 2025. We don’t have to wait so long because in 2024 there will be a special learning from incidents in the Netherlands. This will be organised in close coordination with BARPI in France.  

Paula Vehmaanpera took us through the longlist of subjects. With a big thank you to former deputy Jamie McGeachy from Scotland who did a lot of work on this. We now have 14 subjects to choose from. Dependent on working group leader availability and interest from IMPEL members we will choose next months the final Terms of Reference (ToR) candidates and start to prepare. Some candidates are a continuation (circular economy, joint inspections, lessons learned from incidents project) and some completely new (hydrogen production and storage, wind mills and solar parks, energy efficiency and more).  

End of the meeting was the presentations of two finished products: IRAM 2 method on focus and time estimation for inspections by Vladimir Kaiser from Slovenia and good practices on non routine inspections by myself and all working group members. Next steps are getting approval from the GA in Spain and adding them to the doing the right thing manual.  

After that all working groups worked on their subjects. In the evening program we got to know each other and Stuttgart a bit better. On the city tour we learned that the name for Stuttgart came from horses. And now horsepower is a main driver for the economy of the city by the manufacturers of luxury cars Mercedes and sports cars from Porche. And also this time I introduced a surprise during dinner to improve the networking.  

The second day working groups had additional time to work on their subjects followed by presentation of their results till now and plans for the final year. Working Group 10 on Poultry and Pigs presented a really professional looking company movie of the work of the working group. Soon also to be admired on the IMPEL website.  

Curious what that surprise during dinner could be? Come to our next IED meeting on 16 and 17th of October. Location at this point is still not sure but we have two locations as draft proposals. For the ones who attended: thank you for your positive input and energetic presence. See you in 2024 or earlier in one of the working groups or joint inspections!  

Paula and Marinus 

More information about the Expert Team and the IED implementation project is available at the websites from IMPEL.  

Members can see all presentations on basecamp using this link.