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Definitions For the purposes of this Directive the following definitions shall apply:

(1) ‘substance’ means any chemical element and its compounds, with the exception of the following substances:

(a) radioactive substances as defined in Article 1 of Council Directive 96/29/Euratom of 13 May 1996 laying down basic safety standards for the protection of the health of workers and the general public against the dangers arising from ionising radiation ();

(b) genetically modified micro-organisms as defined in Article 2(b) of Directive 2009/41/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 6 May 2009 on the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms ();

(c) genetically modified organisms as defined in point 2 of Article 2 of Directive 2001/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 March 2001 on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms ();

(2) ‘pollution’ means the direct or indirect introduction, as a result of human activity, of substances, vibrations, heat, noise or odours into air, water or land, which can be harmful to human health or the quality of the environment, result in damage to material property, or impair or interfere with amenities and other legitimate uses of the environment;

(3) ‘installation’ means a stationary technical unit within which one or more activities listed in Annex I, in Annex Ia or in Part 1 of Annex VII are carried out, and any other directly associated activities on the same site which have a technical connection with the activities listed in those Annexes and which could have an effect on emissions and pollution;

(4) ‘emission’ means the direct or indirect release of substances, vibrations, heat or noise from individual or diffuse sources in the installation into air, water or land;

(5) ‘emission limit value’ means the mass, expressed in terms of certain specific parameters, concentration and/or level of an emission, which may not be exceeded during one or more periods of time;

(5a) ‘environmental performance limit value’ means a performance value included in a permit, expressed for specified conditions in terms of certain specific parameters;

(6) ‘environmental quality standard’ means the set of requirements which must be fulfilled at a given time by a given environment or particular part thereof, as set out in Union law;

(7) ‘permit’ means a written authorisation to operate all or part of an installation or combustion plant, waste incineration plant or waste co-incineration plant;

(8) ‘general binding rules’ means emission limit values or other conditions, at least at sector level, that are adopted with the intention of being used directly to set permit conditions;

(9) ‘substantial change’ means a change in the nature or functioning, or an extension, of an installation or combustion plant, waste incineration plant or waste co-incineration plant which may have significant negative effects on human health or the environment;

(9a) ‘deep industrial transformation’ means the implementation by industrial operators of emerging techniques or best available techniques involving a major change in the design or technology of all or part of an installation or the replacement of an existing installation by a new installation, which allows an extremely substantial reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases in line with the objective of climate neutrality and optimises environmental co-benefits, at least to the levels that can be achieved by techniques identified in the applicable BAT conclusions, taking into account cross-media effects;

(10) ‘best available techniques’ means the most effective and advanced stage in the development of activities and their methods of operation which indicates the practical suitability of particular techniques for providing the basis for emission limit values and other permit conditions designed to prevent and, where that is not practicable, to reduce emissions and the impact on the environment as a whole:

(a) ‘techniques’ includes both the technology used and the way in which the installation is designed, built, maintained, operated and decommissioned;

(b) ‘available techniques’ means techniques developed on a scale which allows implementation in the relevant industrial sector, under economically and technically viable conditions, taking into consideration the costs and advantages, regardless of whether such techniques are used or produced in the Union, as long as they are reasonably accessible to the operator;

(c) ‘best’ means most effective in achieving a high general level of protection of the environment as a whole, including human health and climate protection;

(11) ‘BAT reference document’ means a document, resulting from the exchange of information organised pursuant to Article 13, drawn up for defined activities and describing, in particular, applied techniques, present emissions and consumption levels, techniques considered for the determination of best available techniques as well as BAT conclusions and any emerging techniques, giving special consideration to the criteria listed in Annex III;

(12) ‘BAT conclusions’ means a document containing the parts of a BAT reference document laying down the conclusions on best available techniques and emerging techniques, their description, information to assess their applicability, the emission levels associated with those techniques, the environmental performance levels associated with those techniques, the content of an environmental management system including benchmarks, associated monitoring, associated consumption levels and, where appropriate, relevant site remediation measures;

(12a) ‘operating rules’ means the rules included in permits or general binding rules for the operation of activities referred to in Annex Ia, setting out the emission limit values, the environmental performance limit values, associated monitoring requirements, and, where relevant, land spreading practices, pollution prevention and mitigation practices, nutritional management, feed preparation, housing, manure management, including collection, storage, processing and land spreading of manure, and storage of dead animals, and which are consistent with the use of best available techniques;

(13) ‘emission levels associated with the best available techniques’ means the range of emission levels obtained under normal operating conditions using a best available technique or a combination of best available techniques, as described in BAT conclusions, expressed as an average over a given period of time, under specified reference conditions;

(13a) ‘environmental performance levels associated with the best available techniques’ means the range of environmental performance levels, obtained under normal operating conditions using a BAT or a combination of BATs; as described in BAT conclusions; (13aa) ‘environmental performance’ means the performance with regard to consumption levels, resource efficiency concerning materials, water and energy resources, the reuse of materials and water, and to waste generation;

(13b) ‘benchmarks’ means the indicative range of environmental performance levels associated with best available techniques, which is to be used as a reference in the EMS;

(14) ‘emerging technique’ means a novel technique for an industrial activity that, if commercially developed, could provide either a higher general level of protection of human health and the environment or at least the same level of protection of human health and the environment and higher cost savings than existing best available techniques;

(15) ‘operator’ means any natural or legal person who operates or controls in whole or in part the installation or combustion plant, waste incineration plant or waste co-incineration plant or, where this is provided for in national law, to whom decisive economic power over the technical functioning of the installation or plant has been delegated;

(16) ‘the public’ means one or more natural or legal persons and, in accordance with national law or practice, their associations, organisations or groups;

(17) ‘the public concerned’ means the public affected or likely to be affected by, or having an interest in, the taking of a decision on the granting or the updating of a permit or of permit conditions; for the purposes of this definition, non-governmental organisations promoting the protection of human health or the environment and meeting any requirements under national law shall be deemed to have an interest;

(18) ‘hazardous substances’ means substances or mixtures as defined in Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures ();

(19) ‘baseline report’ means information on the state of soil and groundwater contamination by relevant hazardous substances;

(20) ‘groundwater’ means groundwater as defined in point 2 of Article 2 of Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy ();

(21) ‘soil’ means the top layer of the Earth’s crust situated between the bedrock and the surface. The soil is composed of mineral particles, organic matter, water, air and living organisms;

(22) ‘environmental inspection’ means all actions, including site visits, monitoring of emissions and checks of internal reports and follow-up documents, verification of self-monitoring, checking of the techniques used and adequacy of the environment management of the installation, undertaken by or on behalf of the competent authority to check and promote compliance of installations with their permit conditions and, where necessary, to monitor their environmental impact;

(23) ‘poultry’ means poultry as defined in Article 4, point 9, of Regulation (EU) 2016/429 of the European Parliament and of the Council ();