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In Ireland, an environmental management system (EMS) is a core part of intensive animal production as dictated by the integrated pollution control (IPC) licences issued under the authority of the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. An EMS will continue to be an intricate part of forthcoming Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) licences for these enterprises, which are soon to be enacted under Irelands Protection of the Environment Act 2003 (and the EUs IPPC Directive (96/61/EC)).

An EMS requires a cycle of continuous improvement consisting of four phases, commonly called in Deming-language- plan, do, check, and act. An EMS is generally site specific. This paper shows how a generic EMS (basic guidelines) can be devised to incorporate Best Available Techniques (BAT) that are most appropriate for a specific production enterprise. Design constraints taken into account include EU guidelines on BAT, and management practices typically used for pig production in Western Europe. A menu approach was adopted to give producers flexibility of choice in selecting BAT that can be implemented within practical and technical constraints at a given production facility, yet achieve required environmental standards.

Our analysis suggests that the main benefit of an EMS incorporating BAT is consolidation of regulatory constraints into a single document, which could be ultimately used to obtain ISO 14001 certification.