Better BAT to Bolster Ecosystem Resilience: Operationalizing Ecological Governance through the Concept of Best Available Techniques

Abstract

This article examines to what extent ecological governance can be implemented by extending the concept of best available techniques (BAT) at the European Union level. It therefore first analyses what ecological governance would require and what this implies for employing the use of BAT. The article then argues that the use of BAT enables ecological governance to an extent, but that the BAT concept needs to be modified internally to serve this purpose. Additionally, it needs to be extended to areas outside its original scope to maintain the holistic perspective of ecological governance. Here, biomass used for energy production serves as an illustration of such ‘external’ BAT application.