Metrics details The coupling of urban retrofitting with climate change adaptation and environmental conservation is impacting on current industrial activities such as electricity production based on fossil fuels new tools are required to support adaptive reuse towards the conservation of industrial facilities in order to leave testament of their cultural and industrial heritage once their production activities cease to exist Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can help analyse complex interactions between industrial elements providing key benefits when approaching heritage investigations this research concerned the design of a Multi-Expert MCDA (ME-MCDA) methodology to support the selection of paramount heritage elements in power plants based on the collection and processing of the views of a panel of experts to result in consensus groups This approach was tested using a case study in the As Pontes power plant (NW Spain) The results achieved pointed out to cooling towers chimney and turbine hall as the fundamental elements to preserve due to their relevance across a set of technical These outcomes proved the usefulness of the proposed approach in favouring the valorisation of industrial facilities as heritage areas protecting the social and cultural history of a territory industrial facilities can be converted into tourism assets with educational and heritage values The role of fossil fuels as a primary contributor to climate change is preventing their use to generate electricity [7] there is a need for cleaner strategies and technical processes in the production of electricity it is of great interest to leave evidence of electricity generation for future industrial heritage purposes so that governments can design policies to appropriately preserve current facilities and machinery used in thermal power plants incorporating sustainable dimensions related to the environment MCDA is suitable to support the selection of heritage elements since it enables prioritizing their preservation according to a series of criteria This conceptualization differs from that of machine learning algorithms such as artificial neural networks which are based on fitting a response variable from a series of explanatory variables the aim is rather to produce this response variable by aggregating the ratings of the elements with potential for preservation across the conservation criteria noting that MCDA methods and questionnaires will be key in future research focusing in industrialised areas with long mining history These previous investigations focused on industrial and/or cultural heritage assets with a former activity which is the common place for this sort of studies more research is needed to address scenarios with current industrial activity in place prior to the end of its operational life there is a lack of studies associated with power plants as potential heritage places as well as the use of MCDA techniques to help identify key elements to preserve for future uses Another gap in the literature lies in the use of MCDA to consider the production process in plants over the years as a potential core element in terms of industrial heritage The aim of this paper is to fill these gaps by designing a methodology to support the transformation of industrial facilities into heritage assets through the preservation of their key elements The prioritization of which elements should be preserved was conducted using a MCDA model based on the collection and processing of the opinions of experts in industrial heritage to produce consensus groups This approach was tested through the As Pontes case study a thermal power plant in Galicia (NW Spain) that is in use nowadays but will be dismantled soon The persons involved in this study were required to be experts with proven experience in industrial heritage which is not a very broad area of research the conservation criteria and elements were proposed based on existing governmental plans the impact of these flaws was expected to be limited The rest of the document is structured as follows: Sect 2 outlines the case study of the As Pontes power plant which serves to refer the proposed conservation criteria and elements to the description of the methodology to support its preservation in the next section Section 4 presents and discusses the results achieved with emphasis on highlighting the most important conservation criteria and the hierarchy of heritage elements recommended for preservation The document ends by underlining the main findings and conclusions drawn from this study as well as some lines of research to develop in the future The As Pontes power plant is in As Pontes de García Rodríguez, Galicia, NW Spain. Figure 1 depicts its geographic location and layout. Its aim was to generate electric power using fossil fuels, while establishing a thermodynamic water-steam cycle. It was originally built to make rational use of the lignite extracted from an open pit mine located in its vicinity. Geographic location and layout of the As Pontes power plant The emission regulations set in Spain during the next two decades led the plant to use imported low-sulphur coal causing the termination of all lignite mining activities in 2007 which becomes the deadline for the As Pontes power plant The methodology explained below can be applied to any industrial facility in the world if it is represented using a series of conservation criteria and elements to preserve This study is limited to the As Pontes power plant for two reasons: (1) it epitomizes the need to address the dismantling of industrial facilities due to their key contribution to climate change through coal emissions; and (2) there was thorough information available about the history and operation of this power plant which is required to properly characterize their elements and be in a position to invite experts to participate with their opinions about their preservation Diagram of the approach taken for the conservation of the As Pontes power plant Production is essential in the field of industrial heritage due to its relevance to understand how the plant used to work \({C}_{1}\) was included in the list of criteria as a representative of the production process whereby an input (carbon) goes through a boiler where water is transformed into steam which in turn causes the rotation of a turbine to generate electric power Singularity (\({C}_{2}\)) stands for those elements whose design can be considered remarkable for different reasons it may refer to items involving improvements in terms of production maximum generation or transformation capacity this criterion can be related to components of large dimensions or other nonconventional characteristics that might justify the interest in safeguarding them Aesthetics (\({C}_{3}\)) accounts for factors associated with the aspect of the power plant and its integration in the landscape this criterion values the elements in the context of their surroundings or their mimicry in terms of colour or geometry as well as the interaction of the facility with the environment in terms of land occupation The maintenance of the power plant with time is addressed by \({C}_{4}\) whose goal is to prioritise those elements less susceptible to experience degradation Exposure of these elements to the environmental conditions may result in corrosion and decay depending on the constituent materials preservation must be compatible with new uses which in turn cannot provoke the deterioration of the elements to be conserved New uses must not endanger the patrimonial value of the elements preserved since this would be against industrial heritage adaptability to new uses (\({C}_{5}\)) considers positive aspects such as the presence of open spaces or the capacity for coexisting with other activities; instead complex and large components are difficult to accommodate to different purposes The sixth criterion (\({C}_{6}\)) values the degree of attraction for the society It represents the perception of the dwellers in the region in respect of considerations such as the societal modifications in the urban environment entailed by the power plant the new activities that might be developed once it is decommissioned their position with regards to the preservation of the facility the last criterion (\({C}_{7}\)) appraises the testimony of the activities undertaken in the power plant it accounts for the evolution of production processes this criterion also deals with changes in the daily activities of workpeople the relationships among the different types of employees their salary or the existence of subcontractors The prioritisation of the elements to be preserved in the As Pontes power plant was undertaken with the support of ME-MCDA The data used as inputs stemmed from a questionnaire prepared to gather the views of a panel of international experts in industrial heritage The responses collected were processed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) which enabled determining the weights of the criteria and the ranking of elements Excerpts of the questionnaires prepared a Conservation criteria b Elements to be preserved both questionnaires were structured in several sections to limit the number of dropouts since there was certainty that this communication channel was regularly used by every potential participant which served to briefly introduce the case study and provide the link to access the form were personalized to each addressee and thus help increase response rates These introductory and customization actions were aimed at reducing sampling and nonresponse biases Seven levels of importance were established ranging from “much less important” to “much more important” Another section was included to collect information about the origins years of experience and expertise of the respondents This step was made anonymous and left to the end which contributed to controlling response and order biases This form was first sent to a reduced sample of 5 people for pre-testing purposes including an ending section to ask if the questionnaire was understandable and easy to fill out while leaving space for making any suggestion to improve the form Since their definition stemmed from governmental documents there was not a specific space for proposing the addition or removal of either criteria or elements; however any comment in this sense could be included in the blank space mentioned above The second questionnaire aimed at evaluating the elements described in Table 2 with respect to the conservation criteria there was a section intended to act as a reminder of the purpose of the first questionnaire a graphical representation of each element was provided to clarify the characteristics of the As Pontes plant The core of this questionnaire consisted of asking the participants to rate the proposed heritage elements across the conservation criteria the qualitative valuation was carried out according to a Likert-type scale containing the following levels: very low These linguistic judgments were then transformed into semiquantitative values ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high) for subsequent analyses anonymous information about the respondents was requested as described in the first form was reduced by removing the most extreme values (1/9 and 9) to facilitate the choice of options by the experts This modification also helped limit extreme responding bias The linguistic comparisons provided by the experts were arranged in the form of a matrix to enable evaluating their coherence using the Consistency Ratio (\(C.R.\)) This term was computed based on the size and maximum eigenvalue of the matrix and the consistency of a series of random matrices comparisons were considered consistent when \(C.R.\le 0.1\) the proposed approach is much more respectful with the assessments provided by the experts since its constraints guarantee that the variations in their inputs were reduced at the minimum amount The rating of heritage elements across the conservation criteria was carried out using the TOPSIS method [59] which helped determine how close the elements under consideration were to be ideal in terms of heritage values TOPSIS was applied according to the following steps: Obtaining consensual ratings \({r}_{ij}\) for each element \({E}_{i}\) across the conservation criteria \({C}_{j}\) from the opinions provided by the experts Normalising \({r}_{ij}\) through vector normalisation to result in \({n}_{ij}\) Determining the normalised weighted ratings (\({v}_{ij}\)) by multiplying the normalised ratings \({n}_{ij}\) by the weights \({w}_{Cj}\) achieved using the AHP method Calculating the positive (\({A}^{+}\)) and negative (\({A}^{-}\)) ideal heritage elements as the maximum and minimum values of \({v}_{ij}\) per criterion Measuring the distances (\({d}_{i}^{+}\) and \({d}_{i}^{-}\)) from each element under consideration to \({A}^{+}\) and \({A}^{-}\) Computing the Relative Closeness (\(0\le {RC}_{i}\le 1\)) from each element to the ideal element in terms of heritage values through Eq. (2) The higher the value of \({RC}_{i}\) achieved by an element Its application started by determining the optimal number of clusters (k) from the responses derived from the two phases of the questionnaire This was double checked with the support of the Elbow criterion and the Calinski-Harabasz index Suitable numbers of clusters correspond to high values of this ratio This algorithm consists of the following steps: Select k random items from the dataset to perform as initial centroids Assign the remaining items to its closest centroid according to their Euclidean distance Update the mean value of each cluster every time a new item is added to it Determine whether some items might need being relocated to a different cluster or not Repeat the last three steps until cluster assignments remain constant The resulting clustering combinations for conservation criteria and heritage elements yielded a set of scenarios representing different preservation priorities depending on the highest values of \({RC}_{i}\) (Eq. 2) To support the selection of key elements to preserve the third quartile (Q3) of these values of \({RC}_{i}\) was calculated serving as a threshold to highlight the most preferred 25% elements under each scenario which enabled capturing the consensual perspective of each cluster of experts regarding the conservation criteria and elements This section summarizes and discusses the main outputs obtained through the application of the proposed ME-MCDA approach to the analysis of the As Pontes power plant The results are arranged according to the main parts into which the methodology was divided: processing of questionnaires weighting of conservation criteria and rating of elements to be preserved The section ends with the discussion of the implications of the results achieved The pre-testing of the first questionnaire was successful since the five experts involved in this stage valued the understandability of the form positively Despite there was room for suggesting changes of any kind in the questionnaire none of the addressees made any specific comment to improve it Since these experts were selected because the authors were aware of their solid career in the field of industrial heritage the form was concluded to be ready for further dissemination Summary statistics of the experts addressed a Region of origin b Profile c Degree of expertise d Experience (years) The vast majority of respondents belonged to the academia especially in the role of researchers (almost 70%) Their experience in industrial heritage ranged from 3 to 40 years more than three quarters of experts considered their expertise in the field to be medium-high or high The breakdown of the participants according to their profile revealed a predominance of academics This could result in a more idealistic vision of the problem compared with the more pragmatic and pressured angles provided by the private industry and governments having a more balanced sample was difficult because of the specifics of industrial heritage It is not a usual business area in private companies and its inclusion in governmental agendas is still scarce Optimal number of clusters to group the opinions of the experts regarding the conservation criteria a Elbow criterion b Calinski-Harabasz index In case of discrepancies between the number of clusters suggested by both methods the internal logic of the resulting groups should be reasoned to determine a single outcome A more comprehensive alternative would consist of creating two sub-scenarios one for each number of clusters suggested by each method this solution might be cumbersome because of the exponential increase in scenarios to consider Optimal number of clusters to group the opinions of the experts regarding the elements to be preserved a Elbow criterion b Calinski-Harabasz index Values of Relative Closeness (\({\varvec{R}\varvec{C}}_{\varvec{i}}\)) achieved for each rating and weighting cluster (CL) under consideration The calculation of the third quartile (Q3) of the values of \({RC}_{i}\) for each scenario indicated the most preferred 25% elements under all clustering combinations. As shown in Table 7 \({E}_{10}\) (cooling towers) was the only element above Q3 in all cases \({E}_{6}\) (chimney) and \({E}_{9}\) (turbine hall) which were one of the four elements selected in eight out of the nine scenarios under study a solution may consist of circulating a reduced questionnaire where the elements reaching low positions in the different scenarios are removed This might facilitate achieving consensual responses due to the limited number of options to assess by the experts a General view of the As Pontes power plant elements shortlisted for preservation Details of the b boilers and c turbine hall The As Pontes power plant currently has four cooling towers (\({E}_{10}\)) of which only one is proposed to be preserved The conservation suggestions for this element concern its use as an exhibition space for culture (high ventilation in summer) or plastic arts (painting The turbine hall (\({E}_{9}\)) may perform as a future interpretation centre computers and other relevant devices for the production process of the plant The chimney (\({E}_{6}\)) could be safeguarded as a heritage icon such that it might be used as an elevator with panoramic view or an environmental station of which one is proposed to remain in its original condition and the others to be used as a business incubator This would entail an auxiliary structure to create different floors and opening holes in the walls to be used as windows The other elements highlighted in Table 7 were the coal park (\({E}_{1}\)) and the substation transformer (\({E}_{11}\)) The proposed conservation items for \({E}_{1}\) are the suspended structure a stacker-picker machine and part of the conveyor belts enabling potential uses such as biomass-related industrial activities or open-space for holding events of great magnitude substation transformers are elements whose adaption to new uses is complicated their conservation is proposed as a testimony of their contribution to the generation and transmission of electrical energy These proposals received the approval of the controller of the city council who confirmed the interest of the major in safeguarding the As Pontes plant through new uses Both looked favourably upon the proposed measures due to their potential for developing new activities a few employees of the plant might be relocated to new jobs related to these new uses serving as tour guides in charge of explaining different parts of the production process in the plant The involvement of former workers for heritage purposes would entail social benefits by providing visitors with a sense of rootedness with the area and the important role played by the plant in its historic and cultural development The implementation of these practices can entail important benefits across the three pillars of sustainability since the environmental benefits derived from the closure of industrial facilities might be combined with economic and social developments through local employment creation and increased tourism The outcomes of this study support the preservation of industrial facilities according to their heritage values The proposed methodology enabled processing the feedback provided by a panel of international experts regarding the criteria and elements involved in the conservation of the As Pontes power plant whose closure is forecasted to take place in 2022 The variety of responses received led to a series of conservation scenarios that were evaluated separately to ensure the robustness of the results achieved All these scenarios coincided in pointing out to four elements that should be preserved to leave testimony of the As Pontes power plant: cooling towers Their predominance laid on their primary role in the production process of coal-fired electricity generation sociocultural interest or potential to be adapted for new uses the potential uses proposed for these elements are as follows: business incubator exhibition area for cultural or plastic arts interpretation centre or panoramic elevator The preponderance of these elements could also be related to the concept of liveability in building heritage since it can be correlated to building functionality from a social perception These results can be helpful for the decision-makers of the region where the As Pontes plant is located The owner of the plant has presented a demolition project that is currently under review In view of the difficulties in establishing new industrial activities in this area due to increasing environmental and energy requirements the potential uses proposed in this investigation provide alternatives for valorising a facility with which the community has a strong sense of connection due to its presence and importance in the region for almost 50 years This link with the community goes beyond the importance of the facility in terms of employment and economic activity The space where the lignite mine used to be has been flooded and converted into a lagoon whilst its waste dump has been remodelled and revegetated favouring the presence of a variety of ecosystems in the area This process of revitalization has contributed to strengthening the bonds of the people with the area the valorisation of the plant for heritage purposes would further increase the value of the area by combining historical the outputs obtained can aid decision-making processes related to the conservation of industrial assets at an urban planning level Increasing regulatory demands in terms of CO2 emissions are leading to the closure of many industrial sites The adoption of support tools such as the proposed methodology provides an alternative to the dismantling of these facilities This favours their valorisation in the form of heritage areas intended to leave testimony of the industrial and economic activity of a region which are in turn linked to its social and cultural history the scope of these outputs is narrowed by certain limitations Although the conservation criteria were set following governmental recommendations involving the experts in this step too might have been enriching participation may have been approached differently to include other stakeholders (authorities have a more representative picture of the interests of all the parties involved This could also facilitate having a larger sample of participants which is another aspect with margin for improvement Although the mathematical models used were combined to result in a flexible methodology more emphasis might be placed on handling the opinions collected from participatory processes fuzzy logic might be a useful tool to better capture the vagueness inherent in linguistic opinions the format of the participatory process may also be revised to explore the inclusion of two or more rounds to facilitate reaching consensus future efforts to continue this line of research should focus on the refinement of conservation criteria according to the appreciations of experts whose participation in this step might help better characterize the situation Another course of action may focus on testing the proposed methodology with other industrial facilities involving different conservation criteria and elements Its usefulness and applicability might also be enhanced if automated as a web-based tool future approaches could focus on organizing workshops to share the results of this investigation with the community This would enable measuring the acceptance of the proposed measures and adapting them according to the public opinion while collecting ideas regarding their implementation TICCIH. 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R: The R Project for Statistical Computing. 2022. https://www.r-project.org/index.html New York: McGraw-Hill International Book Co.; 1980 How to make a decision: the analytic hierarchy process Decision support model for the selection of asphalt wearing courses in highly trafficked roads Generalized reduced gradient method as an extension of feasible direction methods Some experimental findings on decision making under risk and their implications Utilizing cluster analysis of close-ended survey responses to select participants for qualitative data collection Quantitative Research Methods Columbus: American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Applying clustering to analyze opinion diversity In: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series Cluster analysis; correlation profile and orthometric (factor) analysis for the isolation of unities in mind and personality Integration K-Means Clustering Method and Elbow Method for Identification of the Best Customer Profile Cluster In: IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering Clustering using flower pollination algorithm and Calinski-Harabasz index K-means clustering: a half-century synthesis Response Rates in the European Social Survey: Increasing Insights from the Field (SMIF); 2018;18:1–10 methodological considerations and troubleshooting strategies Comparison between multiple-choice and analytic hierarchy process: measuring human perception Industrial heritage: the past in the future of the city A life cycle model of industrial heritage development Sustainable development of industrial heritage tourism – A case study of the Industrial Monuments Route in Poland Public decision making for heritage conservation: A Hong Kong empirical study Opportunities of the Multicriteria Methods in the Study of Immovable Assets of the Spanish Industrial Heritage The Manufacturing Engineering Society International Conference Valuation of industrial heritage in terms of sustainability: Some cases of tourist reference in spain US EPA. 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United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2015. https://www.epa.gov/cooling-water-intakes From large natural draft cooling tower shells to chimneys of solar upwind power plants Analysis and Construction of Shell and Spatial Structures: Proceedings Valencia (Spain): Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València; 2009 The overview of the conservation and renewal of the industrial belgian heritage as a vector for cultural regeneration Production technology of glazed pottery in chalcis Tall buildings and Urban habitat of the 21st century: a global perspective Download references The authors wish to express their gratitude to the experts that participated in this research who belong to the following entities: Blog Patrimonio Industrial Arquitectónico Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and University of Science and Technology Beijing Universidad Internacional de Valencia – VIU Department of Construction and Manufacturing Engineering Institute of Natural Resources and Territorial Planning ÁM-R conceived the research; ÁM-R characterised the case study; DJ-E designed and applied the methodology; ÁM-R DJ-E and LAS-F contributed to inviting experts; DJ-E and LAS-F wrote the manuscript; AM-C All authors read and approved the final manuscript The authors declare that they have no competing interests Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-022-00712-7 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily. You can now produce your own electrical energy. Sign up for PARA TI and start enjoying all the benefits it offers you. "Our homeowners' community" saves on electricity with Endesa. With our future plan for As Pontes we are demonstrating our commitment to a fair energy transition process and the creation of value in the surrounding area. The As Pontes generation plant is located in the north of the province of A Coruña, in the municipality of As Pontes de García Rodríguez.​ It has been in operation since 1976, and it is the largest thermal power plant in Spain, with 1,469 MW installed Over the years this plant has undergone three major reforms, to adapt to current regulations on environmental matters. The last of the modernisations, which had been partially completed when it was cancelled due to the economic non-feasibility of the plant, required an investment of €270 million in systems to reduce emissions to the atmosphere. We are accompanying the closure of the As Pontes power plant, established by the Government, with a social-economic development plan for the region that we have already presented to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, as well as to the Regional Government of Galicia and the Council of As Pontes. With this plan our aim is to demonstrate our commitment to a fair energy transition process and the creation of value in As Pontes and the surrounding area. The essential aim of this plan is to replace the 1,400 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired production at As Pontes with 1,300 MW of renewable energy and it will also include a plan to dismantle the plant, to install new industrial projects on the site occupied by the plant, to promote logistical installations in the terminal of the port of Ferrol and to organise an ambitious training plan for the people from the surrounding area. All Endesa's employees will also be relocated to other areas of the company, for dismantling, for future plans or they may opt for one of the voluntary redundancy plans. Our plan for the future of As Pontes consists of 7 lines of action: 1. The dismantling of the plant that will take approximately 4 years. This will include a training plan for more than 130 people who will participate in these tasks, giving priority to local employment, and those who actually worked at the plant. 2. Training plans giving priority, provided they meet the requirements, to workers from the local area, workers in auxiliary companies and employment for women.  3. Processing of new renewable projects to convert the capacity of the plant into new clean power. This will involve the construction of 1,300 MW of wind projects which will create up to 2,300 jobs during the construction phase, and another 274 direct jobs during the estimated 25 years of useful life of the wind farms. 4. New industrial developments on the land related to the plant. These will include the construction of a smart tyre factory for the manufacturer Sentury Tire, which will mean the creation of 750 direct jobs. Endesa will invest a further €229 million to construct 191 megawatts of wind power to supply the factory by means of a PPA. This factory will not only be a source of employment, but also an economic vector for the area by greatly increasing traffic in the terminal that we managed in the outer port of Ferrol. Another project involves the transfer of 45 hectares of land from the old coal-fired plant to Ence, where it will invest €355 million in a bio plant for the recovery, development and production of recycled natural fibres from recovered paper and cardboard. The development of this initiative will enable the creation of 150 direct and 400 indirect jobs. The third project is a pre-agreement for a PPA with Alcoa focussing on the supply of electricity at a competitive price for 10 years from 816 MW of wind power, of which 611 are envisaged in the As Pontes area. This PPA would enable Alcoa to resume aluminium production after the downturn resulting from the increase in energy prices. 5. New logistics role at the terminal for the outer port of Ferrol. We have compensated for the decline in coal traffic to the As Pontes thermal power plant at our terminal in the outer port of Ferrol with the transformation of this installation into a multi-client bulk terminal (transport and storage of bulk cargoes: Grain, minerals, etc.). 6. Green hydrogen generation installations, as a result of a project promoted by Endesa for an electrolyser of up to 100 MW that will be powered by wind projects in the area that already have the right of connection. 7. Creation of a strategic wind maintenance logistics centre for Spain in As Pontes. This new infrastructure will support the operation and maintenance of Endesa's 120 wind farms in Spain. This project involves the creation of 57 direct jobs. Another infrastructure will be created that will be used for wind-farm circularity operations to support a plan to strengthen Endesa's wind farms and will also involve security, safety and training actions. ProductionSpain awards €150m of grants to build 309MW of green hydrogen production for use in hard-to-abate sectorsThe funds will be heading to 12 projects across the country as part of the government's H2 Pioneers programme When you type “Bełchatów” into an internet search engine the first photos that appear show a large open-pit mine with a huge industrial facility in the background It is no coincidence at all that the plant has turned into the most recognizable icon for the Polish town the mines — that feed the power station: a series of brownish patches on an otherwise green surface Such is the pollution generated by this giant that according to calculations by the European Environment Agency (EEA) available to CORRECTIV.Europe Bełchatów cost Polish society €4.8bn in terms of damage to the health of its inhabitants among other things — and this in 2017 alone The power plant leads the ranking of the most damaging industrial facilities issued by the EEA which includes over 11,600 industrial sites in Europe In 2021 alone, according to EEA emissions data, Bełchatów released over 33 million tons of CO2, more than twice Slovenia’s carbon dioxide emissions for that same year although some units will already be off the grid before that the region of Łódz confirms this: “By 2028 mining at the Bełchatów Field will be completed and one of the 380 MW units will already be reported for shutdown by 2030” Alleging that the case is still in the court of first instance ClientEarth refused to give further details about the latest developments in the lawsuit PGE did not react to repeated efforts by CORRECTIV.Europe to contact the company The Polish coal power plant has become a poster child of the fight against climate change but Bełchatów is unfortunately not alone: in total 24 of the top-30 dirtiest facilities in Europe are thermal power stations They also have a high price tag: over €45 billion paid for by citizens in nearby areas with their health they have been inhaling fine dust or sulfur oxide coming from these plants The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) provides public access to key environmental data from industrial facilities in EU Member States The E-PRTR is updated annually with data reported by some 35,000 industrial facilities covering 65 economic activities This data includes 91 key pollutants such as heavy metals Only 60 of them are likely to be released into the air After analyzing the topic with experts and different scientific sources, as well as reviewing the EU legislation we have decided to use the following pollutants for our investigation: Sulphur oxides (SOx) and Non methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) Greenhouse gases (GHG): Carbon dioxide (CO2) Air pollutants have certain threshold values a facility must report its emissions to the European Union it does not have to report the emissions and they do not appear in the data But not only this: Other energy giants like Germany’s RWE or Sweden’s Vattenfall have also significantly contributed to global warming with heavy CO2 releases to the atmosphere which do not only affect the local population “Air pollution is indiscriminate and ignores regional and national borders. Emissions lead to damage, and the costs are borne by society as a whole”, writes the EEA These costs are pretty high: €265 billion in 2017 alone, more than Finland’s GDP for that year They are caused by just a bunch of large industrial contaminators in Europe: 211 facilities barely 2% of over 11,600 analyzed by the EEA are responsible for half of the damage produced by dirty air Germany or Italy are among the top polluters: Poland has the second-highest overall cost (€27 billion) after Germany (€60 billion) only after the United Kingdom (€25 billion) and Spain (€20.7 billion) These five countries accounted for almost 60% of all costs borne by European society in 2017 pay high costs for air pollution from their industry: €3.8 billion in 2017 Coal-fired power plants also play a key role here with the power station in Visonta being responsible for a fourth of the costs for Hungarian society the EU has managed to keep its industrial emissions under control in recent years and even reduce them for most substances After a slight decrease between 1990 and 1995 Although the applicable EU legislation is mainly meant for industrial activities it also affects large poultry and pig farms For a good reason: the main source of ammonia is agriculture — 94% of all releases in the EU come from this activity This gas is discharged to the atmosphere mainly from manure management and the application of fertilizer to soils and the number of livestock is one of the factors driving the emission trends In 2021, France, one of the main European agricultural producers, was also the largest ammonia emitter, followed by Germany, Spain and Italy. These four countries account for two-thirds of all European ammonia releases. The EU-27 has committed to cutting its ammonia emissions by 19% in 2030 that reduction was only 2.4% compared to a year earlier The EEA admits that reducing ammonia releases remains the biggest challenge for the next few years since only five countries are already aligned with their pledge to cut these emissions by 2030 The environmental office also recommends that Member States “include more measures applicable to the agricultural sector in their national air pollution control programmes” the picture is not complete: although there were almost 75 million cows in Europe in 2022 cattle farms do not have to report their emissions although the EU emissions register is a good tool the European Commission and the European Parliament have been in the process of revising the law to cover additional intensive farming and industrial activities since 2022 However, the way is not easy. While the Commission had proposed to include cattle in the new legislation, the EU Parliament has voted against this possibility pointing to the industry's lobbying efforts He hopes that the next steps of the political negotiations can lead to a consensus position “even if it is not as ambitious as the original proposal by the European Commission” makes it impossible for organizations like Greenpeace and experts on the topic to know how much pollution intensive cattle farms release into the air Here is a summary of the effects that each of the pollutants can have on human health or the environment (from the Industrial Emissions Portal): and considers that these particles cause the most substantial health impacts “even if all releases of PFAS would cease tomorrow they would continue to be present in the environment they do not belong to the pollutants that need to be reported Although the proposed revision of the rules does not mention PFAS or PM2.5 specifically the Commission has included an article that should make it easier to add new substances to the list The legislation is currently under negotiation in Brussels As part of its Green Deal, the European Commission committed to further improving air quality and aligning EU air quality standards more closely with the WHO recommendations This reform was adopted by the EU Parliament last September and has now to be approved by the European Council coordinator of the Socialist S&D group for environmental policy in the EU Parliament more than 300,000 Europeans still died prematurely from air pollution” There is therefore a need for an “ambitious law” to prevent damage in the future Gesa Steeger Text: Olaya Argüeso Pérez Faktencheck: Elena Kolb Datenaufbereitung & Grafiken: Max Donheiser Kajsa Rosenblad Kommunikation: Valentin Zick If you would like to securely leak information and documents to us, please visit this page Unsere Reporterinnen und Reporter senden Ihnen Recherchen was Journalismus für unsere Gesellschaft leisten kann – regelmäßig oder immer dann You can now produce your own electrical energy Sign up for PARA TI and start enjoying all the benefits it offers you "Our homeowners' community" saves on electricity with Endesa biologist and daughter of the famous communicator With her we recall the story of the natural environment of As Pontes and discover how a coal mine can become a lake thanks to a process of environmental rehabilitation A picture is worth a thousand words. We could explain that an environmental rehabilitation is a process that consists of altering a degraded or contaminated space with the aim of returning it to its natural and socioeconomic value Show you and tell you all the incredible work behind the natural paradise of As Pontes The lake of As Pontes, in the province of A Coruña, is not only the largest artificial lake in Spain covering 865 hectares but is also one of the great examples of the transformative power of human beings going back almost 30 million years because this mine became Endesa's in 1972 with the aim of undertaking a new economic phase this great lake has only been in existence for 14 years after the closure of the deposit due to the tightening of European regulations on emissions we decided to give a new lease of life to this hole going down more than 300 metres "we must be aware that industrial activity generally has negative impacts on the environment But if it is done in a planned way from the beginning and you are clear about what the final objective is human activity is compatible with the natural environment." This is what happened this place has shown that sustainable transformation is possible thanks to companies such as ours in a landscape characterised by blues and greens So the hollow of the mine has been converted into a lake with a sandy beach and today the outer dump site which used to feature tonnes of material from the site is a natural paradise says that "many years of restoration have finally obtained four different habitats - meadow woodland and wetlands - which have evolved naturally along with the local fauna" she adds that "the entire evolution of this restoration is an example that industrial activity can be compatible with environmental protection as long as activities are planned properly" This is how As Pontes went from having a huge lignite mine to owning a lake that attracts a lot of tourism to the area "What at first could have had a negative impact on the economy of the region due to its dependence on the mine finally mitigated the situation with the benefits of a naturalised environment for water sports and leisure," says José Antonio Menéndez This place has already become a tourist attraction for families and sports enthusiasts this year it has also become the second largest space of continental waters in Galicia and the largest in the province of A Coruña with a Blue Flag granted by the European Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) accessibility for people with reduced mobility and safety services "this certification is very important for the unique space concerned and this surprises people a lot since the quality of the water is excellent." In addition the recovered environment has opened up new opportunities as the councillor points out: "We are an industrial town that now has a tourist vocation This rehabilitation is opening up a lot of opportunities around sustainable tourism an example of environmental restoration in our country.