The new Industrial Emissions Directive

Mitigation measures provide for a system to reduce, avoid or offset the potential adverse environmental consequences of development activities. Their objective is to maximise project benefits and minimise undesirable impacts. Such mitigation measures can be in the form of preventative, corrective or compensatory measures.

Prevention means that the potential impact is prevented or reduced before it occurs. Corrective measures reduce the impact to a level which is acceptable. If preventative or corrective measures fail, then compensatory measures are applied. They will compensate for the unavoidable impact.