Background Meeting required hygiene standards is essential for the food industry. Food companies, therefore, devote considerable time and resources to achieving and maintaining safe standards. They undertake frequent cleaning and disinfection of installations and equipment coming into contact with food products, to the considerable benefit of human health. However, cleaning activities consume large amounts of water and chemicals, including alkalis, acids and disinfection agents. This generates large amount of contaminated wastewater and organic waste. Cleaning is also one of the most energy-consuming operations in the food industry, generating climate change inducing greenhouse gases, including from fuel combustion for steam production and high temperature processes. In both dairy and fish processing sectors - both represented by a company in the project consortium – cleaning and disinfection is considered to be the main source of environmental impacts. Since 1997, AINIA has gained wide experience on Best Available Techniques (BATs) in the food industry, including in the development of the Food, Drink and Milk BAT Reference Document (BREF), and national BATs guides for meat, poultry, dairy, fish products, beer and malt. AINIA has assessed more than 100 food companies, looking at the prevention, control and treatment of environmental impacts. It has also assisted more than 400 Spanish food companies in overcoming environmental challenges. Objectives The LIFE ECO-DHYBAT project aims to demonstrate that “hygienic eco-design” techniques for food processing equipment could be considered a candidate for Best Available Technique (BAT) in the updating of the BAT Reference Document (BREF) in the food sector. It hopes, therefore, to develop a pollution-prevention approach that will contribute to reducing the significant environmental impact of sanitation procedures in the European food sector. The project will develop four industrial-scale demonstration production lines that are representative of those in European dairy and fish-processing industries. The equipment configuration will be re-designed following new hygienic and environmental criteria. Trials will be performed to generate suitable experimental data on the hygienic performance of the new eco-design. Through the application of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, the beneficiary hopes to demonstrate that hygienic eco-design of food equipment is a cost-effective approach to reducing the consumption of water, energy and chemical cleaning agents, and to reducing wastewater and CO2 emissions during sanitation processes. The project will promote the hygienic eco-design of processing equipment as a candidate for BAT in the next updating of the Food, Drink and Milk BREF. It will also work to develop eco-design guidelines and certification procedures for use by the European food equipment sector. Ultimately, the project hopes to support the widespread use of hygienic eco-design in the European food industry, with an associated reduction in its environmental impact. Expected results: Sufficient data generated about hygienic eco-design of food equipment to enable its assessment by the IPPC Bureau as an emerging technique for the next updating of the Food, Drink and Milk BAT Reference Documents (BREF); Reduced consumption of chemical cleaning agents; Reduced water consumption in the cleaning of food equipment by 10-30% - depending partly on the type of equipment; Reduced energy consumption by 10-20%; Reduced total CO2 emissions - direct and indirect - related to the cleaning of food equipment by 20-30%; Reduced organic load and chemical contamination of wastewater generated by cleaning activities in the food sector.