The AMIGO Association is starting to take the first steps to create an International Guideline on Odour Management Plans (OMPS) and is looking for volunteers with experience in this field to participate in this initiative. Often, environmental consultants with no previous experience elaborate OMPs without having the necessary knowledge, simply because they do not have a guide on this. At present there are several guides on PGOs in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, etc. However, most of these guides refer to specific activities and are only national in scope.

   Among the many initiatives raised at the last meeting, the members proposed to carry out an international handbook on Odour Management Plans (OMP). Sofia Teixeria, a researcher in the Air Quality Group of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering of the NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon works as a consultant in scientific research projects, and she was proposed as convenor to coordinate the work. Sofia has presented the topic of OMPs many times in the past, most recently at the last NOSE conference.

   Last year AMIGO launched an initiative to develop an international Handbook on Odour Exposure Assessment through Dispersion Modelling. Given the success of this initiative, with more than 50 volunteers from all over the world participating in this initiative, AMIGO would like now to carry out a similar initiative focusing on the development of OMPs.

Sofia has commented that "The big challenges ahead of the creation of this international guideline on OMP are:

• attempt to create a combination of odour assessment methods that could be replicated by different countries with or without specific legislation on this matter
• attempt to create an odour management guideline that can be applied to different sectors of activity (although it can be particularized for some of them, e.g. poultry or landfills)
• combine a strategy that is top down but also bottom up, not neglecting the assessment of the impact of odour emitting sources on sensitive receptors (it is important, on the one hand, to have a direct measurement at the source, but the impact that this source has on the neighboring community is very important).
• design of a plan that can take into account the complaints received by the emitting source and that promotes communication between the parties (emitting source, community and authorities).

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That is why the AMIGO have opened a call for volunteers, constructive opinions and new ideas.

Are you interested in participating? read more about this initiative here.