After six years in Operations, I returned "home" to the environmental department where I took up responsibility for the environmental policy and permit management of BASF Antwerpen and some of the strategic partners on our site. We represent BASF in several industry associations and federations. From 2018 until 2019, my team of environmental experts also temporarily provided support outside of Antwerp as part of the BASF EHS hub for EMEA North (BeNeLux, UK, Ireland and Nordic/Baltic countries).

In 2013, our plant management was re-organized in view of a BASF efficiency improvement programme called "OPAL". Instead of carrying out a combination of both short- and long-term jobs, my new job as process manager focussed on long-term tasks in view of continuous improvement(smaller or bigger investment projects, management of change, lean six sigma innovation, ...) and sustainability (process safety, environmental protection, ...) fitting into the long-term strategy of our operations and business unit management. Over time I was manager for several installations in our plant, but at the end my focus narrowed down to ethylene amines (previously also on ethanolamines and tert-butylamine), since I became responsible for the start-up of two investment projects. For reasons of confidentiality I cannot add any further details or references at the moment.

Member of the production management of the Amines Operations in Antwerp ("productieleider"). Responsible for the ethanolamines and tert-butylamine section. Job: ensuring that the installations produce the right quantities of high quality products in a sustainable way, according to the demands of our clients and in close contact with our logistics, marketing, quality and technology colleagues within BASF. The job at the time, involved a mixture of both short- and long-term jobs, but was later re-defined and split up. Job overlap with next function until end 2013.

This job was actually the one I originally applied for, when contacting BASF for the first time. As a Master/PhD student I developed experience in environmental research and I got into contact with environmental institutes and authorities. Therefore, this job sounded to be a nice extension of my academic activities. The position is excellent to discover the site of BASF Antwerpen from a bird's-eye view. I also got the chance to have many contacts inside and outside of BASF, which also gave me a wider outlook than just the more administrative side of the job. I was responsible for the air emission policy, the application of environmental permits and the permits for radioactive sources and external pipelines for our site.Also see the projects and recommendations below.

First introduction in Amines and production at BASF Antwerpen site, originally meant to be a temporary, prep job for a position in R&D Amines in BASF Ludwigshafen. The plans changed after a few months, but it was an excellent experience to get to know real-life BASF in a short time.

Study on air pollution above the North Sea on board of the Royal Navy Research Vessel "Belgica".Study on air quality during specific weather conditions in Bethlehem, South Africa.Study on the monitoring of outdoor particulate matter in Flanders (PM2.5, PM10, PAH, NOx, SO2) .Study on sediment pollution of the Tisza river, Hungary.Support for other studies regarding indoor and outdoor air quality with adverse effects on human health and the cultural heritage.Collaboration with VMM (Flemish Environmental Agency), VITO (Flemish Institute for Technological Research), VUB/ULB (Free Universities of Brussels) and UG (University of Ghent).