VITO’s BAT advice forms the basis of the Flemish Ecology Premium (EP) regulation.
The ecology premium is a financial compensation for companies that will invest in ecologic investments in the Flemish Region. Ecologic investments include broad environmental investments, as well as investments in the energy field.
With the ecology premium, the Flemish Government aims to stimulate companies' production process in order to make it more environmental friendly and energy-saving and will finance a portion of the extra investment costs. This measure fits in with the economic policy of the Flemish Government. Care for the environment will become increasingly important and an adequate response to this will undoubtedly yield a competitive advantage in the long term.
There are currently two support regimes within the ecology premium:
- EP +: support scheme for standardized ecology investments. This support scheme runs through a web application and uses an exhaustive list of technologies with a limited number of technologies that are eligible for an ecology premium. The aid scheme offers companies legal certainty and transparency because a company that meets the set criteria is- within the budgetary possibilities- certain of the aid and knows exactly in advance how much it will amount to.
- EP-STRES: support scheme for strategic ecology projects, where investments in green cutting-edge technology can be subsidized. These are technologies that, due to their unique company-specific nature, cannot be standardized and therefore do not appear on the exhaustive list of technologies of the EP + support scheme.
The BAT Knowledge Center advises the government on assessing the technologies and drawing up the limitative technology list, based -among others- on the BAT studies.
All relevant information about the ecology premium is available via the website of the Agentschap Innoveren en Ondernemen (VLAIO): https://www.vlaio.be/nl/subsidies-financiering.