Ancienne Belgique was honoured in 2014, for the fourth time, for environmentally conscious enterprise and received - as first cultural organisation in the Brussels Capital Region - 3 stars in recognition.
In terms of sustainable environmental policy, AB has become a cultural organisation that explicitly takes the environment into account during the course of its daily functioning, via incremental improvement of all environmental factors in order to thus limit our negative impact as much as possible.
The most important positive points, as judged by the jury, were:
A good motivation and involvement of personnel in the environmental approach. A thorough, periodic study of the carbon footprint of our activities. Many innovative campaigns around the subject of mobility, such as establishing a collaboration with the MIVB and the communication of public transport timetables in real time via internal screens, resulting in car-use having been reduced by 11% over 5 years. Optimization of energy consumption (gas, electricity, water) for every event thanks to a centralised management via computer software, which led to a saving of €15,000/year. Campaigns for energy reduction: energy audit, renovation the dressing rooms, software for the simulation & design of the concert- and event-lighting. Initiatives for rubbish reduction and sorting of rubbish, re-useable cups, drastic reduction of the PMD (plastic, metal, drink carton) waste by changing over to a post-mix system for the serving of softdrinks, giving preference to the use of digital publicity campaigns, etc…
In the future, we want to continue to enhance sustainability throughout our entire production chain and operations. We will pay specific attention to circular economy and further measures to enhance sustainability in our building & operations within various relevant domains by, for example, investing in rainwater recuperation, placing a cogeneration installation, creating a vegetated rooftop for our bee hives, having more vegetarian food on offer, establishing a collaboration with the NMBS similar to that with the MIVB, switching to LED lighting completely (both for show lighting as well as architectural lighting).
Basically, environmental considerations will form an essential part of all decisions we make within our organisation in the future.
