A cluster of green, sustainable and environmental economic sectors
What’s happening? How does it happen?
The Greenbizz incubator offers, inside its massive structure of 8,000m² hosting different units for rent, personalized and free support for the companies it hosts and which wish to develop innovative projects related to the environment, eco-construction or the sustainable and circular economy sectors. In addition to production workshops, companies benefit from many services included in their rental: reception service, meeting rooms, kitchens, collective vegetable garden, bicycle parking with showers, charging stations for electric cars, next to a whole bunch of services (legal advice, web design, recruitment assistance, interim, graphic design…).
Why is this an interesting circular initiative for ports?
Because it offers space and facilities for testing new sustainable projects, this attracts new kinds of entrepreneurs that can foster new synergies and symbiosis between port and city.
What is the relation with the port and water?
Built on a former industrial wasteland near the port, the Tivoli district and the Greenbizz incubator together contribute to the ambitions of the Canal Plan in terms of mixicity. The site also benefits from vast spaces and fluid mobility for trucks, encouraging the implementation of productive functions.
What is the relation with the city?
On the other hand, Greenbizz is located inside a Priority Intervention Zone (ZICH), designated to encourage socially inclusive and sustainable growth. The type of functions it hosts seem apt to create new jobs catering to the skills that exist within the ZICH.
What are the ambitions?
The objective of the approach is to support and stimulate sustainable and innovative entrepreneurship through 3 areas of activity: energy optimization, responsible food, and sustainable construction. The Société de Développement pour la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale (SDRB), which owns the land and coordinates the project, sees it as a driving force for research and development of clean technologies in the Brussels Region. Greenbizz hopes, in the long term, to be able to accommodate 200 employees on this site entirely oriented towards sustainable development.
Who is behind it?
Greenbizz.brussels is an initiative of the Brussels-Capital Region and made possible thanks to European subsidies from the 2007-2013 ERDF Fund. Several public actors are partners of the project: citydev.brussels, the greentech.brussels cluster of impulse.brussels, Brussels Environment, Innoviris, and the BBRI (Centre Scientifique et Technique de la Construction). The building is the result of an integrated design process between all project partners: customers, engineers, and architects, but also local, regional, and municipal authorities. This design process has resulted in an open and permeable structure.
