In an event held at ‘The Hotel Brussels’ on 25 February 2019, GoodPlanet, Inter-Environnement Wallonie, visit.brussels and the Brussels Hotel Association announced that they are joining forces to further promote Green Key in Brussels

There are currently 239 Green Key locations in Belgium: 34 in Brussels, 69 in Wallonia and 136 in Flanders. Belgium is thereby ranked four on the list of countries with the highest number of Green Key awarded establishments.

Currently, 20% of all hotel rooms in Brussels stands out with a Green Key label, and a number of distinctive Brussels event venues and meeting places has also received the label, in collaboration with Brussels Special Venues.

To further grow the Green Key programme in Brussels, the various stakeholders have launched a new initiative to promote the label and support the Brussels candidates. In April and May, interested establishments can take part in workshops which will prepare them for acquiring the label. GoodPlanet and IEW have also developed a tool to help tourists easily find a sustainable accommodation in Belgium, so that tourists looking to travel sustainably will find Green Key locations to meet their expectations, through a search module and a map.

The new collaboration was presented in the presence of the Prime Minister of the Brussels-Capital Region government, Rudi Vervoort: “Brussels is an open city which welcomes everyone and in which the quality of life is above average. My task, as Prime Minister, is to implement a policy which benefits as many people as possible, while safeguarding the well-being of the residents of Brussels."

The cooperation was launched at an event at ‘The Hotel Brussels’, a hotel in Brussels that at the same time was awarded with the Green Key certificate for the first time. The Hotel is a first-class hotel with a breath-taking view across Brussels from its height of 94 metres. The 420 rooms are furnished in streamlined, contemporary design. The location, in the upper part of the city, is ideal and allows you to undertake many tourist activities in the surrounding area.

The Hotel Brussels has taken a lot of sustainability initiatives. The hotel, for instance, decided to partially produce its own electricity, through cogeneration, saving energy in the process. They took other sustainability measures too, and were awarded the Green Key label. The Hotel intends to go a step further than simply doing business more sustainable; they want to raise awareness in their guests about the subject too.