VITO is the first company to receive the award for 'Biodiverse business park'. This new label is awarded by the Department of Environment of the Flemish Government to a company that is making serious efforts to increase biodiversity on its site.
With the presentation of this first award to VITO, the research organisation is gaining recognition for the initiatives it has taken to stimulate biodiversity on its sites. VITO started the Nature@VITO project in 2017. VITO and 109 other companies subsequently signed the Green Deal Companies and Biodiversity. With this Green Deal, the Department of Environment, the Agency for Nature and Forests, Natuurpunt and the Corridor research bureau want to set up around 1,250 hectares of business parks with permanent and temporary nature by September 2021. For VITO, this concerns 54 hectares.
After the development of a biodiversity vision and the associated nature management plans, VITO has been working on the actual nature management for several months now. The project is being carried out in cooperation with Biotoop Ecologische Inrichting. Biotoop is assisted by Blenders vzw and Corridor CVBA. Since this year, the nature management works have been carried out by Natuurwerk.
The award for 'Biodiverse business park 2019' was given concrete form in a large insect hotel that from now on will have a place on the sites of VITO.
