Spending on environmental protection in Belgium has increased by almost 50% in less than a decade, mainly driven by the business sector.
Environmental protection spending can relate to services such as waste management, wastewater treatment, or anything else related to prevention, reduction, and elimination of pollution and any other degradation of the environment.
In accordance with requirements under EU regulations, Belgium's Federal Planning Bureau has published figures on environmental protection spending between 2014 and 2022. National expenditure on environmental protection in Belgium hit €10 billion in 2014. It rose to €12.4 billion by 2019 and dipped to €12.1 billion in 2020 during the Covid-19 crisis.
By 2022, spending on environmental protection reached €14.8 billion, a 48% increase compared to 2014. National expenditure on environmental protection in terms of a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) has risen from just under 2.5% in 2014, to more than 2.6% in 2022.
Credit: Belga
The increase in spending on environmental protection has largely been driven by business spending, for example the current or capital expenditure of private companies that offer waste management services, or companies availing of waste management services.
On average, 54.6% of this expenditure was made by businesses over the period 2014-2022. Public administrations and non-profit institutions serving households spent 33.6% on environmental protection, while households accounted for 11.8% of expenditure.
Over the period 2014-2021, the bulk of national expenditure on environmental protection consisted of environmental protection services produced in Belgium. These services were delivered 80% by businesses and the remaining 20% by public administrations and non-profit institutions serving households.
The environmental protection services sector was worth €11.7 billion in 2014 (in terms of total production). By 2022, the sector was worth €17.1 billion, a 46% increase over eight years.
Most of these services relate to waste management, which accounts for almost half of all environmental protection services, and an output of €7.9 billion in 2022. The second largest environmental sector in Belgium was wastewater management, which accounted for a quarter of the total, or €4 billion in 2022.
