Research, creativity and innovation

Energy shared for a lasting, human and interdependent society! To anticipate the major changes in our civilization and climate change, to ensure that people from Wallonia and Brussels belong to a modern, sustainable and human society, to change our way of life, consumption and travel profoundly, such is the ambition of Walloon regional policy for the years 2009-2014.

Very specifically, the Walloon Region intends refocusing its economy towards sustainable development with the Marshall Plan 2. Green. It´s a matter of giving concrete expression both to the ecological transition of the economy, the development of new entrepreneurial initiatives, investment in the knowledge economy and the organization of a new jobs-environment alliance.

From this perspective, the Government will create a 6th competitiveness pole devoted to new environmental technologies and will strengthen the cross-sectional concern of "sustainable development" in all its policies. It will add to the existing green clusters: Eco-construction, Cap 2020, TWEED and Waste in order to achieve a threshold of competitiveness and international visibility. It will also aim at generating impetus affecting the whole Walloon economic fabric and will deploy a complete training offering giving access to jobs in these branches.

The TWEED cluster, for example (Walloon Energy - Environment and Sustainable development Technology), a Walloon organisation involving over 80 companies active in the "sustainable energy" sector, focusses on sources of renewable energy, the implementation of energy saving processes, energy efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gases including CO2, at industrial level and in the tertiary sector and, finally, it focusses on the development of products for industry, the tertiary sector and individuals ("green" products and services).

These various organizations will be able to complete their missions successfully counting on expertise already developed by the universities. UCL, for example, has created an Earth, Life and Environment institute. It aims to encourage both the study of the fundamental processes underlying the functioning of the Earth and life according to a systematic approach, and, to transpose the results of basic research into specific applications in the context of sustainable development. This ASBL intends responding to the major challenges faced by our society with regard to major risks, food security, the vulnerability of people in the Southern nations and territorial development. The Institute´s project includes scientific communities based around their disciplines and their research activities: biological, physical, anthropic and physical-chemical.

The Gembloux University of Agricultural Sciences for its part has founded Epuvaleau. This not-for-profit organization works in the field of the treatment and recovery of solid and liquid waste, the environment and the hydrology of drainage basins. It also offers training in all these areas of activity.

Among the active companies, their competences with regard to the rehabilitation of industrial wastelands, in particular mining, should be pointed out: separation of minerals, purification of industrial water, the fixing of pollutants using aluminium silicates (ALSIL) and the treatment of dredging sludges.