Over the past months, BGBC has been working intensively on the development of practical EU Taxonomy guidance tailored to the Belgian context, while ensuring alignment with approaches used in other EU Member States. We are pleased to share that the testing phase of the BGBC EU Taxonomy Guidance has now been successfully completed. 

We would like to sincerely thank all members who participated in the testing phase and shared their insights and feedback. Your input is essential to ensuring that the guidance is robust, practical and market-relevant. 

 

A new EU Taxonomy Guidance Committee 
While the testing was ongoing, BGBC established a dedicated EU Taxonomy Guidance Committee. This Committee will be responsible for reviewing and implementing the feedback collected during the testing phase and for ensuring that the guidance remains up to date as regulatory and market expectations evolve. 

We warmly thank the Committee members for their engagement: 
Ine Verniers (VK Architects & Engineers), Julie Willem (Atenor), Robin Allaer (Group Seco), Sandra Gottcheiner (bpi real estate), Sven Deveen (Deplasse), Sven Dumortier (Banimmo), Linus Grob (Dreso) and Dimitris Pagonis (Deloitte). 

The Committee’s kick-off meeting will take place later this month, during which the framework, scope and ways of working will be defined. 

 

EU Taxonomy validation & verification: key takeaways 
In parallel, BGBC organised a dedicated EU Taxonomy validation and verification meeting. During this session, we welcomed Seema Issar from DGNB (German Sustainable Building Council), who presented the German EU Taxonomy verification model and introduced CPEA’s concept of a cross-country certification scheme. This input sparked a valuable discussion on the most appropriate approach for the Belgian context. 

The following key conclusions emerged from the discussion: 

  • There is a clear need for EU Taxonomy guidance to establish a common understanding of sustainability criteria. 

  • Banks do not see the need for mandatory certification; second-party verification is considered sufficient. 

  • Official certification is mainly relevant when external investors require it, often alongside other schemes such as BREEAM or DGNB. 

  • Experts providing second-party verification should receive dedicated training on the EU Taxonomy guidance. 

  • The guidance should include clear criteria to assess the reliability of second-party expertise (e.g. impartiality and seniority). 

  • For small-scale projects, ‘light’ EU Taxonomy alignments should be avoided. Alignment should only be claimed when all criteria are met. Addressing small-scale projects would require a dedicated task force with a different approach. 

 

Next steps 
Looking ahead, BGBC will: 

  • continue the development and regular updating of the Belgian EU Taxonomy guidance, 

  • organise dedicated training sessions for assessors, 

  • and request the BGBC Board of Directors to establish a new task force focused on applying EU Taxonomy criteria to smaller-scale projects, involving relevant stakeholders and an adapted methodology. 

We look forward to continuing this work together with our members and partners.