Abstract The chemical industry plays an important role in Flanders. The practice of cleaner production in the chemical industry in Flanders is illustrated by examples from BASF Antwerp, the largest integrated chemical production centre of Belgium. Due to a combination of end-of-pipe measures, process integrated measures and industrial ecology (product- and energy-‘verbund’, product and energy network), the overall environmental impact of BASF Antwerp decreased by a factor of 3.0 over the period 1985–2004, whereas production increased by 3.4. This corresponds to an overall gain in eco-efficiency by a factor of 10. For the Flemish chemical industry as a whole, a striking increase in eco-efficiency is noticed, exceeding by far the increase for the total Flemish industry.
