Steven Vanden Bussche (Belgium) is a Belgian investigative journalist.

Steven Vanden Bussche has worked as a journalist since 2005. He first worked in regional journalism for the public broadcaster and a newspaper and then as a correspondent for the Belga news agency. Since 2017, he has been working full-time for the Belgian investigative journalism platform Apache. Steven is part of the Urban Journalism Network that won the European Press Prize in 2022.

Steven Vanden Bussche

Basic information

Name
Steven Vanden Bussche
Title
Investigative journalist
Expertise
Investigative journalism
Country
Belgium
City
Merelbeke
Website

Supported projects

Jungle Juice - Oil Creeps Where It Cannot Go

  • Data Journalism
  • Environment
  • Industry

LAGOS – For years, the city has suffered severe air pollution caused by high sulphur levels in imported diesel and gasoline. This piece of graphic journalism traces the data trail of the oil from West Africa to European port terminals.

Is the North Sea being plundered?

  • Environment
  • Fishing industry
  • Industry

IJMUIDEN - After pulse fishing was banned by the European Parliament in 2018, many Dutch fishermen switched to flyshooting. However, flyshoot fishing mainly targets species for which there is too little data to manage stocks properly. These are not subject to quotas and fishermen can take them out of the sea without limit. And that is a recipe for overfishing.

Toxic Recipes: Inside the ‘Jungle Juice’ Factory

  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Industry

AMSTERDAM / ANTWERP / IMMINGHAM / LAGOS – International oil traders continue to dump toxic waste products into road fuels sold to African countries, polluting the environment, damaging engines and causing life-changing health problems for citizens, despite the efforts of the regulators and civil society.

The Future of Petro-cities

  • Climate
  • Energy

ROTTERDAM/ANTWERP — This first-of-its-kind investigation shows how much fossil fuels will be produced by Dutch and Belgium oil refineries between now and the year 2050. When burned, at least 3.9 million kilotons of carbon will be released into the atmosphere - emissions that correspond to hundreds of thousands of heat-related deaths due to the effects of climate change.

Yassmina Berrag

How West Africa Continues To Import Dirty Fuels

  • Corruption
  • Energy
  • Industry

ACCRA – Low-quality petrol and diesel are a major problem for air quality in West Africa. They contain toxic substances such as sulfur and the carcinogenic benzene. When they break down, cars emit even more toxic exhaust fumes over densely populated cities.

Ground Control: Investigating Land ownership in European capitals

  • Corruption
  • Social affairs

EUROPE - Affordable housing is becoming scarce in European cities. 

Gaby Khazalová

The concealed pfas problem

  • Environment
  • Healthcare
  • Industry

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM — Scientific publications, leaked company data and government data suggest that industry is doing everything possible to deliberately put up a fog curtain around these ultra short PFAS.

Credits: Simon Clément

The new Nederbelg

  • Migration
  • Cities

ESSEN/HOOGSTRATEN/PUTTE - Belgian real estate agents are seeing more and more Dutch people moving across the border, in a desperate attempt to find an affordable house in the border region. What does that do to life in a border region. Apache and OC Spit traveled from Essen across Hoogstraten to Putte and spoke with owners.

The Port Project

  • Environment
  • Industry

ANTWERPEN/ROTTERDAM - The social damage of air pollution caused by the (petro)chemical sector in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam runs into billions of euros. This is according to an investigation by Apache and Follow The Money based on official figures on emissions and transfer of pollutants from large industrial facilities.

Comparison of Antwerp-Bruges and Rotterdam Ports

  • Cities
  • Environment
  • Industry

ROTTERDAM/ANTWERP - What is the environmental and health impact of air pollution caused by the (petro)chemical industry in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam?

Peter Lipton

Great Belgian hunger for Zeeland's farmland

  • Agriculture

ZEELAND - To whom does the Dutch province of Zeeland belong? Partly to Belgians, who own up to a fifth of the agricultural land in the southernmost part of the province. The Dutch research collective Spit and the Belgian platform Apache went in search of the large landowners and answered the question: why are they active there?

Leaky ports, competitors or partners in security?

  • Corruption
  • Organised crime

ROTTERDAM - In the fight against drugs crime in their ports, the mayors of Rotterdam (Aboutaleb) and Antwerp (De Wever), kicked off in 2019 a more intensive collaboration between their ports. The big meeting took place behind closed doors at the Feyenoord Stadium.

Prostitution premises

  • Data Journalism
  • Exploitation

BRUSSELS - As of Wednesday (9 June 2021), the rules for sex work are normalising. After months of vacancy, activity in the zones of tolerance for window prostitution is getting back on track. In the past, sex workers and bar owners have been much investigated, but the property owners are a blind spot. Who are those men and women who buy premises to install display windows where sex workers attract customers? Which companies specialise in real estate for the sex industry and do they have links to foreign countries?

More Dutch cattle farmers move to Belgium since nitrogen crisis

  • Agriculture
  • Cities
  • Environment

Since the start of the nitrogen crisis in 2018, more Dutch livestock farmers moved to Belgium than in previous years. This is evident from new research by Spit and Apache. Environmental organisations have been warning for some time that Belgium has become a 'nitrogen paradise' for large-scale polluters. An inventory of the available data supports this fear.

Who owns Flanders?

  • Cities

BRUSSELS - In the almost built-up Flanders (northern region of Belgium), land is a precious commodity. Who are the large landowners who own hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of hectares of land in Flanders? Who are the real estate investors who own whole streets in cities or have their eye on certain neighbourhoods? Why do they do it? What is the return?