ECTA again this year has the pleasure to present its Annual Report 2020/21.

 Although the contents of our report are similar to previous years, we kept in mind that all European countries have faced challenges because of the Covid-19 Pandemic. There were various restrictions imposed by national and/or international authorities to cope with the Situation. As for all ECTA members and the whole industry, those restrictions had a major impact on the way of operating and organizing meetings in 2021. 

The organizational content of our report is in the same layout as you are used from us, as are the ECTA financial statements. The ECTA Team faced these restrictions as well and almost no physical meetings took place in our ECTA Brussels office. Due to a staff change within the ECTA team, the ECTA Board of Directors decided to discontinue the fixed rented office space in Brussels. Per 1st of December 2021 ECTA rents only flexible office space on the same postal address. 

Moreover we explain the progress made in 2021 as part of the ECTA Responsible Care Program while looking back at the ECTA 2020 RC KPI’s. Next, we zoom in on the work done by the ECTA digitalization workgroup. They created common industry data definitions in the field of supply chain visibility, e-freight documents, transport order and equipment data exchanges. The Results can be read in several new ECTA best practice guidelines. 

The digital logistics world has changed significantly and exchanging more standardized data is considered as very important. It’s focus is to increase the overall efficiency, safety and sustainability and to improve the interoperability between all chemical logistics actors. Chemical logistics becomes more interconnected and data driven, highlighting the need for more interoperable and trustful digital collaborations. 

In that respect, the annual report also gives an update on the ECLIC community initiative where the use of common data standards and respect for data ownership are considered together. ECLIC together with ECTA continue to strive for an open, standardized and trustful sharing of data flows amongst all ECTA members and stakeholders. 

We conclude this annual report with the update of the ECTA organization and ECTA members. We very much appreciate the continued support from all our members and look forward to keeping our commitment to the goals of the European Chemical Transport Association.