ECTA Annual report 2024 and RC report 2023
In 2024, the chemical transport and logistics sector faced significant challenges, including a recession marked by reduced transport volumes and ongoing geopolitical tensions leading to high energy costs and many supply chain uncertainties. ECTA members experienced in Europe a poly-crisis due to declining transportation volumes, increased cost pressures and evolving regulatory frameworks all of which impacted the overall transport profitability. Compared to the global chemical industry, the European chemical industry was hit much harder in 2024. This economic European outlook was a key topic for discussion at this years´ ECTA annual meeting, held in Dusseldorf. While the policy makers urge the industry to embrace a climate-neutral and circular economy, a better balance must be found between the required sustainability improvements and the competitiveness of the transport sector. The Antwerp declaration for a European Industrial deal created an opening for a broader stakeholder discussion however the Europe’s sustainability focus towards decarbonization in transport & logistics will remain an important trend for the years to come.
In this ECTA annual report, we will address some of these challenges and discuss the progress made in 2024 as part of the ECTA Responsible Care (RC) Program while reflecting on the ECTA 2023 RC KPI’s. We also zoom in on the new Responsible Care charter 2030 which adds a focus towards more Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. As part of the ECTA Responsible care program, ECTA RC working group organised several free webinars which covered ; updates to the GLEC framework for emissions reporting, progress towards low emission vehicles from the manufacturers perspective and finally, in response to an analysis of SQAS reports for our membership, how to manage and monitor the performance of subcontractors which had shown up as one of the weaker areas on the SQAS scores.
During the year, several working groups were set up to review and update the ECTA/Cefic best practice guidelines. Three of these have now been published – namely, “safe working at height in the chemical logistics supply chain”, “transport security” and “cleaning of dry bulk polymer transport tanks” (find all ECTA Guidelines here). The emission calculation guideline is due for publication early next year whilst new working groups are being set up to start to look at “subcontracting of chemical road transport” and “safe loading and unloading of road freight vehicles”.
With Equality, Diversity and Inclusion being part of Responsible Care, ECTA board supports the newly created “Women in Logistics” initiative that will help to create an environment and culture recognizing the value of gender equality within chemical transport and logistics. More specifically, driver shortage creates an opportunity for female drivers because today only 6% of the EU truck driver population are female.
This ECTA annual report further zooms in on the results of several of its ECTA working groups. The ECTA driver shortage working group has further made progress with the ECTA Drivers app which is a new tool launched to improve the overall driver well-being within Chemical Logistics. While last year, the ECTA Drivers App was developed amongst a pilot group of ECTA working group companies, this year the ECTA Drivers App was further rolled out over more than 1700 drivers and 1000 (un)loading places across Europe to all ECTA members.
To ensure transport and logistics data can be more easily exchanged amongst all stakeholders, the ECTA digitalization workgroup continued its efforts towards more common industry data definitions and digital best practice data standards. In 2024, the ECTA digitalization workgroup did not develop any new ECTA digital best practice guidelines and the focus shifted to further use and promote of the existing ECTA digitalization best practices guidelines through newsletters and webinars.
Furthermore, ECTA has continued its support to the ECLIC project and the digital eECD initiative that aims to improve the sustainability and transparency in tank cleaning operations and replace the millions of paper ECD’s (=EFTCO Cleaning Documents) with a much more compliant electronic “eECD’s”. In 2024, ECLIC made the eECD digital industry EFTCO standard available in 6 languages. Next, is the roll out planned of the digital eECD and ePPL standards by involving the right stakeholders per Chemical Cluster in the Benelux and Spain. The Chemical industry stakeholders are aware that logistics paper documents, like eECD but also eCMR, are no longer the future and form a visible, silent competitiveness killer for the entire Chemical Industry. In 2025, it’s time for more digital change and action.