Transition Pathway for the EU Chemicals Industry – State of Play of the Inclusive Approach Towards a Green and Digital Chemical Industry

The co-implementation process for the Transition Pathway of the EU chemical industry is in progress.

The Transition Pathway for the Chemical Industry, launched by the European Commission in January 2023, aims to be the industry’s compass for navigating through the ‘double-twin transition’ – guiding us toward climate neutrality, circularity, digitalisation, and the production of safe-and-sustainable chemicals.

Following its publication, a co-implementation process was started in 2023 under the lead of DG GROW. It involves key stakeholders from industry, governments, NGOs, and associations. The co-implementation process seeks to assess the current progress and enhance the existing roadmap for achieving the transition.

To render the roadmap actionable, it was important to break down the co-implementation process into smaller tasks. Accordingly, three Task Forces were launched, each focusing on specific priorities essential for the transition: circularity, international competitiveness, and future energy and feedstock needs. Currently, stakeholders engaged in the task forces are working on market creation for sustainable products and analysing the future energy and feedstock needs of the sector.

State of play: Progress Report and Transition Initiatives

In May 2024, the Commission released its first assessment of the co-implementation process through annual progress report. This report encompasses the initial results from the efforts of the three task forces in 2023, alongside an evaluation of the chemical industry’s overall position and advancement towards the transition, including ongoing initiatives. Throughout Europe, various stakeholders including large corporations, small and medium enterprises, trade associations, and NGOs are implementing tangible actions, referred to as transition initiatives, which collectively contribute to the nearly 200 measures detailed in the Transition Pathway. DG GROW has been collecting and publishing these initiatives on their dedicated website. This collection is essential for analysing current efforts and reflecting on what remains to be done, ensuring that the roadmap can be effectively updated. This collection is essential for analysing current efforts and reflecting on what remains to be done, ensuring that the roadmap can be effectively updated.

Call to action: The call for transition initiatives opened in July 2023; the next deadline for submission is 1 November 2024! Are you contributing or would you like to contribute to the twin transition of the EU Chemical Industry?

To date, DG GROW has published 112 transition initiatives. Over 95% of these submissions originate from the chemical industry itself, and nearly a quarter of the initiatives fall under the building block of “Access to Energy & Feedstock”. This is significant because the industry has identified actions within this building block as the most urgent for ensuring resilience and competitiveness.

National efforts towards the twin transition of the chemical industry

Still, the implementation of the Transition Pathway could face some limits, if taking place solely at a pan-European level. Therefore, national chemical federations are actively working with their governments to adapt the pathway into tailored roadmaps that address their specific national needs. This proactive involvement of both industry and national governments is key to looking more concretely at what is needed for a resilient and sustainable chemical industry of the future across all different member states, also considering the current economic outlook for the chemical industry. Six national transition pathways for the chemical industry have been published to date—Austria, Belgium, Greece, France, and Romania, with more expected to be released in the coming months.

It’s not “just” about chemicals – Competitiveness is the centrepiece of a successful transition

A successful double twin transition does not solely rest on the success of the chemical industry’s progress. For Europe’s industry to successfully undergo this transformation, competitiveness is essential. Today, enhancing the sector’s competitiveness is more crucial than ever, underscored by the widespread support for the Antwerp Declaration on a European Industrial Deal. To date, the Antwerp Declaration has garnered nearly 1,300 signatures from industry and union leaders. The signatories span 25 sectors, some of which also have (or will have) their own dedicated Transition Pathways, such as mobility, construction, textiles, and metals.

The Industrial Deal and Transition Pathways are both essential for promoting a competitive and climate-neutral European industry and should be prioritised by the next Commission. The EU Industrial Deal represents a political commitment to drive change and place competitiveness at the centre of the EU’s agenda. Transition Pathways serve as a crucial operational framework for the chemical industry and other sectors. They are vital for several reasons: to clearly and consistently explain how the Green Deal objectives impact different ecosystems and sectors, to outline the necessary framework conditions for each, to articulate the transition between different parts of the economy, and to guide, sequence, and implement the required actions effectively.