Circular Economy

The Circular Economy (CE) committee supports its members by seeking possible opportunities and solutions for distributors to promote a quality-based supply chain that highlights both safety and adherence to environmental regulations.

Through the regular exchange of best practices among the members, the CE committee forms industry positions and provides input for consultations, representing the sector in the pursuit of sustainable solutions.

Furthermore, with the European Green Deal becoming more and more central in the European agenda, the committee is strongly involved in ensuring that chemicals are further used in a sustainable way through innovation and stakeholder engagement.

Official mission of the committee:

  • Implement circularity in business and production processes
  • Facilitate compliance and provide guidance (especially for SMEs)
  • Exchange of best practices in sustainability trends ad topics
  • Offer umbrella initiatives for piloting innovative CE solutions

As part of our living commitment to all principles of sustainability and in line with our mission to further enhance the role of our sector in a more circular economy, we as distributors are pursuing the following aims:

  • Increase recycled contents in products whenever technically possible, environmentally recommendable and economically viable, while ensuring the products´ performance and safety
  • For stakeholders from across the board – private companies, academia, and public bodies – to benefit from circularity in the distribution sector
  • To ensure that the promotion of a circular public procurement is maintained and supported to empower consumers and public buyers

Main activities

aerial photography of vehicle on grey road beside trees during daytime
  • Monitor and assess all developments related to sustainability and circular economy
  • Inform our members on the latest updates
  • Elaborate guidance on how to implement the principles of the circular economy in the daily processes, operations and business models. In this framework, Fecc has prepared a guideline highlighting the role of chemical distributors in a more circular economy, which is available at the European Commission Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform.
  • Develop and share best practices: for example, the committee is partner of the Danish GEAR project, which evaluates the opportunities of using high-quality second-hand chemicals and how this results in a more resource-efficient utilisation of chemicals, better CO2 gains and paves the way for a circular business model in the chemical supply chain.
  • Initiate and host constructive stakeholder dialogues, as distributors are in midst of all supply chain and perform a huge variety of supply chain functions. Through the CE committee, Fecc is an active member of the Circular Plastics Alliance, which is an industry-led initiative in partnership with DG Grow to boost the EU market for recycled plastics to 10 million tonnes by 2025. Fecc is also a proud co-signatory of this EU initiative.