Last year was largely dominated by the celebration of Eurobitume reaching its 50-year anniversary. Founded in 1969, Eurobitume has an extremely successful and well proven track record for acting on behalf of its members and the bitumen industry to ensure that there is a continued demand for our product in the future. In planning our celebrations, we also had the opportunity to revisit our history and reflect on the challenges that had been presented to us during that time; how we approached them; and what had been achieved as a consequence. Experiences shared and lessons learnt that we can definitely benefit from. The initial creation of ‘Eurobitume’ was largely driven by the desire to create a strong voice for bitumen in Europe - this desire remains a crucial part of our mission and vision. Enabling us to grow stronger as an industry amongst the constantly changing variables. Personally I was not only very proud to be representing Eurobitume at such a special milestone in our history, but also encouraged to see the enthusiasm and support from many of our ‘friends’ who had previously served in a leadership role within Eurobitume and the Industry. For me this was the seal of approval that we were heading in the right direction and adapting ourselves to be ‘fit for purpose’ going forward. What remains constant is the focus we give to Health, Safety, the Environment and Technical issues related to our industry. These areas we can be confident will continue to change and we will continue to adapt accordingly. In 2019 we delivered important safety and technical documents to support our members to better inform themselves and their end users. These documents are produced in various languages to assist with the task of getting the message understood by those audiences that most need it. I encourage you as members or industry stakeholders to go to the website and explore what information has already been published and is easily available for your use. At the end of the year we were able to finalise the work on updating our Life Cycle Inventory Report. Taking time to ensure that external experts had endorsed the updated Report to be representative of today’s conditions and requirements. The end result is we have a credible report that industry has developed to represent the industry with a consolidated position. We also saw consolidation in the level of our membership, which remained constant last year. A healthy balance between Core and Associate members providing a base for this coming year to encourage more involvement and extracting value, both for Eurobitume and very importantly also for our members. Finally, I would like to recognise the attitude the team here in Eurobitume have developed together with the membership to create a culture that embraces teamwork and from that great results.
