Towards a sustainable chemical industry

The competitiveness of the European chemical industry is challenged by the cost pressure stemming from higher feedstock prices, lower product prices of competitors and higher operational costs due to stringent environmental regulations. In the face of these challenges and with a clear focus to enhance the sustainable development of the industry in relation to the environment and the society while maintaining and upgrading its competitive advantage, this thesis performs a quantitative analysis that measures the impact of pipeline infrastructure and sustainability initiatives on bilateral trade of chemicals and concludes that a wider European network of chemicals pipelines accompanied by coherent sustainability initiatives would have a significant positive impact on intra-EU trade volumes, improve clusters’ performance, decouple industry’s growth from environmental degradation, boost innovative capacity and hence strengthen the competitive position of the European chemical industry as a whole.