About the European Shippers' Council

The interests of companies trading in Europe as users of freight transport services.
Companies who ship the vast majority of goods distributed by sea, road, rail, air and inland waterways.
The 12 national transport user organisations/shippers' councils from 12 countries.
A number of key European commodity trade associations, such as CEFIC - The European Chemical Industry Council and CEPI, the organisation of paper industries
European industry interests as users of freight transport services on a variety of international governmental and non-governmental organisations including: OECD, the Consultative Shipping Group, International Maritime Organisation, the United Nations, WTO and The International Chamber of Commerce.

Contacting ESC

Contacting ESC couldn't be easier. Take a look at the contact information page for details on the roles of staff members and their various contact details.

Voice of European shippers

ESC maintains an on-going dialogue and is regularly consulted by the European Commission and other Community institutions on transport policy and logistics issues. The ESC also has reciprocal representative arrangements with Business Europe (the European Employers Organisation). Another unique aspect of the European Shippers' Council is that it is the only multi-modal shippers organisation in Europe.

Cross-sector liaison

ESC maintains an on-going dialogue and is regularly consulted by the European Commission and other Community institutions on transport policy and logistics issues. We are active in numerous internaitonal governmental and non-governmental organisations includin: OEC, the Consultative Shipping Group, International Maritime Organisation, the United Nations, WTO, WCO, the International Chambers of Commerce, Business Europe and the International Road Transport Union.

ESC regularly liaises with a wide variety of other transport industry representative groups such as: shipowners, ports, freight forwarders, express carriers, intermodal/combined transport operators and railways.

ESC is widely accepted to be the voice of European business as users of freight transport services. This voice is often combined and co-ordinated with that of other shipper’ representative organisations from other regions of the world. Through the ‘Global Shippers’ Forum” (GSF) ESC annually meets with the US National Transportation League (NITL) and the various Asian Shippers’ Councils to develop common strategies to the mutual benefit of shippers in Europe, North-America and Asia.

The objectives of ESC

The prime objective of ESC is to promote efficient and competitive freight transport services to enhance the competitiveness of companies conducting business in Europe.

In this respect the Council has three core purposes:

to encourage and persuade transport policy makers to develop open and competitive transport markets which enhance industrial competitiveness and efficiency.
to promote industry best practice to encourage efficiency and improvements in transport supply chains.
to add value to the day to day business activities of its members by providing up-to-date information on market developments.

Key actions to achieve ESC’s policy issues

Liberalisation/de-regulation of the liner shipping markets

ESC is the principal body responsible for the successful campaign to repeal the EU liner shipping block exemption Regulation; ESC is the lead organisation discussing with the European Commission and the liner shipping industry how to prepare for a more competitive liner shipping market in the post conference world (October 2008)
ESC has mounted an urgent campaign to prevent undue exposure of shippers to increased contractual liability threatened by proposals to implement a new international convention on maritime cargo liability.
ESC is preparing business for further anti-terrorist security measures and procedures and deterring bad legislation in this area.
ESC is engaged with other stakeholders including freight forwarders and carriers to improve information processes and procedures between the shipper and liner shipping companies in order to increase business efficiencies and performance.
ESC is lobbying for the alignment of port practices to better respond to changes in the shipping market

Development of best practices

Today shippers are paying far greater attention to the performance of their transport and logistics supply chains. For many manufacturers supply chain costs, including inventory and investment costs, can represent 20/30 per cent of total company or product costs. Transport and logistics costs are estimated to represent about 30 per cent of total supply chain costs. Because of this magnitude of costs tied up in the supply chain, shippers now require greater reliability and better performance in their transport and logistics supply chain to give them enhanced competitive edge.

In light of this, the European Shippers' Council has taken the lead in assisting shippers to improve the performance of their transport and logistics supply chains by working with transport providers to encourage them to benchmark their services. To date some progress has been made in the air cargo market with the launch in 1998 of the ESC Air Council's key performance indicators and the publication of the ESC code of best practice in the dry bulk shipping sector. Similar exercises are planned with regard to the rail, road and short sea shipping sectors.

It should be stressed that we are only at the very beginning of implementing key performance indicators and best practice in the transport sector. The first task has been to raise the awareness of the need for continuous improvement in the transport sector through best practice techniques, largely through promotion and dissemination of the ESC. The main task is assisting in the implementation of the KPIs and the use of benchmarking in order to measure the competitiveness and performance of one mode of transport over another. ESC stands ready to play its full part in these developments.

The development of best practices and key performance indicators so far have focused on the air freight industry, the bulk shipping industry and the European rail freight industry.

Air freight industry

Initiated by the UK Air Freight Forum, key performance indicators and best practices based around service levels to the customer (ie the shippers and forwarders) were adopted and promoted by the European Air Shippers' Council. This was in recognition of the council's pre-eminent position as the voice of European shippers which could take the message more effectively to a European and Global audience.

Bulk shipping voluntary code of best practice

ESC was mindful of the responsibility shippers had towards the safety of ships and their crews moving their bulk products. ESC, with the full support of the European Commission developed a voluntary code of best practice which European shippers should follow in order to avoid contracting sub-standard and unsafe ships.

European rail freight industry

ESC's principle objective here is to develop KPIs and best practices in order to benchmark railways performance. Therefore ESC has carried out a targeted survey of major shippers in all parts of Europe to establish how freight is moving between the various modes of transport, including road, rail, and short sea shipping. Initial findings involving over 10 million tonnes of regular freight flows have already established some clearly definable freight corridors. There is clearly considerable work left to be done before 'generic' KPIs and rail freight service level KPIs are developed which will enable European shippers to accurately benchmark the performance of European rail freight services.

ESC is lobbying the European institutions to ensure that the restructuring of transport charges and taxes should under no circumstances increase total transport costs. The objective should be to restructure transport taxes and charges in a way that results in adequate price signals, without hurting competitiveness.

Annual flagship event

ESC organises an annual Shipper Conference, bringing together Europe's leading users of freight transport services to discuss the principal issues of interest and concern to buyers of freight transport services.