International Association of dangerous goods Safety Advisers - IASA

Just as BADGP represents individuals in Great Britain who work with Dangerous Goods (DG), so IASA represents these associations in and around Europe.  IASA is the DG association whose members are national associations.

European Association of dangerous goods Safety Advisors or EASA, as it was called back then, was in embryo in 2010 as a result of communication between the dangerous goods associations of Belgium, Hungary, Spain and Poland.  However, it was only when the German association hosted the first European meeting in 2014 that enough critical mass was evident to ensure that EASA would work.  In late 2020 ‘European’ was dropped and replaced with ‘International’ reflecting the growing number of non-European countries signing up to the modal regulations. BADGP has been represented since 2014. 

At the last meeting online in September IASA boasted 27 representatives from 18 associations.  While all members to date are European, there has been interest shown recently from countries in Asia and Africa.

The remit of IASA is to represent not individuals but DG organisations and, in speaking for them, offers leverage to the opinions of over 3000 DG professionals (not just DGSAs) at the grass-roots level.  In this respect, IASA includes all modes of transport so, while the UK pays much attention to the shipping of DGs, the Czech Republic depends heavily on rail transport and the Netherlands on inland waterways.

The benefits of IASA membership to BADGP are several:

• IASA’s successful reassessment of their Consultative Status at the Joint Meetings in Geneva and Berne this year means it is now able to comment on all aspects of RID/ADR/ADN.
  
  
• IASA desires a level playing field and has already expressed views on modal codes, e.g. the imperfect way in which the system of DGSA exams is administered across Europe.
  
  
• BADGP is a serious player in IASA, often the source of documents written for IASA, e.g. Annual Report and documents for Joint Meetings.  IASA is a lively – and growing – channel for the posing of questions on DGs at the international level.