Page 61 - FINAT Yearbook 2011

VskE Health & Safety Guide
nal Health and Safety Best Practice Guide recently developed by the German association VskE, or the raw materials index proposed by the Swedish association.
• FINAT and the national associations are mutually reinforcing the collection of reliable statistics about our industry. While, with an overall market coverage of over 90%, the FINAT Labelstock Statistics have become the authorita- tive source of data about the develop- ment of European labelstock markets, the accuracy of local statistics for some individual markets is still subject to improvement. Efforts will be made to further align the FINAT data with national data collected by associations in countries like France, Spain, Italy and Sweden.
• FINAT and the national associations of Germany and France have joined forces to set up an Operators’ Day at Label- expo Europe, of which the 2011 edition will see the launch in September.
global matters
Worldwide, FINAT chaired the first meeting of the global label associations (now conveniently called ‘L9’ – an analogy with the G8’s and G20s of the political leaders of this world) in Shanghai, on the occasion of Labelexpo Asia in December 2009. Since then, meetings have taken place in Barcelona (March 2010, in conjunction with the
FINAT seminar), Chicago (September 2010, at Labelexpo) and Florida (March 2011, in conjunction with the TLMI Converter Meeting). The next meeting is scheduled for Labelexpo Europe in September 2011.
Whereas collaboration within Europe is more on the operational level, the L9 is addressing a number of global ‘High Level’ issues:
• At the meetings, the associations exchange information about global trends and developments in the respective regions and continents and the positioning of their organisation.
• After the summit in Barcelona in March 2010, the leaders of the world’s label industry associations united in a joint declaration to a more sustainable and environmental responsible future and to support ongoing industry measures to further reduce the environmental impact of labels, encourage more sustainable label materials and production processes, meet changing industry and customer recycling targets, and to work towards the continued reduction of label waste.
• As a direct follow-up of that declar- ation, FINAT represented the label community in the Global Packaging Project (GPP) set up by the world’s leading retailers and brand owners together with stakeholders from the packaging supply chain under the umbrella of the Consumer Goods Forum. The GPP aims to establish a common packaging sustainability language and align the many ‘green’ labelling programmes around world- wide.
• To encourage the incoming generation of managers and label company owners to develop their personal skills, competences and network in the global business environment of today, the L9 actively supports the extension
of the global young managers networks set up by organisations like FINAT, TLMI and LMAI.
• The L9 have expressed their joint support of the World Label Awards as vehicle for the promotion of ‘best in class’ labels to the end-users we wish to reach. After all, the label competit- ions organised worldwide are not just intended as an internal ‘show off’ to competitors, but should also be used more effectively to raise our sector’s exposure to the outside world. At the L9 meetings in September 2010 and March 2011, further steps were taken to promote the external visibility via the Labels & Labeling and Labelexpo media, to set up a professional management structure and align the awards categories’ structures.
Global associations meeting, September 2010
what’s next?
To facilitate the exchange of information and multi-level collaboration between national and global associations, an on-line Label Associations Portal (LAP) is being established based on the same configuration as the new FINAT community (see elsewhere). The Portal would allow a limited number of authorised users to access the platform in order to network, share news and information, exchange knowledge, collaborate on common projects and establish a common library of publicat- ions and documents for internal use.
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