Page 15 - FINAT Yearbook 2012

The FINAT Executive Board in 2012: from left: Kurt Walker (President), Thomas Hagmaier (Vice President) and Andrea Vimercati (Past President).
On the iPad: Henrik Kajüter (Treasurer).
are also operating on a global scale. In response to all this, our members are now reaching out on a global scale − to adopt global standards, share best practices, establish global partnerships, expand their B2B network, and promote the versatility of our products to the world’s markets in a consistent manner.
And finally, but not least importantly, all the associations share the same corporate responsibility towards our planet and the people who live in it. It seemed only logical that our associations would follow up on this global trail we had defined, and it was therefore decided to meet on a more regular basis. One of the participants came up with the idea to use the name L8 for our informal platform. In the meantime, a ninth association has joined, and we soon expect to welcome our tenth member.
what are the benefits of the l9? how has it helped finat and its members, and why is finat spending time and resources outside europe − its home continent?
KW: FINAT has its roots in Europe, but maintains a strong global outlook. One fifth of our membership is from outside Europe – Asia in particular − and we have a long tradition of managing international diversity. FINAT members have a natural interest in international communication, information exchange, networking, and understanding different business cultures and practices outside their ownlocale.
JL: International collaboration does not stop at the borders of Europe − and for this reason we have been a strong supporter of this initiative. In our opinion, there is considerable benefit for our members in gaining a better mutual understanding of the comparative strengths, weaknesses and commonalities around the globe. It is a wonderful and enriching experience to find that label printers across the globe share the same
now focusing our energy on subjects where we have a common interest such as recycling, industry statistics, best practice, and education.
KW: And we are seeing the first tangible results of that. Thanks to a concerted effort, we were able to make real impact in lobbying the European Commission. On the initiative of the Swedish association, the national associations have joined forces to commission AWA to develop and monitor industry-specific raw materials indices. The German association have kindly offered to upgrade their Occupational Health and Safety Best Practice Guide to the European level, and an English translation is currently under review by the different associations. The Italian association have offered to share their legal terms and conditions of sale and other (technical) industry guidelines. The German and French associations collaborated with FINAT on the first-ever ‘Operators’ Day’ at Labelexpo. The UK association adopted our FINAT Liner Recycling Brochure and have proposed to FINAT the setting up of a European good manufacturing practice guide for food labels.
By pooling resources and sharing know- how and expertise, we can be stronger than the sum of our individual parts.
outside europe, finat − with tlmi − was one of the founders of the l9, the platform of global label associations. tell me a little bit about its history and your company’s role in its development.
KW: The L9 started as an informal get- together of global label associations on the occasion of Labelexpo Asia in Shanghai at the end of 2009, at the invitation of Roger Pellow from Tarsus. Eight associations from across the globe met to exchange experiences, discuss common problems, and explore the possibilities for closer future interaction. Obviously, many topics addressed within these associations were of a local nature but, as we talked, we found out that we also share several challenges in common.
First of all, it’s a fact that many of the suppliers offering materials and technology to the label and narrow-web industry are now global. A growing proportion of our members’ customers
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FINAT YEARBOOK 2012 |