FINAT, the association of European label industry, has organized an offline association meeting again for the first time in 3 years in the beginning of June 2022. It took place in Baveno/Italy at Lago Maggiore. Robos-labels was represented by Daniel Sugg and Simon Reuter, both managing partners.
A total of approx. 270 representatives from the areas of label printing, converting and suppliers have participated. The event location was Grand Hotel Dino, which is located directly at the lake since 1873 and has provided a beautiful setting. In general, it has been reported about a relaxed and expectant atmosphere. Simon Reuter adds: “It was a great pleasure to be able to experience once again an association event with real people and real meetings.”
A thrilling program
In terms of content the ELF 2022 started on Wednesday evening with a reception and dinner at the lake shore and the following FINAT Award awarding ceremony.
On Thursday and Friday a total of 34 lectures, 14 presentations and 6 discussion groups were on the agenda, which dealt with the changed consumer behavior, Big Data, sustainability and circular economy as well as Supply Chain Management.
The topics of sustainability and circularity can be named here as the biggest challenges of present and future, because the whole packaging and labeling industry worldwide introduces a variety of different foils and raw materials in big amounts into the circuit.
Focus on sustainability
Based on this complex theme the Celab Global has derived (https://celabglobal.org/ ), a worldwide coalition of all involved stages of the value chain. Celab wants to feed into circular economy over 75% of all used liner materials and matrix waste. For that every aspect of the product life cycle must be involved and optimized to be able to design the whole label industry as sustainable as possible, or even circular.
For that to succeed it is inevitable to have as many large companies from all involved areas on board as possible. These include along with label producers especially large raw material producers like e.g. Avery Dennison, BASF, Dow, Evonik, Herma, Fedrigoni, Flexcon, Lintec, Mitsubishi Chemical, Wacker, 3M and many more. Moreover, also large global disposal and recycling companies are members as well as large corporations like e.g. Henkel, who can have a great effect on the consumer behavior of their customers especially in the packaging segment.
Celab lays the focal points on the research and development of new raw materials as well as on the prevention of waste and recycling of production-related waste like e.g. matrix waste and the liner paper. The latter robos-labels implements for three years, by that approx. 20 tons of liner can be recycled instead of thermally utilized. Moreover, robos-labels will become a Celab Global member in 2022 as well, to profit from the latest research results on the one hand and to be able to contribute own experience and challenges on the other.
Daniel Sugg summarized: “In our view, this year’s European Label Forum was a great success in all aspects and a real enrichment for us as a member company.”
