Page 4 - FINAT Yearbook 2012

DEAR READER,
I am pleased to introduce to you the second edition of the FINAT Yearbook. Since last year’s launch, a lot has happened, and the Yearbook 2012 is a reflection of what occurred between the congress in Sicily in June 2011 and this year’s annual gathering in Athens.
As this book will be released on the occasion of this year’s congress, it will not contain the actual congress report; but in this multimedia world we have found a clever way around that and invite you to use the QR Code included in this book to access the web page with a summary of all the findings, as well as press documentation and photos of the event.
As we instituted last year, the tradition is that the FINAT Yearbook carries the theme of the congress that closes the association year under review. The theme chosen for the 55th FINAT Congress, and hence this publication, is therefore ‘Sustainable labelling – now is your chance!’.
This is a theme that appeals to our industry’s joint corporate responsibility and that hopefully has triggered business and thought leaders within our community to make the connection between lips, heart and mind, and, arguably, their pockets.
There are many aspects to the buzzword ‘Sustainability’ that is on everybody’s lips today. According to Michael Braungart, one of the co-authors of the ground- breaking book ‘Cradle-to-Cradle, remaking the way we make things’, who spoke at our congress a few years ago, “Sustainability sounds like a luxury we
can permit ourselves only if the economy is going well. ...We imagine that we are protecting the environment by producing less waste, by using less water – but being less bad still doesn’t mean good... And carbon neutrality doesn’t exist: a tree isn’t carbon neutral either. If a country wishes to become carbon neutral it will have to cease to exist.”
In Professor Braungart’s view, technological cycles should follow the example of the biological cycle. “Ants use around the same calories as 30 billion people. But they give it all back.” It is a pity that the Cradle-to-Cradle workshop originally planned with him prior to the congress in Athens had to be postponed. Even he, however, recognises that the ideal world, where all ‘waste’ becomes ‘food’ for new processes and is ‘up- cycled’ into higher value-added processes rather than recycled into inferior applications, requires incremental steps.
There is no doubt that awareness has grown that corporate success goes beyond the single dimension of company profit. Short-term profit maximisation cannot be achieved without taking into account a company’s corporate responsibility towards the environment, the community in which it is operating, and the people it employs. ‘Sustainable entrepreneurship’ is aimed at maximising ‘PPP Value’: People, Planet and Profit. In this concept, the scope of entrepreneurship is broadened from the ‘here and now’ to the ‘there and then’. This all sounds nice -- but how to make sure that these words are also reflected in our business behaviour in a sensible manner?
Associations like FINAT have traditionally connected the ‘here and now’ with the ‘there and then’ (in both directions). They have served industries in developing and sharing collective knowledge and best
4
FINAT YEARBOOK 2012 |