Page 31 - FINAT Yearbook 2014

Kurt Walker, FINAT President, welcomed the 420 delegates to the event -- one of the best-attended congresses in the association’s 55-year history -- together
with Robert Mägerlein, President of VskE. He also introduced congress moderator Marc Büttgenbach – himself a VskE board member – who proved to be a lively and informed contributor to the congress proceedings.
WHAT IF?
Dr Horst Opaschowki, one of Europe’s leading futurologists was first on the formal agenda. How, in the coming decades, human beings may work, live, and consume tomorrow was the topic
of his paper, which was both insightful and positive. He outlined the way in which our society will cope with the fundamental structural changes that are already becoming evident in our lives today. He underlined the importance of the future
role of the family, as its members experience and enjoy a longer lifespan, and predicted future directions for business, the economy, and politics.
THE GERMAN LABEL MARKET
The focus of the delegates returned to ‘local’ matters with an overview of the German label market from
VskE President Robert Mägerlein. Founded in 1981, VskE today has 164 members, comprising both label converters and supplier companies.
the regional association for an industry that is made up of some 450 companies (more than 50% of which have less than 10 employees), employing a total of 19000
people, and a joint turnover of € 2.4 billion per annum. Said Mr Mägerlein: ‘The self-adhesive label market is growing positively with the German economy, and new technologies offer real opportunities.’ Packaging and cartons represent nearly 60% of Germany’s paper converting industry today, so he challenged delegates to action to secure the future of labels against competitive product identification technologies, saying: ‘If we are really going to “Label our future”, we must rethink, redesign, re-label all products, services, and behaviour!’
FINAT 2012 LABELSTOCK STATISTICS AND INDUSTRY TRENDS
It was then the turn of FINAT MD Jules Lejeune to present FINAT’s labelstock statistics for 2012, and to review current trends and the outlook for 2013. A summary of his report was included in the FINAT Yearbook which was released later at the congress.
SAVE FOOD CAMPAIGN
The SAVE FOOD initiative is a joint global campaign, instituted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and Messe Düsseldorf GmbH, to
fight food loss. It aims to initiate
networking among stakeholders in
industry, politics and research,
encouraging dialogue and helping to
develop solutions along the food value
chain, including packaging and label
suppliers. Werner M Dornscheidt,
President and CEO of Messe Düsseldorf,
was in Munich to tell FINAT members about it, and to enlist their help as key players in the packaging supply chain.
BIODIVERSITY: THE SIXTH EXTINCTION ON EARTH?
Saving food is one direction in which humanity can secure its future – but should we not also be considering a broader environmental context for our concerns?
Prof Dr Richard Pott, Professor of
Phytogeography and Managing Director
of the Institute of Geobotany at Leibnitz
Universität, Hannover, believes so. We
are, after all, experiencing a biodiversity
crisis – the sixth in the planet’s history,
and the first one that is largely ‘man
made’. Could we be facing another mass
extinction of the features that create the uniqueness of our planet, and form the base for the entirety of life, including humankind? It is a matter of fact that our unprecedented over-exploitation of nature endangers our own base of existence in the middle- to long-term.
LABELSTOCK SUPPLIERS LOOK TO THE FUTURE
Closer to home, two speakers from leading labelstock manufacturers outlined their perspectives of the global label industry’s future. Jussi Vanhanen, President, UPM Raflatac, pinpointed the
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FINAT YEARBOOK 2014 |