Label industry associations create global organization

The world's major self-adhesive label trade associations have come together to create the L8 Group, aimed at increasing cooperation in the promotion of the industry as globalization becomes an increasingly important factor. 

The new grouping was created at a summit meeting held at Labelexpo Asia in Shanghai and will hold its first full meeting in Barcelona on March 13 to coincide with the Finat technical seminar. The second meeting will be held at Labelexpo Chicago in September. 

Finat, the self-adhesive trade association based in Europe, with TLMI, its American counterpart, took the initiative in calling the summit because, said Finat president Andrea Vimercati, ‘the need to create a network of relations to share knowledge, experiences and information has become a factor of strategic importance to label companies’. 

In addition to Finat and TLMI, the five other members of the L8 will be PEIAC (the Chinese association), LMAI (India), JFLP (Japan), Latma (Australia), and Salma (New Zealand). While the L8 description is intended to be an analogy with the world's G8 organization, its eight place could possibly be filled by a Latin American organization, Finat's managing director, Jules Lejeune, said. 

Vimercati commented: ‘The elimination of global boundaries and the emergence of a new generation provides an incentive to change our inward-looking habits and explore the possibility of global collaboration, exchange best practices and/or the exchange of regional solutions on a global scale – for instance in the case of sustainability.’ 

Four areas of interest were identified for collaboration on global requirements of customers, suppliers, markets, authorities and other stakeholders: 

• Networking, both face-to-face and on-line via congresses, workshops, webinars and a young managers' network
• Knowledge sharing in areas like technical education, standardization, legislation, management education and lean production 
• Joint promotion of the common development and visibility of the sector via lobbying, common problem solving, the creation of new standards, the establishment of joint committees and the mutual reinforcement of label competitions as a shop window for the label industry 
• Collaboration on sustainability and environmental issues – such as the creation of environmental standards and awards 

The first step to be taken by the L8 members will be an exchange of market and association data and Finat will establish an internet platform where the member associations can review and consult each other's programs and activities. 

One of the first items to be dealt with at the March Barcelona meeting will be the standardization of label competition formats.