FINAT Committee Summit 16 February - Made by us, made for us

The opening speech of FINAT President Philippe Voet at the FINAT Committee Summit on 16th February last, revealed an eagerness to jointly discover and further develop FINAT’s future roadmap that has been under scrutiny since 2021. Almost 40 Board, committee and other FINAT members convened in Amsterdam with the intention of shaping the new working structure of our association. As stated before, the new way of working was necessary in order to have a better alignment between FINAT’s objectives in the medium to long term, and our association’s operations in the short term.

At the Summit, the group was split up in two rounds of four breakout tables each representing one of the four strategic pillars of FINAT. Read more about the pillars here.

Next to the existing on-going activities, such as the programming of events & competitions, marketing & communication, statistical & knowledge exchanges, public affairs, collaboration with stakeholders, associations and third parties regarding matters that affect the label industry, the need was felt to also start up other (short-term) projects.

As such were identified:

Member community engagement
FINAT visibility (increasing the visibility of member best practices)
Online content library (restructuring the FINAT members’ only portal)
FINAT Sonar (experts’ view documents focusing on in-depth knowledge)
Product Carbon Footprint Calculation (investigating the different CO2 footprint calculation methods and assessing the possibility of harmonization)
Talent development (increasing visibility of the label sector as career destination for students)
PPWR Revision (a body of experts representing FINAT at stakeholder consultations, drafting position papers and influencing regulations and standards)
FINAT Sustainability Awards (updating the scope of the competition)

Each of the above-mentioned taskforces falls under the scope of one of the four pillars (Community, Knowledge, Collaboration and Advocacy) that replaced FINAT’s six-star strategy.

Much progress was made during the brainstorm session. Participants selected their preferred taskforce and are now, under the expert leadership of the workforce chairs, concentrating on tasks and deliverables. The next live meeting is scheduled for 31 May prior to the European Label Forum. In the meantime, online meetings will be held to keep the momentum.

More information about the outcome of this meeting and the new organizational structure will be shared with the members soon.

FINAT members that would like to become actively engaged in one or more of the taskforces can contact the FINAT secretariat.

Let’s empower the label industry together.