One touch web review - international media - flexogravure

in advancing a detailed formal agenda for
step-by-step actions to make our industry
‘greener’. We are also actively supporting a
raft of initiatives in the recycling arena.
Environmental initiatives
This in itself may not sound like a major set
of challenges – but, again, the value chain
is complex, and there is a proliferation of
environmental initiatives in the broad print/
packaging manufacturing context, at many
levels.
There are the environmental management
systems like ISO 14001, Lean Six Sigma,
and the US-based Tag and Label Manufacturers
Institute’s industry-specific ‘LIFE’
system (‘Label Initiative For the Environment’).
Certification to environmental sourcing
standards – like FSC and PEFC for papers
– are other possible pathways. Brand
owners’ and end users’ own environmental
standards for their suppliers, like the Wal-
Mart Supplier Sustainability Assessment,
add further complexity.
While the raw material suppliers and the
major coater/laminators represent, in the
main, manufacturers at a global scale, the
self-adhesive label converters themselves
are mostly small-to-medium-sized enterprises
for whom such additional agendas
are difficult to support.
Nevertheless, Finat member companies
across the value chain are, individually,
actively delivering technology solutions to
reduce waste all round and improve their
carbon footprint; to be Reach-compliant,
particularly in relation to adhesives and coatings;
to explore new label and release liner
substrates and adhesive technologies; and
to use thinner materials all round without
compromising performance.
A single industry profile
But there are limits to which individual companies
operating in a competitive business
environment can go in meeting the needs
of the ‘three Ps’: people, planet, and profit.
So, there is a distinct rôle for an association
such as Finat in the label sustainability
arena: to combine the aspirations of the
many levels of the value chain into a single
agenda, and to represent all its members
(within the broader context of the global
packaging industry) to the ultimate buyers
of its products – the brand owners, retailers,
and consumers.
Interviste
Interviews
The Global Packaging Project
Unquestionably, the brand owners and retailers
have established an outstanding sustainability
platform, in the form of the Consumer
Goods Forum’s Global Packaging
Project. It is bringing together the world’s
leading manufacturers and retailers, along
with their packaging suppliers at every level
and related industry associations, as a single
group of people with a single agenda. This
group has already defined what is now the
accepted framework for informed debate
on sustainability concerns throughout the
supply chain: the Global Protocol on Packaging
Sustainability. Through its common
professional sustainability language that
transcends the boundaries of commercial
advantage, the GPPS is facilitating a meaningful
dialogue between customers and
suppliers on appropriate parameters to be
used to measure environmental progress.
Finat is an active supporter, representing
the interests of both the thousands of label
converters in Europe, and further afield, who
provide finished labels for the end users, as
well as its valued supplier company members.
I personally believe that if any initiative
will deliver a real blueprint for the optimal
combination of environmental-friendliness
and fit-for-purpose packaging, it will be this
worldwide forum of suppliers and users.
EU Packaging Waste Directive
At a regional level, self-adhesive labels must
meet the requirements of the EU Packaging
Waste Directive, which is driving change
in Europe through legislation and punitive
levies for non-conformance. Here, in the
self-adhesive label industry, waste management,
recycling, and recyclability are priority
issues in relation to one particular part of the
self-adhesive label laminate – the release
liner. Release liner is the ‘hero’ of the selfadhesive
label conversion and automatic
application processes, delivering superb
handling characteristics on the printing
press and in label application. However, it is
also a perceived problem for the recycling
lobby since, once a self-adhesive label has
been automatically applied to the product,
the release liner that delivered it is effectively
redundant, its purpose fulfilled. The latest
revision to the Packaging Waste Directive in
its final draft that was recently submitted to
the Council of Ministers is consistent with
Finat’s definition of used liner as process
waste as opposed to packaging waste – but
this is not the end of the story. In individual
F&C
Magazine 45