FINAT, the international association for the self-adhesive labelling industry, reports that on April 3th, the 6th meeting of the so-called L9 took place in Tokyo. The L9 is the informal global platform that brings together nine leading regional trade associations for the self-adhesive label and narrow web converting industry. The platform was founded in December 2009 at the occasion of Labelexpo Asia in Shanghai. Subsequent meetings were held at the FINAT Technical Seminar in Barcelona, Labelexpo North Americas in Chicago, the TLMI Converter Meeting in Florida and Labelexpo Europe in Brussels. The meeting in Tokyo enjoyed the attendance of the leaders of seven associations. Besides the hosting association JFLP, delegations from FINAT (Europe), TLMI (North America), LATMA (Australia), LMAI (India), PEIAC (China) and Ametiq (Mexico) travelled to Japan. The L9 further consists of the associations from Brazil (ABIEA) and New Zealand (SALMA).

The L9 was established with the objectives to offer a global associations network for information and knowledge exchange, joint industry promotion and collaboration on issues of common global importance. The meeting in Tokyo (co-hosted by local manufacturer Lintec), especially focused on the industry's response to the challenge of environmental sustainability. For this purpose, the top management of two leading global players (Avery Dennison and UPM Raflatac) shared their companies' perspective on this subject. Suntory, a major local beverage company, completed the scope from an end-users' perspective. The subsequent dialogue between label converters and their trade associations at this meeting produced recommendations to align efforts as an industry to stimulate environmental sustainability. Special focus will be on recycling in the label sector worldwide through collaboration on regional waste management strategies.

Other topics on the agenda included the World Label Awards framework, benchmarking standards and a survey of regional trends and developments. During this trip to Japan, delegates were also offered the opportunity to visit Toyota as well as Osaka Seal Printing and to discover best practice in Kaizen, the continuous improvement in manufacturing philosophy that originated here.

FINAT, founded in Paris in 1958 with headquarters in The Hague (The Netherlands), is the world-wide association for manufacturers of self-adhesive labels and related products and services. With 600 members in over 50 countries around the world, FINAT has much to offer to label converters and all suppliers to the labeling industry in terms of information exchange and the opportunity to network internationally.