LMAI’s initiatives on sustainability go north to Chandigarh!

LMAI, The Label Manufacturers Association of India has been spreading the message of an imperative need of implementing sustainability in their member’s products and manufacturing processes. Earlier this year in July 2023 for the highly successful and largely attended LMAI conference at Jaipur, the theme was, “Creativity Innovation and Sustainability”. Leading industry suppliers delivered presentations at the conference on how they were making their product offerings sustainable. In my article titled “Sustainability and circular economy in manufacturing labels” and available on this blog, as also in my opening remarks during a panel discussion at the LMAI conference 2023 at Jaipur, I mentioned, “Sustainability in its simplest terms means, giving back to Mother-Earth or environment, society, or economy, whatever you draw from it. It ultimately delivers a message for us to leave a safer planet with minimum or no depletion of resources, for generations that follow, after meeting your own imperative needs”. Taking the initiative forward and reaching out to the label fraternity in the north of India, on the 13^th of October 2023, LMAI organized an event titled, “4R's of sustainability”. The 4 R’s stand for Reduce, Recycle, Reuse and Report which sum up the sustainability endeavors.

Avery Dennison was the main sponsor for the event and provided two out of the three speakers, namely Sumantha Das, a specialist in sustainability from Avery Dennison, Amit Saxena, an Operations Leader who has led Supply Chain, Capital projects and manufacturing in marquee companies like Hewlett Packard, Mondelez, Merck and in Abbott Healthcare as Director Operations and Raj Karodiya: senior executive-partner growth and a specialist on EPR(Extended producer responsibility) from “The Trash Company” who are consultants to Avery Dennison and other brand owners for EPR Registration. 

Sumantha Das touched upon the four R’s of  sustainability and  goals targeted for achievement by 2030. 

Amit Saxena , spoke about the drivers for sustainability in Operations of companies in FMCG, Chemicals and Pharma. He stressed on the need to  cut wastages and save on all processes in operations which include, downtime, energy consumption, labour costs, packaging and logistics. 

The final speaker Raj Koradiya gave eye-opening insights into EPR, its compliances and penal provisions.

Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) regime is under implementation in Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, according to which it is the responsibility of Producers, Importers and Brand-owners to ensure processing of their plastic packaging waste through recycling, re-use or end of life disposal. Commenting on the implications of EPR which also impacts the label fraternity, Rajesh Chadha Director on board of LMAI and owner of Delhi based Update Prints said, “We have been given to understand that EPR registration is mandatory for all producers (including convertors) who generate plastic waste, irrespective of the size of the business. Only Micro and Small business brand owners are exempt from this and the onus for their waste generated also falls on the converters who are classified as producers.

Part of audience

The consequences of not registering in EPR are that the total plastic waste generation liability falls on the converter only,  and heavy fines are there on per ton basis of plastic produced /converted. Further since the EPR portal  is centralized by the CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board), data about converters can easily be obtained through labelstock producers who are already registered in the EPR portal like Avery, UPM etc. In view of the above it is requested of all label converters to come forward and comply by with the same as soon as possible,  as time is short and deadline for registration is Oct 31st, 2023, this may or may not be extended.” He also reiterated that on behalf of LMAI, “If we have a decent number of converters wanting to apply, LMAI can negotiate with this company ( or any other for that matter) to make the process economical and easier for all the converters and printers”.  Adding to this Amit Sheth another Director and founder of LMAI says, “It is an important subject which all of us must pass through one day. Even machine sellers also must register for using plastics for machine covers and packing “. He further adds, “It will be a good initiative by LMAI for its members if they come forward in substantial numbers”.

As per the EPR portal; https://eprplastic.cpcb.gov.in/#/plastic/home/pibopwp

Responsibilites of PIBOS

PIBO stands for producer, importer and brandowners. If you identify as PIBO and have your operations in India that uses plastic packaging as part of your operation, irrespective of your turnover or scale of operations you fall under the obligation of EPR. Under the current framework of EPR, PIBO are responsible to

1. Register at EPR Portal
2. Submit their Action plan
3. Fulfill obligations for :-
   1. Recycling
   2. Use of Recycled content
   3. Reuse
   4. End of life disposal
   5. Optional engagement in collection and recovery of the plastics
   6. Submit annual returns
   7. Provide proof of certificates (Plastic credits)
   8. PIBOs can engage with PRO's or other agencies separately to fulfill their targets but reporting and responsibility to fulfill the obligations is completely of PIBO

Jaideep Singh

The event at Chandigarh was organized by LMAI at Novotel Hotel in Chandigarh and was attended by over 100 delegates from Chandigarh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The event was moderated by LMAI secretary Jaideep Singh who travelled from Hyderabad. Speaking about LMAI and introducing the industry association to the widespread audience he said;

 

LMAI Team

“LMAI, the Label Manufacturers Association of India, is the representative body of the self-adhesive label printing fraternity of India. The ordinary members of the association are essentially producers of self-adhesive labels in roll form. LMAI was founded with just around 5 or 6 printers, by the efforts of Amit Sheth. Over the years LMAI has grown from strength to strength and now has around 400 members. LMAI regularly conducts seminars, panel discussions and culminating in the huge biennial LMAI conference. LMAI conferences in the past have been enormous successes at five- or seven-star properties at venues like Goa, Agra, Jaipur and Kochi. The last two events have recorded around 700 delegates from printer members , suppliers and their families. It is perhaps the biggest label industry event in the world with  a spend running into Millions of Rupees.

Author with Amit Sheth

LMAI has partnered with Tarsus UK, now a part of Informa, for promoting Labelexpo India and Tarsus supporting LMAI for their events for the betterment of Indian labels industry. LMAI is a part of L9, the confederation of World’s nine leading label association and is recognized by Finat, the joint global platform for the international labelling industry. LMAI regularly conducts the LMAI awards for excellence in creating labels. It has also interacted with the MSME ministry for getting benefits for label industry. The winners of LMAI awards automatically qualify for submitting their entries for world label awards. LMAI sends two judges for the judging of the World label awards. At the judging held last month in Brussels on the sidelines of Labelexpo Europe, our LMAI founder Amit Sheth and Harveer Sahni were judges representing LMAI.

Vivek Kapoor, Rajesh Chadha and Jaideep Singh

LMAI has been making efforts to create knowledge delivery programs and  organising events to bring leading FMCG buyers to express the needs of print buyers and for them to understand the printers. Our senior office bearers Rajesh Chadha, Vivek Kapoor, Amit Sheth, Harveer Sahni and Jaideep Singh,  have travelled from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi to be with you all today”.

Pradeep Saroha with guests and LMAI Directors

Concluding his speech, Jaideep informed the gathering that the LMAI president Rajesh Nema had fallen ill and could not travel to attend this event. He also informed that with the label industry expanding it reach in smaller towns of India, LMAI Presidents in their terms, will include regional representatives in their management teams for a wider reach and conduct programs in all geographical zones of the country for the benefit of its members. The presentations ended with a vote of thanks delivered by Vishal Vohra of Stic Prints Chandigarh and followed by cocktails and dinner. 

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi in October 2023