The Label Manufacturers Association of India (LMAI) has been spreading the message of an imperative need of implementing sustainability in their members’ products and manufacturing processes. In July 2023, the theme at the largely attended LMAI conference at Jaipur was ‘Creativity Innovation and Sustainability’.
Taking the initiative forward and reaching out to the label fraternity in North India, LMAI organized an event titled the ‘4Rs of sustainability’ in Chandigarh on the 13th of October 2023. The 4Rs 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 such as 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 Rs 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 the pharma sectors. He stressed the need to cut wastage and save on all processes in operations which include, downtime, energy consumption, labor costs, packaging and logistics. Raj Koradiya gave insights into EPR, its compliances and penal provisions.
The Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) regime is being implemented under the 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 impacts the label fraternity, Rajesh Chadha, director on the board of LMAI and owner of the 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.”
“The consequence of not registering in EPR is that the total plastic waste generation liability falls on the converter, and heavy fines can be imposed per ton based on the plastic produced /converted. Since the EPR portal is centralized by the CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board), data about converters can easily be obtained through label stock producers already registered such as Avery, UPM etc. So all label converters should come forward and comply with the rules as soon as possible, as the deadline for registration is 31st October 2023, which may or may not be extended.”
Chadha said 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”.
Amit Sheth, another director and founder of LMAI said, “It is an important subject which all of us must face one day. Even machine sellers must register for using plastics for machine covers and packing. It will be a good initiative by LMAI for its members if they come forward in substantial numbers”.
The Chandigarh event was organized by LMAI at Novotel Hotel 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 came from Hyderabad.
Speaking about LMAI and introducing the industry association to the widespread audience, Jaideep Singh said, “LMAI 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 the roll form. LMAI was founded with just around five or six 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, culminating in the huge biennial LMAI conference. LMAI conferences in the past have been enormous successes at five- or seven-star properties at venues such as Goa, Agra, Jaipur and Kochi. The last two events have recorded around 700 delegates from printer members, suppliers and their families.
“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 the Indian labels industry. LMAI is a part of L9, the confederation of the world’s nine leading label associations and is recognized by Finat, the joint global platform for the international labeling industry. LMAI regularly conducts the LMAI awards for excellence in creating labels. It has also interacted with the MSME ministry for getting benefits for the 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.”
“LMAI has been making efforts to create knowledge delivery programs and organizing 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 traveled from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi to be with you all today”.
