headline press information

Date 30th september 2009 / www.procarton.com
Title In Focus
Text This year's annual ECMA Congress was focused largely on innovation and sustainability. The presentation of the finalists for the Pro Carton / ECMA awards gave a foretaste of things to come at the award ceremony which will be held in November at the Pro Carton Congress in Düsseldorf.
 

Once again Pro Carton was heavily involved in the ECMA Annual Congress that was held in Istanbul between 16th and 19th September this year. This year, in a break with tradition, only the finalists of the Pro Carton/ECMA Awards were announced on a video footage of the judging process.

The announcement of the winners and presentations of the Awards will take place at the end of November in Dusseldorf during the International Congress organised by Pro Carton at the specially arranged “Night of Packaging”, where 300 guests will witness the award ceremony, giving the the winners the widest possible publicity. The “Night of Packaging” will form part of the two day Congress that is being held in Düsseldorf on 25th and 26th November and further details can be found in the news on this website www.procarton.com

Pro Carton was also one of the main sponsors of the keynote speaker at this year’s ECMA Congress. Nigel Barlow, who is a strategic coach, consultant and author, gave a presentation entitled “Innovation, creativity and leadership” during which he encouraged the audience to “think differently”. He said that most decisions were made using very little data and that thinking is the enemy of innovation. He added that many of the most creative and successful businesses employed people with no background in the business, and went on to say, that it was preferable to have “unreasonable expectations” when developing new ideas than to develop “prototype thinking”.

Stéphane Thiollier President of Pro Carton, was interviewed by the Congress moderator, Nick Higham of the BBC, and gave an overview of the future strategy of Pro Carton. He said that due to the current financial situation, it had been necessary to trim back the budget for Pro Carton, but this would enable a new focus to be developed to ensure that the major elements were well covered and that the main messages reached the decision makers in the packaging chain.
He felt that all issues surrounding sustainability were of critical importance and much of the work that Pro Carton would be doing over the next year would be focused on this. The fact that cartons are made from an infinitely available and renewable resource and that they are easily recyclable, means that their environmental credentials are excellent and these facts need to be communicated to and understood by all the target groups.

He added that it was because of this, that the International Congress in November was entitled “Promoting Brand Values with Packaging and Sustainability”, and that high quality speakers had been invited to give the most up to date information on this topic. He encouraged the audience to visit this Congress and looked forward to seeing them again in November.


 

Istanbul, location of the ECMA Congress 2009

Istanbul, location of the ECMA Congress 2009

 

   
Further
Information
Richard Dalgleish +44 777 613 8510 dalgleish@procarton.com
Suzanne McEwen +43 1 218 6918 mcewen@procarton.com
Background Pro Carton is the European Association of Carton and Cartonboard manufacturers. Its main purpose is to promote the use of cartons and cartonboard to brand owners, the trade as well as designers, the media and politicians as an economically and ecologically balanced packaging medium.