Afera Secretary General Astrid Lejeune tells us what we can expect from this year’s Malta congress from 4 to 6 October: 2 days of networking and deep diving into hot tape business issues

The Afera Team and organising committee are gearing up for our Annual Conference, now in its 66th year, that has become the most important knowledge and networking event for today’s European tape businesses and professionals. From 4 to 6 October, we will be exclusively face-to-face at the Westin Dragonara Resort in St. Julian’s, Malta, focussing on “Taping our future: redefining value, reinventing industry collaboration.”

We will be touching on such circularity issues as systemic eco-innovation for a circular economy and lessons learned from the European polyurethane industry, our strategic priorities for Afera’s Flagship Sustainability Project, co-creation with stakeholders in open innovation, promotion of circularity in material selection and product lifecycle management, circularisation of tape, and finally, the potential value propositions for tape.

Working Programme
Our energetic moderator Bert van Loon, marketing innovation expert and independent strategist, along with Evert Smit, Afera President and director scouting for sustainability, technology and innovation at Lohmann GmbH & Co. KG, and I will host 6 industry-related presentations at this year’s event, as well as 2 interactive sessions with the audience on Days 1 and 2 and an experts panel debate on Day 1. Participants will greatly benefit from opportunities to interact with speakers and panellists. As Mr. Smit will discuss at greater length on the Thursday (Day 1), our future business success is all about transparency, working together, and our self-awareness of “competitive edge” versus our broader impact on the planet. Day 1’s lineup will revolve around “How to collaborate to reach sustainability and in particular circularity “next level”. Day 2 will focus on “The art of thinking in value propositions: creating, identifying and selling value.”

The entire event will include

The current and future priority agenda for the adhesive tapes industry

Research findings on systemic eco-innovation for a circular economy and lessons learned from the European polyurethane industry

Strategic priorities for a circular tape industry: Afera’s Flagship Sustainability Project

You can’t go circular alone: an open innovation approach involving stakeholders in co-creation

Promoting circularity in materials selection and product lifecycle management

How to circularise tape

The potential value propositions for tape

Afera Flagship Sustainability Project Workstream Update

Afera Technical, Marketing and Steering Committee Meetings.

Social Programme
What makes Afera’s yearly get-together unique is that in addition to all this valuable content, the 2 days will also be filled with networking opportunities outside of the boardroom to connect with colleagues in the tape industry across Europe. These include scheduled cocktails, meals and coffee breaks, as well as the joint Social Programme, which features a guided walking tour of Malta’s charming capital, Valletta.

Do not miss this unprecedented event, as there is only a short time left to book your spot! You will return home after the Conference with fresh insights and ideas about your own sustainability, circularity, innovation, collaboration, value propositions and other business strategies.
We can't wait to see you in Malta!

Don’t pass up on this opportunity to prepare your business for 2024 and beyond!

More information | Register

Lastly, I would like to thank the members of our dedicated Conference Programme organising committee for all their time and effort:

Anne-Marie Klink (technical manager of R&D of industrial tapes and adhesives at 3M Europe), Jean-Loup Masson (director of innovation, R&D and products, as well as a senior vice president, at Novacel), Evert Smit (Afera president and director scouting for sustainability, technology and innovation at Lohmann GmbH & Co. KG), Gert-Jan van Ruler (manager of technical support and business development at DRT), Cesare Muraro (manager of sales at NAR) and Bert van Loon (strategist at Afera).