Awareness is participation (1)
Editorial by Stefano Lavorini
It’s a real pity. A host of ideas, plans and projects, a lot of effort, a lot of work and money… and then, despite all, end results that - to be sincere – we could at best define as not really up to the expectations and the quality of the contents. This in a nutshell is the common picture that best sums up undertakings and events very different from each other. Chances for encounters that fall short of being totally successful because lacking in that special ssomething that makes the difference, or that is the right number and representativeness of the participants, meaning those for which the undertaking was devised and programmed.
Incapacity to mobilize ones own public or the impossibility of drawing the attention of the targeted audience? or again, lack of imagination (or better, awareness) of those that – unlike the children in Peter Pan – no longer believe in the utopia of a better world, where doing still has a sense and a purpose?
But let’s take things in chronological order and dedicate this first instalment to…
Economic Packaging Conference: the market to be (Venice, 5th-6th June 2013). Was one of the two high profile days, organized by the Istituto Italiano Imballaggio in the splendid setting of the Hotel Westin Europa & Regina, with the objective of offering sector entrepreneurs and managers (participation was free) a global vision of the risks and opportunities which, by grasping the same, might spur sector companies to attain growth, even in years of crisis.
As Barbara Giani said so well in her opening talk «awareness is not knowing all the answers but posing oneself questions…» and in this sense the list of “whys and wherefores” that require answering is truly long:
- why is it that today, thanks to Conai, in Italy an industrial sector has been created made up of companies that implement and deal with segregated collection, selection and recycling of material, forming an anti-cyclical sector that is being developed alongside and parallel to the spread and implementation of segregated collection in Italy true and proper? (Roberto De Santis);
- why it that the financial markets, that is not only the share but also the bond and corporate finance markets, have profits close to the minimum, as if the risk perception was that of a particularly lively economic context, even though this is not the case? And what will be the effects of the intervention of the central banks around the world, with the exception of the BCE, who are providing all-out liquidity and are in actual fact buying up activities on the market? (Barbara Giani);
- why is it that packaging sector closed 2012 with an increase in turnover of 2.6% (interim figures), with production (in tons) down by 5.4%, in line with the manufacturing industry taken in its entirety? (Plinio Iascone);
- why is it that we find it hard to throw off old clichés, like that of China only being an exporting country, seeing it as “the factory of the world” with an economy that only produces low quality goods? How can we correctly interact with China, if we fail to understand that the revolution in that country corresponds to the revocation of the celestial mandate (that issued by the Heavens to the governor and that legitimates him on condition that stability and unity reign in society) and that the Confucian concept of harmonious society still guides the choices of the Chinese government for a change within continuity? (Pinnuccia Parini);
- why is it that the ending of the raw materials market supercycle, and its return to fundamentals, has not led to a greater transparency and reliability of the figures used in making forecasts? And once again the issue is China, in that we have no knowledge as to the extent of the country’s strategic reserves and neither of those of the private sector? How will the energy revolution underway in the US impact our economy, built on shale gas, extracted with hydraulic fracturing technology, that is leading us through a process of re-industrialization in the petro-chemical (including plastics) and metallurgy sectors? (Sissi Bellomo);
- why is it that today, the concept of Made in Italy, from a juridical point of view, is nothing more than a “simple geographic indication”, hamstrung by a series of standards that violate the fundamental principles of legal certainty? (Fabio Brusa);
- why is it that the financial markets have given themselves a system of governance, or that is of rules and relations governed by stereotypes? Why is it that in 2008 there was talk of the banks going bankrupt, in 2011 of the sovereign debt crisis, with the consequent divisions between northern and southern Europe, and in this context Italy went from being refuge for those who wanted to save themselves from the risks of the world financial system, to a Trojan Horse for attacking the Euro? (Mario Spreafico);
- why is it that the new legislative decree of 2012, intended to improve relations with the public administration and streamline payment procedures, is for the most destined to remain a dead letter, despite all the safeguards provided? (Gretel Malmsheimer).
Well if you haven’t found anything that aroused your curiosity, you did well not to come. If this is not the case, you can read further into the matter on our website at http://dativoweb.net/it/contenuti/conoscenza-partecipazione-prima-puntata
As Angelo Gerosa, president of the Istituto was able to point out at the closure of the encounter in Venice:«We are proud to have reached this fifth edition and the fact that each year more and more people participate. It is the feather in the cap of the Istituto, because it stands out from our institutional activity that has a mainly technical slant».
But – I add – it at any rate is worthy of greater attention and participation by the sector operators. Let’s not forget it.
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