ETIRA online AGM discusses public policies supporting reuse, and decides to enhance its PR outreach

March 11, 2021

On 4 March 2021, ETIRA held its 2020 annual meeting. Due to the Covid pandemic, we were unable to hold the meeting in 2020.

 The meeting kicked off with the statutory parts: the 2019 finances were approved, as was the 2021 budget. The general assembly also elected the 2021-2023 Board of Directors:  Javier Martinez from Turbon Products was re-appointed as ETIRA President. Also re-elected were Gerwald van der Gijp from ARMOR (Vice-President), Jan-Michael Sieg from KMP, David Connett from Connett & Unland, Volker Kappius from Delacamp, Peter Knak from IMEX Europe and Milan Banjac from TIN Factory. 

At the meeting, ETIRA members discussed the strategy of the association. The successful 2020 communication program will be continued in 2021. Members also heard a status update on the ETIRA remanufactured cartridge sticker: to allow distinction between our products and newbuilt non-OEM clones, ETIRA will develop a sticker that certifies that a cartridge carrying the sticker is a remanufactured OEM cartridge. Secretary Vincent van Dijk briefed attendees about the 2020 green public procurement criteria (GPP) for imaging equipment. Although not compulsory, the new criteria strongly recommend using remanufactured cartridges, and prohibit anti-reuse practices and tools. ETIRA members who want to sell cartridges to a public organization can use these criteria (available in all EU languages) to convince the customer to go for reuse instead of new. The meeting also heard the latest about  the EU Voluntary Agreement Imaging Equipment: following strong pressure from Member States and others, the OEM’s are now looking at including reuse targets in the VA scope.  

Expert Phil Sargeant of market intelligence firm IDC (UK) presented the latest industry market data.

Unfortunate the online format prevented the informal networking for which the ETIRA meetings are best-known. ETIRA hopes that we can organize a 2021 annual meeting again in the normal face-to-face format in September.