This year the Autumn meeting was moved to one of our most expansive municipalities - Nacka. For many, autumn is our most beautiful season and in scenic Nacka it is hard to say no. In total, we were about 130 participants who had sat down this time.
The Autumn meeting also has its special contribution through the industry exhibition, which this time had attracted around 35 member companies. Many thanks to everyone for your work.
It has become a tradition to be welcomed by one of the meeting city's municipal councilors. This time we had the pleasure of listening to Agnes Palinski, municipal councilor (M) and 1 vice-chairman of the Environment and Urban Planning Committee and member of the municipal council in Nacka.
The microphone was then handed over to Cyprian Ong'au Morang'a, site manager for MoveByBike in Stockholm. MoveByBike is a leading logistics player for citysmart last mile. With electric transport bikes, they get around and save time. The logistics solution of the future – environmentally friendly and cycle-borne.
We were then able to welcome Yvonne Augustsson, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, back as a lecturer. At the 2017 annual meeting, Yvonne spoke about microplastics. Now the focus was three pieces of legislation, which will affect the members of The Swedish Textile Service Association.
Two pieces of legislation have been decided: Ecodesign for sustainable products and separate collection of textiles from other waste. In addition, there was a brief status update on the ongoing negotiations regarding possible producer responsibility.
Michael Bo Jensen is a leading expert at our supplier member Alumichem. For the past 20 years, he has implemented solutions for industrial laundries and continues to do so. More recently, he has worked with sludge solutions for land-based fish farming facilities, so-called Recirculating Aquaculture Systems.
Alumichem is also present at Texcare Hall 8.0 L76. Be sure to visit them there.
We could also say a "welcome back" to Roos Mulder, who was at the Autumn meeting in 2022. Roos talked about Texscale - project to drive systematic change through scaling up. Project participants are Rester, Sysav, Tväteriförbundet and others.
The project's main goal is to increase the resource-efficient use of textiles by bridging the gap between nonwoven production on a pilot and industrial scale, optimizing logistics and increasing the knowledge and ability within the industry to convert to a circular economy.
We then had a fantastic three-quarters with Allan Larsson, who this year has published "Memory pictures - instead of memoirs". It is a new form of memoir writing. He describes in pictures and a short text 51 events from his childhood and a long life in public activities.
The memories range from the eight-year-old's fear that the nuclear weapons tests in 1946 would blow up the whole world, to the first meeting with Olof Palme in 1956, the work as a journalist at Arbetet, Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, SVT and Tidningen Vi as well as the experiences as one of "Tage's boys" 1967–69, six years as AMS director, five years in the government and the Riksdag in the 1990s. He describes Sweden's path to the EU "From Metal speech to membership" and how in the 1990s he came to collaborate with Jacques Delors and Jean-Claude Juncker on a European employment strategy and a social pillar. In a commemorative picture, he compares the experiences from his work for four prime ministers: Tage Erlander, Olof Palme, Ingvar Carlsson and Stefan Löfven.
After lunch, there was a presentation by Simone Fuchs, Head of Legal & Sustainability @Eniro, who talked about the company's change journey - from the yellow catalog to today's innovative customer-focused operations.
The day ended with Jan Nicolay, Head of Business Development, sewts. This is how they describe themselves:
"sewts is pioneering the century of Physical AI. We are accelerating the development of agile robotics perfectly tailored to bridge automation gaps in the textile service industry.
Our brain-in-a-box approach to building advanced robotics spins out intricate and new use cases, positioning sewts as the go-to company to address complex automation tasks in the future".
Chairman Michael Sandin thanked everyone for a successful day so far and with a special thanks to all the partners of the Autumn meeting – Texcare, Alumichem, Dibella, Maxi-Press, Beirholm, Floringo and ABS Laundry Business Solutions.
Then great activity followed at the exhibition and at 19.15 more than a hundred people gathered for dinner. The happy atmosphere lasted long before the night turned to morning.
See you soon at Texcare - finally!
