Sweden’s textile carers gather after a two-year break
SWEDEN
Report by Daniel Karrholt, Swedish Laundry Association
It was a fresh November morning when the Swedish Textile Service Association (Swedish Laundry Association) gathered again for an autumn meeting after a two-year break. One hundred and thirty delegates met at Hotel Blique by Nobis, designed by Sigurd Lewerentz, which opened in 2019 with generous areas, a roof terrace and an optimal location between Vasastaden and the neighboring Hagastaden.
WELCOME BUZZ: A lively area with 25 exhibitors was part of the event. Pictured, Anna Johansson and Anja Augustsson, SoCom Scandinavia
A welcome buzz from the fairgrounds foreshadowed the arrival of chairman Jan Kluge who gathered everyone for the first presentation with Sven Otto Littorin, the business profile and former minister and just a few days earlier a new grandfather. It was exciting to listen to all sorts of stories from him and his thoughts on the future.
After Littorin, it was Maria Ström – Wargön Innovation / The Loop Factory -‘s turn, one of the driving forces behind Texchain3, which is a state-supported project with the aim of creating new cross-industry value chains that make it possible to industrially use and further refine textile residual flows. Among the project participants are Blåkläder, Rikstvätt Sverige, Martinson, Region Skåne, Samhall, Västra Götalandsregionen and Sweden Laundry Association.
A long-awaited lecture was given by Jonas Olaison. Sustainability Manager at Textilia. Olaison was one of the winners of the Sustainability Award 2020 and talked about Sustainable Textile Service 2.0 and what the industry needs to do to take the next step.
Stina Jansson, marketing manager at BP Football, talked about social sustainability, what it leads to and the purpose behind it. Jansson has been at BP since 2017 and is responsible for marketing, communication, CSR and partners and runs the work for social sustainability within the association. BP has been cooperating with the Laundry Association since 2015.
Most of the laughs did not come as a surprise when Christer Bäcker, the Norwegian Laundry Association’s energy adviser, walked the podium. With his expertise, he guided us through the jungle of considerations that exist to get an optimal energy mix.
ETSA’s Elena Lai – Secretary General of the association for a year now – gave a colorful introduction to how European lobbying works and how we, together with European and American sister associations, can make a decisive difference.
Richard Herrey, the first lecturer to walk the podium after lunch, had a story that was something out of the ordinary. His father was a great influence and the family was, among other things, the best distributor for the leading newspaper in Gothenburg, Göteborgs-Posten while other various ventures included starting a soft ice cream business in Spain and performing clown sketches at circuses.
Herrey went to Los Angeles, got to dance on the TV show Fame and was “discovered”. The rest is, as we say, history. After a win in the European Song Contest 1984 with his brothers with the song Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley‘. it was Hard Rock Café and Mix Megapol radio station for him. When Herrey pointed out that he did not drink alcohol when he was recruited to the restaurant world, he received the answer: “No problem, we have others who can.”
Herrey’s speaker present was KG Bergström’s new book Distress and death – the Russian occupation of Norrland (Northern Sweden) in 1809. Bergström is Sweden’s most famous political journalist. By pure chance, Bergström then took over and gave us a razor-sharp analysis of the political situation in our country. (In reality, that bit was actually planned.)
At the end of the day, the event ended with coffee and dialogue among the delegates. If you want to catch up on the event, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFeNRrRjOoo