With a total of 182 delegates from across the nonwovens industry logging on, the latest online edition of the International Nonwovens Symposium (INS) confirmed the event as a key occasion for the sector, showcasing Brussels-based EDANA’s mission to support the sustainable growth of the industry.

Held from June 9-10, the interactive format was a key component in ensuring participants could actively engage, managing over hundreds of video and chat meetings via a virtual platform as well as enjoying a varied choice of conference presentations, panel discussions and live Q&A sessions.

The conference programme examined market trends throughout 2020 – a period which saw record nonwovens production – sustainability initiatives and new product developments via presentations and lively Q&A sessions.

With a range of companies promoting new products and insights via product presentations and hundreds of new online contacts made, participants from across the whole supply chain once again made the most of all the INS offers.

“The symposium was a wide-ranging exploration of topics with a tight focus on the circular economy and the tools for enabling it,” said Vova Nesin, research and innovation director at Berlin and London-based product design company Pentatonic “The action-oriented and collaboration-focussed sessions were both innovatively produced and highly engaging, allowing for dynamic sharing and debating within a really insightful group of leaders.”

Johan Berlin, managing director of InvestKonsult, also spoke of the rewarding way networking was facilitated.

“I was pleasantly surprised at how well the virtual forum worked and how easy the Swapcard platform made it to communicate and interact,” he said. “Like everyone else, I am very much looking forward to meeting people in person again, but this was a great substitute.”

“This was a really rewarding event for us at EDANA to host,” said Pierre Wiertz, general manager of EDANA. “For so many professionals to dedicate their time and share their expertise with the wider nonwovens community is a real testament to the ongoing attraction of the symposium. I was enthused by the scope of durable nonwoven products covered and the impressive convergence of sustainability considerations and the topics covering the automotive and construction sectors. I was also very encouraged by the level of engagement amongst the delegates, with a great amount of interaction and knowledge sharing.”

The platform and all conference content will remain accessible to stream for attendees for a further three weeks. Registration will remain open for those who would like to access conference content.

www.edana.org