During the Laundry Talkathon, we had the privilege of speaking to Ms. Elena Lai, the Secretary General of ETSA. Elena interfaces with European institutions on behalf of ETSA members and manages ETSA headquarters In Brussels. During this very engaging time for ETSA, recently appointed by the European Commission as Climate Ambassador, Elena worked hard to encourage a smooth green and digital transition in the textile services sector. Lai’s previous career milestones include working for Nottingham City Council serving as government relations in the EUROCITIES Culture Forum and Creative Industries Working Group. During our brief conversation with her, we touched upon many interesting initiatives by ETSA. 

Here is an excerpt. 

Recent happenings at ETSA

We just came out of our ETSA Congress, held in Rome. We had the opportunity for industry personnel to gather once again after a long time because of the pandemic. We liked to call this conference “The New Normal” because everybody was coming back from this difficult time for textile services. There were challenges that affected all the supply chains of ETSA because it is important to understand that ETSA represents textile services as its core business but textile manufacturers who make up the supply chain are also an important part of ETSA. It was interesting to see how these companies have been affected during this time and are still hopeful and resilient to overcome the situation caused by the pandemic. This time has not just been about challenges. The pandemic has paved the way for many opportunities as well. We realized in Europe and through our partnerships in the U.S that the industry had the chance to be more visible all of a sudden. It had the chance to portray its services as essential, which otherwise has been difficult to explain to the government. During the pandemic, National Governments and the European institutions had a better understanding of our industry. So, that was something that was recognized during the Congress in Rome. 

We also recognize the fact that we have new challenges coming up at the moment. It is clear that there is a global change due to the current war that is affecting our businesses. A large number of businesses have shut their operations in Russia and many others are still in the process of making sure that the supply of raw material is not affected. It is a tough moment but the industry is resilient.

Tell us about ETSA partnerships beyond Europe, especially the U.S.A

We have an important partnership with the U.S because firstly, one of our members is from the U.S i.e. TRSA. We work together on different projects and we have been doing that for a while now. We are strengthening our partnership even more by attending the Clean Show at the end of July. It will be a delegation from ETSA and myself. We consider it a great opportunity to exchange on policy development that they have realized in the U.S. We are also eager to learn from our American partners and vice versa. We would like to exchange the incredible work Europe is doing in textile services. I think The Clean Show in the U.S would be a great opportunity because there is a lot of communication and marketing that we would appreciate from our American partners because they really manage to give voice and as you probably understand, it is sometimes difficult to make people understand what textile services are. It’s something that our American partners do very well. 

We will take this opportunity to exchange more thorough policies on issues like diversity, gender inequality and opportunities they have towards people they employ. Let us not forget that we keep our people happy, they work well in the environment that we provide. 

Our partners have recently worked on projects that give opportunities to people in prisons who might need a second opportunity in life and I think these kinds of projects make us reflect on how we can engage more with people. 

Definitely in Europe, there is a strong wave of refugees at the moment, especially those coming from Ukraine. I think it is important to reflect on how we can give opportunities to these people who are temporarily or for a longer period of time, going to stay in Europe. We discussed this during the National Association Meeting of Textile Services which also took place in Rome and it is interesting to see how in each member state, there is a current organisation to handle these people. These types of projects are out of the box. They provide a new way of thinking for the laundries where we create a positive impact on society. 

Tell us about the role of ETSA as the Climate Ambassador for the European Commission and what it means for large, small and medium companies in the industry. 

It is definitely an honour for ETSA to have become the Climate Ambassador. We were appointed in July 2021 and started being operative from 2022. Ofcourse, this is not the role where you are just speaking about how beautiful it is to become a climate ambassador but it is really pragmatic in the sense that the European Commission asked us to be really practical and to not only promote good initiatives but also gather important data that can help the sector to be more green and more digital in the future to come. Clearly the sector that categorises ETSA is a sector that is living on sustainable practices and sustainable businesses. If you look at all the departments of the largest companies we represent, you can see how hard they are working on CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility and build strategies that can make them more and more sustainable.

In reality, the majority of businesses in textile services that categorise our companies and also small and medium enterprises have always been sustainable and circular businesses. In fact, circularity has become a trendy word in Europe but the fact of the matter is that all our textile services have always been circular. So it is time we communicate to the world that we are really sustainable and circular and that we can also share our best practices with other businesses and other sectors. This is a part of our Climate Ambassadorship framework. It means we are there to share the best of what we do. This holds true especially for our detergents companies and our textile manufacturers because there is a lot about recycling coming up in Europe but it will have little effect if the rest of the world does not take it into consideration. So we are really monitoring and being part of projects like the recycling hubs of the European Commission, we have members of the ETSA that are really doing a process of recycling that is going well beyond the expectation because it is needed and it is done hand in hand with textile manufacturers. 

Anything we do as textile services will not have any effect if we do not work hand in hand with our supply chain. This is something crucial that we are trying to explain when we go out there as a climate ambassador. 

Ofcourse, we made a pledge also. If you visit the ETSA official website, you can see what we promise to achieve in 3 years time. You know, Europe is asking for much more than 3 years. They have very strict deadlines that by 2030 and 2050 they want to become carbon neutral and so on. It is a tough task for larger companies. Imagine for small and medium enterprises,  this is something that will need a lot of commitment but during the ETSA Congress in Rome, we could just see that there is this commitment from the industry and therefore, it is time to put in in practice. 

This is a brief excerpt from our conversation with Ms. Elena Lai during the Laundry Talkathon. To access the full interview, please scan the QR code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1Utw6BXLww