24 September 2021

BPIF Conference praised for international success – leading on Sustainability through Innovation

The 8th Annual Visual Media Conference (VMC) truly showed that online means no geographic boundaries as it drew participants from the UK, Europe, the US and as far afield as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

This year's VMC, a joint initiative from CDI, BPIF and BOSS brought together the business supplies, digital and print industries to delve into trends, technology and innovations affecting our sectors.

The theme ‘Sustainability through Innovation’ was addressed across 3 days, 21-23 September 2021, by world-class experts who provided insight and takeaway solutions drawn from global knowledge. VMC 2021 was aligned with the BPIF’s strong focus to provide the industry with forums, tools and support to manage their environmental and sustainability requirements.

BPIF, CEO, Charles Jarrold comments, The Visual Media Conference has always been about the intersection where creativity, technology and print meet. Creativity is stimulated at these boundaries, where disciplines intersect, where there’s creative tension. Solving challenges, particularly around the area of this year’s conference focus on environment and sustainability requires imagination, creativity, entrepreneurialism, and a will to take action – all aspects that shone through a roster of presentations of greater depth, range and quality than ever.  I’ve learned much, been inspired, and encouraged to follow up and explore many topics, issues and opportunities raised over the last 3 days, and of course, made many new really interesting contacts!

With companies emerging into the ‘new NOW' economies, the conference delivered best practice ideas to define sustainability for the environment and for businesses. It presented cutting-edge technology and innovation in management techniques to form a practical toolkit for over 300 attendees. 28 live sessions ranged across all forms of communication, grounded in print but exploring complementary and competing media including Virtual Reality. In addition the conference hosted over 500 hours of chosen pre-recorded video by INKISH TV, Pimento and Canon to supplement the networking and sharing of knowledge in the one-to-one sessions.

Speakers included Nestlé, ASDA, designers working on Bugatti and a host of print manufacturers such as Canon, HP and Xeikon. A special guest appearance of global print guru, Frank Romano, celebrating his 80th birthday, was a privileged occasion as he challenged “How did we get here?”. The Visual Media Conference answered the question by showing, “This is where we go next!”

True to its mission, the collaboration of the BPIF and BOSS and sponsorship from companies who share the same intent to provide thought leadership, enabled the whole conference to be made available at no cost to attendees. The 3-day programme was presented as a ‘TV Schedule’ to make it possible to pick out individual priorities and 15 minute space between sessions allowed attendees to keep in touch with their day-to-day priorities while thinking about how to tackle them with fresh ideas from the conference. The conference was curated by Robert McClements, President of Creative Digital Industries, one of the BPIF’s Special Interest Groups.

If you missed it, don’t worry, the sessions were recorded and can be viewed on www.visualmediaconference.com.

For more information on VMC 2022, please contact Robert McClements, CDI President and Curator of VMC [email protected] - 07855 959372

To get in contact with BPIF Environmental initiatives or membership, please contact Head of Marketing [email protected].

A big thank you to all our sponsors for allowing us to organise VMC 2021 and all your support in making it successful. www.visualmediaconference.com

VMC 2021 was the 8th annual conference organised by BPIF with CDI in conjunction with BOSS Federation and founding partners Precision Proco and Creative Race.

To download the press release for use, click here.