After two days of intensive workshops during an extraordinary meeting in Vienna, the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI) has successfully consulted its members on its strategic development plan for the next three years. From policy priorities to member services and membership expansion, FESI is currently working on a new development strategy to best support the sporting goods industry in Brussels and deliver value to its members through 2025 and beyond.
Commenting on the two-day workshop in Vienna, which was held under the auspices of FESI’s Austrian association VSSÖ, FESI secretary-general Jérôme Pero said, “I am thrilled that we were able to gather so many of our members in Vienna for this strategic workshop. After two years of a pandemic that severely affected our sector and the way we operate, this meeting clearly shows how invested our members remain in FESI and how critical the work we do for them in Brussels is for their business. Thanks to these two days of discussions, we managed to shed light on new opportunities for the future, which will help us better face the challenges affecting our industry and hopefully bring new members on board at FESI”.
Given the increasing number of European policy initiatives and the growing challenges facing the sporting goods industry’s business models and supply chains, FESI members agreed on the level of engagement of the FESI secretariat in the association’s various focus areas. In the upcoming months, the focus in the area of international trade will be on the negotiation of the EU-Indonesia Free Trade Agreement, which aims to promote sustainable trade and investment between the EU and Indonesia. In the digital field, one of FESI’s policy priorities will be focused on the electronic labeling of sporting goods, which can, among other things, reduce environmental impacts and facilitate consumer information. Finally, in light of the EU’s comprehensive sustainability agenda, the attendees decided that the FESI secretariat should focus its engagement on the recent corporate sustainability due diligence initiative, which is expected to impact the supply chain management of many brands significantly. The cornerstone of FESI’s engagement will be to convince policymakers to streamline policy developments effectively and avoid redundancy and fragmentation of the EU market.
FESI members also discussed the future #StrongHer campaign to promote sport and physical activity among young girls. The new StrongHer website will be officially launched to the public in the coming weeks, along with the manifesto release.
The FESI secretariat can now create a new development plan for the next three years, which all members will officially adopt during the FESI General Assembly at ISPO Munich on November 29, 2022. Once implemented, the new plan should help to further strengthen FESI’s presence in Brussels and make it the leading platform for the entire European sporting goods sector.
