How and why GS1 UK are working to drive engagement with government and raise awareness of GS1 standards in action.
October has been a very busy month for GS1 UK’s government affairs and policy team as they headed off to political party conference season.
At the end of 2021 GS1 UK set up a government affairs and policy department – a decision taken with the view of influencing policy and driving engagement with government. Starting in late 2022, Dan Bellis joined the organisation's head of public policy.
©UK Parliament/ Maria Unger
2023 Party conferences
Party conferences can provide a great platform for engagement – a good chance to expand the reach of our message to a significant audience in a crowded conference arena.
Over two weeks, a small team from GS1 UK attended The Conservative Party conference in Manchester, followed by The Labour Party conference a week later in Liverpool.
Raising GS1 UK's profile
Both parties afforded the opportunity to raise our GS1 UK profile and increase awareness of GS1 standards. By engaging at this level, there is greater scope to drive transformation by encouraging GS1 standards to be built into the heart of policy from the outset, rather than retrofitted into existing, and sometimes rigid, policy.
Party conferences often discuss a wide range of political topics and since GS1 standards are used across a wide range of areas, from healthcare and patient safety to global trade, the team were kept very busy at various meetings across all of our core areas.
Highlights
The GS1 UK highlight of conference season had to be our interactions with the Shadow Cabinet members during Business Day at Labour conference.
Here we were afforded real insight into their strategic direction and discussed how GS1 standards can transform the way people work and live though government policy.
More about our public policy work
Although government affairs and policy remains relatively new to GS1 UK, we have great plans ahead for extending our outreach within government and engaging with key decision makers over the next few years and beyond.
If you would like to work more closely with GS1 UK on policy, or think you can help us share case studies with government, please contact Anish and Dan via the link below.