Membership and general terms
Registering with Conai involves filling in and submitting the Membership Application Form through the “Online Membership Application” service by accessing the impresainungiorno.gov.it portal, directly from the website www.conai.org (Breve_Guida_Adesione_Online – Short_Online_Membership_Guide).
Foreign companies intending to join CONAI on a voluntary basis must request the relevant specific Membership Application Form from aziendaestera@conai.org.
Joining CONAI involves paying a membership fee made up of a fixed amount (€5.16) and a variable amount. The CONAI membership fee is only paid once and can then be adjusted at the Consortium Member’s discretion.
Companies producing or using packaging (with total sales and service revenues of up to €500,000 in the last financial year prior to joining) can also opt to join CONAI via the trade associations they are members of (simplified admission). This option also applies to farms, who are not required to join CONAI but can do so on a voluntary basis.
Simplified admission is always to be understood as beneficial to individual companies, which are responsible for all the legal and economic effects of admission to the Consortium, in particular with regard to the CONAI EPR fee. In this regard such companies are required to send CONAI the 2023 Company information sheet filled in with its data for declaration purposes and/or requests for CONAI EPR fee exemption/refund.
Administrative and taxation issues
In taxation terms, the membership fee paid by Consortium members when they join, as well as any subsequent adjustments, serve as an exceptional fee and are therefore included as part of the assets on the Consortium Member’s balance sheet, under the account “Shares in other companies”, Sec. BIII, heading 1, letter d, Article 2424 of the Italian Civil Code.
CONAI membership fees are not subject to VAT and no invoice is issued.
Obligations and rights of Consortium members
Consortium members are obliged to comply with the Articles of Association, the Regulations and any Consortium body resolutions, which are binding on all Consortium members.
All Consortium members are entitled to take part in the CONAI assembly and to a certain number of votes depending on the amount of fees paid.
New companies or new packaging-related activities
New companies or any companies implementing new business activities involving the production or use of packaging must join CONAI one month from the date this business activity began, taking their first received or issued invoice as the reference date.
The same procedure can be used by any companies which are obliged to join CONAI due to already active business activities.
Membership of Packaging Material Consortia and alternatives
In addition to registering with CONAI under the “producers” category, producers must register with one or more Packaging Material Consortia in relation to the materials produced and the individual consortium statutes. Alternatively Legislative Decree 152/2006, Article 221, paragraph 3, letters a) and c), enables producers wishing to handle the environmental management of packaging and packaging waste independently to do so.
Users may also voluntarily register with the Packaging Material Consortia which offer this option. In the CONAI Membership Application Form companies declare which consortia they are joining, but companies join the individual Packaging Material Consortia directly.
For further information please see Guide to CONAI membership and EPR fee application