Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd.
Sunbake Co., Ltd.
October 7, 2026

Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; President and Representative Director: Shinichi Kajiya) announced that Sunbake Co., Ltd., a group company of Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. engaged in the manufacture and sale of adhesives for wood-based materials, has obtained Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for three wood-based material adhesives. EPD is a system for quantitatively disclosing the environmental impacts of a product throughout its life cycle, including greenhouse gas emissions.
The three products covered by the EPDs are the phenolic resin adhesives “SUMITAC™ PL-275” and “SUMITAC™ PL-9001,” which are widely used for wood-based materials, and “SUMITAC™ PL-702,” a lignin-modified phenolic resin adhesive that was commercially launched in 2024. With these EPDs, customers can use third-party-verified data to improve the accuracy of life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint of products (CFP) calculations for building materials and buildings.

Background

In the construction sector, there is an increasing need to establish environmental data for the building materials used in construction. Efforts to measure and reduce whole-life carbon—the greenhouse gas emissions generated throughout the entire life cycle of a building—are advancing both in Japan and overseas. Against this backdrop, EPDs, which disclose environmental information on building materials and other products based on third-party verification, are becoming increasingly important. Their use in LCA and CFP calculations for buildings and building materials is also expanding.
In Japan, systems and frameworks for calculating the life-cycle carbon emissions of buildings are being developed, and there is growing demand for building material and material manufacturers to provide environmental data.
In response to these developments, Sunbake has worked to establish environmental information for its wood-based material adhesives by utilizing the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s support program for the development of CO₂ emission factors and related data. This initiative has led to the acquisition of EPDs for the three products.

Products Covered by the EPDs

* PL-702 is one of the research outcomes of a project commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

Significance of Obtaining EPDs and Value for Customers

The EPDs obtained for these products enable customers to use third-party-verified environmental data to assess the environmental impacts of their products and buildings more appropriately.

Customers in the housing, construction and building materials sectors

Adhesives are an important component of wood-based building materials. Establishing environmental information for adhesives will contribute not only to the advancement of environmental performance evaluations and LCA calculations by manufacturers of wood-based building materials, but also to similar initiatives by housing manufacturers and construction companies.

Future Developments

Sunbake will continue to promote greater transparency of environmental information in the field of adhesives for wood-based materials. At the same time, the company will support customers in calculating and disclosing their environmental impacts and contribute to the decarbonization of the entire wood-based building materials supply chain.
Sunbake will also continue to develop and promote environmentally considerate products utilizing lignin and contribute to the realization of a sustainable society by expanding the range of products covered by EPDs.

Sunbake Co., Ltd.

President: Kazuo Tanaka
Established: April 2000
Head Office:
2-5-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002 (Tennozu Parkside Building)
TEL +81-3-5462-4933
Technical Development Headquarters:
2100 Takayanagi, Fujieda City, Shizuoka 426-0041 (inside Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. Shizuoka Plant)
TEL +81-54-635-2425

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