Environmental Report

Developing Environmentally Friendly Products

As a responsible manufacturing enterprise, the Lintec Group strives to develop products that reduce environmental impact. The group also works to reduce impact on the environment from resource extraction and the procurement of raw materials through production processes to disposal by including life-cycle assessments (LCA ) right from the design stage.

  • LCA: a method for comprehensively assessing effects on the environment by calculating items such as the amount of energy and water input, the amount of raw materials used, and the amount of CO2 and hazardous chemical substance emitted throughout a product's lifecycle.

Guidelines for Environmentally Friendly Products

Lintec has been developing new environment-friendly products, as defined based on LCA★1 and developed 81 such products in fiscal 2021. Lintec has also developed and uses guidelines for "self-declared environment-friendly products" which are in accordance with ISO 14021★2. Lintec will continue to develop environment-friendly products.

  • 1LCA: a method for comprehensively assessing effects on the environment by calculating items such as the amount of energy and water input, the amount of raw materials used, and the amount of CO2 and hazardous chemical subsutance emitted throughout a product's lifecycle.
  • 2ISO14021: an international standard for "Environmental labels and declarations -- Self-declared environmental claims (Type II environmental labeling)" A business operator sets its own standard and may place environmental claims on the labeling of a product which satisfy that standard.
環境配慮製品の開発件数

Developing Products That Help Reduce Environmental Impact

The Lintec Group is focusing on the development and sales promotion of products with lower environmental impact. With the increasing demand for labels that can be removed neatly for the reuse and recycling of containers, we added a new re-release-type item to our lineup of biomass label materials in fiscal 2021. As an adhesive layer of label materials, the product is certified by the Japan Organics Recycling Association as a Biomass Mark product (certification number: 200128). The new product achieves a biomass content* of 10% without losing the re-release property, which helps reduce CO2 emissions. We will continue to develop products for a wide range of applications, including labels for daily necessities, food, home electronics, stationery, and other products.

  • Biomass content: Percentage of biomass (dry weight) contained in the product

Re-release-type label material using biomass adhesive

We are focusing on the development and sales promotion of products with lower environmental impact. As part of this effort, we have enhanced our lineup of strong adhesive-type label materials using biomass adhesive and laminated films using a biomass surface layer. With the recent increasing demand for labels that can be removed neatly for the reuse and recycling of containers, we added a new re-release-type item to our lineup of biomass label materials, and started to sell it on September 13, 2021. As an adhesive layer of label materials, the product is certified to display the Biomass Mark, which is operated by the Japan Organics Recycling Association (certification number: 200128). The new product achieves a biomass content* of 10% without losing the re-release property, which helps reduce CO2 emissions.

  • Biomass content: Percentage of biomass (dry weight) contained in the product
容器からきれいに剝がせて、リユース・リサイクルを促進します
Can be removed neatly from a container to promote reuse and recycling

Development of new glassine-based release paper

Release paper stuck to the back of a label as a mount can be removed neatly from the adhesive surface because of the silicone release agent coated onto the base paper. Release paper must have releasability according to the type or use of adhesive, thickness, and strength for printing or die-cutting as well as other performance requirements needed for manual or machine labeling. Release paper with a release agent directly coated onto glassine paper has the texture of the paper surface transferred to the adhesive surface, which means that in the case of labels that use films for the surface layer, transparency or design may be damaged. To prevent such damage, polyethylene is generally laminated onto the surface of the paper to provide high surface smoothness. In response to the increasing demand for plastic reduction, we developed release paper that achieves high surface smoothness without using polyethylene.

Label transparency comparison (left: release paper on which release agent is directly coated, right: new product)
Label transparency comparison (left: release paper on which release agent is directly coated, right: new product)