Sustainable Technology and Product Development 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

Goals and Achievements of Major Initiatives

Enhance ability to develop products and technologies that facilitate contribution to a sustainable society.

Goals for fiscal year 2021
  • Accelerate collaboration among global technology bases in the development of strategic products and new technologies.
  • Make use of compounding technologies, open innovation and AI to hasten the development of technologies that create added value.
Achievements in fiscal year 2021
  • Various facilities collaborated to promote R&D.
  • Steps were taken. to foster specialists in AI, including the establishment of the Data Science Center, and to promote collaborate with specialized third-party AI firms.
Evaluation ★★
Goals for fiscal year 2022
  • Accelerate collaboration among global technology bases in the development of strategic products and new technologies.
  • Make use of compounding technologies, open innovation and AI to hasten the development of technologies that create added value.

Accelerate efforts to develop products that contribute to sustainability.

Goals for fiscal year 2021 Accelerate efforts to develop products that contribute to sustainability.
Achievements in fiscal year 2021 Efforts led to the launch of multiple new biomass products, including printing inks and adhesives for flexible packaging.
Evaluation ★★
Goals for fiscal year 2022 Accelerate efforts to develop products that contribute to sustainability.
  • Evaluations are based on self-evaluations of current progress.
    Key: ★★★ = Excellent; ★★ = Satisfactory; ★ = Still needs work

Achieving Sustainable Growth

With the aim of realizing its redefined its Color & Comfort brand statement management vision, the DIC Group is leveraging its basic technologies, including those in the areas of optics and color, organic materials design, polymer design and dispersion, and its core technologies in such areas as polymer synthesis, compounding and formulation, and surface treatment, to develop high-value-added products that contribute to a sustainable society. The Group is also building a portfolio of next-generation products and new technologies by integrating technological resources originating across the Group, as well as actively promoting open innovation, including through collaboration with academic institutions, and CVC to drive sustainable growth.

Enhancing the Technology Platform

Accelerating portfolio transformation by combining basic technologies—including recently added inorganic materials design and biomaterials design technologies—with AI and MI

DIC’s rich lineup of basic technologies is a competitive advantage

Specific Initiatives and Achievements

The DIC Group is advancing the development and use of clean technologies. This includes promoting the development of materials for the packaging and graphics, color materials, electronics and other customer industries that improve the environmental performance of the products in which they are used, making the use of DIC products a way customers can contribute to addressing global environmental issues. In Japan, the Group devotes approximately 54% of its technological resources to the development of such products.

Products for Packaging and Graphics Applications

Recent achievements in the area of packaging materials include the launch of biomass gravure inks for surface printing that provide high resistance to oils such as butter and alcohol-based disinfectants for surface printing on films for packaging bread and other food products, and an antibacterial varnish that delivers excellent alcohol, heat and oil resistance. The FINART® BM series of gravure inks for reverse printing earned OK compost INDUSTRIAL and OK compost HOME certification—global endorsements of the biodegradability of plastics—becoming the first gravure ink sold in Japan to be certified under this program. The FINART® BM series of overprint varnishes also earned the Biomass Mark, which is granted by the Japan Organics Recycling Association. In the area of adhesives for flexible packaging, the Group launched a biomass adhesive that delivers a comparable performance to conventional petroleumbased products. During the period, the Group also commenced collaboration with a major bread manufacturer in the development of a materials recycling process for waste flexible packaging film used in bread packaging. Overseas, Group company Sun Chemical brought a variety of sustainable products for packaging applications to market, including polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-free laminating ink, compostable coatings for paper and film, water-based inks and coatings with high biomass content, and an ink that can be removed from printed articles.

Color Materials

In the area of displays, the DIC Group continued to develop pigments for use in color filters. In light of growing awareness of sustainability and an increasing preference for natural products in the area of cosmetics, the Group explored the use of Linablue® natural blue pigments and promoted the development of UV care products containing polysaccharide SACRAN™, extracted from Suizenji Nori blue-green algae in collaboration with a Japanese biotech venture. Against a backdrop of growing awareness of environmental issues, Sun Chemical extended its track record with NIR-reflective and NIR-transmissive pigments that reduce cooling costs and improve the efficiency of plastics recycling.

Products for Use in Electronics Equipment

New products in the area of products for use in electronics equipment included a low dielectric material for electronic circuit boards for devices to be used in 5G cellular telecommunications, the buildout of which is proceeding apace, and a thin industrial adhesive tape for smartphones that combines excellent adhesion and easy removability and an adhesive tape for computers that delivers outstanding reworkability. DIC also registered a trademark for and commenced sales of Hatte Totte®, a new flexible wireless sensor that can be used to detect temperature, humidity and illuminance that is mounted with a double-sided tape that also offers superb removability. In addition, the Company pressed ahead with efforts to create new businesses in collaboration with Taiyo Holdings Co., Ltd., with which it has a capital and business alliance, working with Taiyo Ink mfg., a subsidiary of its alliance partner, to develop a new seed film for fabricating wiring on high-frequency PWBs for the high-frequency bands used for 5G cellular telecommunications,

A Global R&D Configuration that Underpins Product Development

DIC’s R&D organization in Japan comprises the Technical Management Unit, which is responsible for R&D connected directly to businesses; the R&D Management Unit, which is responsible for adding depth to existing and fostering new basic technologies; and the New Business Development Headquarters, which is charged with creating strategic new businesses and commercializing business units’ next-generation product groups. These entities promote the global development of products and technologies in collaboration with the R&D components of DIC Group companies around the world. These include DIC Graphics; the Sun Chemical Group’s research centers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany; Qingdao DIC Finechemicals Co., Ltd., which conducts comprehensive R&D tailored to market needs in the PRC; printing inks technical centers, polymer technical centers, solid compound technical centers and pigment technical centers in the PRC and the Asia–Pacific region; the Fine Chemical Technical Center–Korea; and an algae research center in the United States. In fiscal year 2021, DIC established the Data Science Center with the aim of facilitating the strategic introduction of AI and MI into R&D themes and reinforcing the training of AI specialists, thereby increasing the efficiency of R&D.

Accelerating the Expansion of Sustainable Products

DIC recently introduced the proprietary DIC Sustainability Index. This index is used to simultaneously assess all DIC Group business and products from the perspectives of environmental impact reduction and social contribution. The DIC Group defines products that will help it address key social imperatives as sustainable and promotes their expansion. The index will also be used in R&D to determine the focus of research and product development themes, including the modification of products to reduce environmental impact.

Product Stewardship

The DIC Group views product stewardship as a key aspect of its operations. The Group has established a global product stewardship team for printing inks, adhesives and other products used in food packaging, which it supplies to customers around the world. The team shares information on regulations and relevant topics from various markets, as well as advances awareness thereof and provides training. Knowledge thus gained is incorporated into product design and is used to produce compliance certificates across the supply chain, which are required by customers worldwide.
The DIC Group also strives to maintain a solid grasp of laws and regulations in different countries and territories, and of trends in environmental initiatives, to ensure its ability to design products that comply with diverse controls on the use of chemical substances. In addition, the Group conducts environmental assessments on a continuous basis.

Innovation through Compounding

Building on its fundamental pigment and resin dispersion and formulating technologies, realized through the production of printing inks, DIC has succeeded in combining materials with different properties and performance characteristics to develop groundbreaking products and create new value. Newly launched products include a PPS alloy compound that responds to needs arising from the increased use of electronic components in vehicles and a non-aluminum compound for vehicle sensors that delivers outstanding electrical insulation. The DIC Group is also developing a wide range of new products, including a high–biomass content plasticizer that improves the flexibility of biodegradable resins containing a large amount of inorganic filler. The Group will continue to harness its distinctive compounding capabilities to transform its diverse technologies into competitive advantages with the aim of driving innovation.

Responding to a Circular Economy

In line with the “5Rs” (Reuse, Reduce, Recycle, Redesign and Reduce CO₂), which seek to advance the circular use of resources, the DIC Group is working to expand its lineup of biomass products, crucial to the achievement of carbon neutrality, shift to recyclable materials, and develop biodegradable and compostable materials. In addition, the Group is promoting the development of production processes using algae and bacteria and biopolymers, as well as the realization of a closed-loop chemical recycling process for polystyrene and an innovative dekinking agents. The Group is also taking active steps to help reduce waste plastic and marine plastics, recognizing these as challenges that, as a manufacturer of fine chemicals, it has a responsibility to address.

Intellectual Property

The DIC Group recognizes intellectual property as an important management resource that is indispensable to the development of new technologies and the creation of value creation, a key management challenge, and promotes intellectual property initiatives that conform with its business and technology strategies.
In core businesses, the Group pursues intellectual property portfolio strategies aimed at expanding earnings, including those aimed at building a robust patent portfolio and capitalizing on intellectual property information to cultivate new markets and promote the qualitative transformation of its business. In new business areas, the Group is advancing initiatives designed to lead to the creation of a new generation of core businesses, including making use of patent landscapes in business planning, encouraging the early acquisition of rights for newly acquired technologies, and employing an open and closed strategy. Additionally, the Group is building a configuration for the implementation of global intellectual property strategies by fortifying collaboration with its R&D bases around the world.
DIC’s intellectual property initiatives are also attracting notice from external observers. The Company is regularly among the top companies in the chemicals industry in Japan in terms of patent assets owned in a ranking conducted by an independent firm.* While the number of new patents it registers annually is small compared to leading chemicals firms, the Company is rated highly for the overall sale of its patent assets, reflecting the quality and high profile of the patents it holds.
The DIC Group is also emphasizing the improvement of employees’ intellectual property literacy to bolster respect for intellectual property rights, in line with its basic policy on compliance, and offers e-learning programs for all employees designed to protect against intellectual property risk. DIC will continue to actively promote the use of intellectual property to ensure sustainable growth in the years ahead.

  • Patent Result Co., Ltd.

Promoting Environment-Friendly Products

The DIC Group is committed to effective stewardship of the products it provides. Conscious always of the importance of ensuring its products are friendly to the environment, DIC promotes the development of products and new technologies that are useful to society and works to increase the weighting of environment-friendly products in its portfolio, by reducing the volume of hazardous substances it uses, focusing on products that are less hazardous and products that facilitate recycling, and realizing safer production processes that generate less waste and use less energy.

VOICE

We developed an easy-to-remove adhesive tape that aligns with the 3Rs.

Processing Technical Group 2, Processing Technical Division, DIC Corporation Daisuke Watanabe

In recent years, we have seen increasing demand for DIC to provide solutions that will contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, a critical global challenge. My group developed an easy-to-remove adhesive tape that delivers the outstanding adhesion required in manufacturing and can be removed easily simply by stretching. In addition to ensuring highly reliable adhesion without peeling off when in use, this tape’s easy removability helps improve the materials recycling rate for devices in which it is used, aligning with the originals 3Rs—Reduce, Reuse and Recycle—for customers and society in general. Adoption by television and mobile device manufacturers continues to increase and we plan to expand our focus to include other markets going forward.

Processing Technical Group 2, Processing Technical Division, DIC Corporation Daisuke Watanabe

We developed an adhesive for packaging materials made from recovered PET bottles.

Packaging Materials Technical Group 1, Packaging Materials Technical Division, DIC Corporation Tsukiko Takashima

With companies’ growing awareness of the need to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, the importance of actively promoting environmental protection and reducing the waste they generate have taken on greater importance. In line with the sustainability policy outlined in DIC111, we recently developed the environmentfriendly DICDRY LX-RP series of adhesives, which are made from recovered post-consumer PET bottles. This new series follows the development of biomass-based adhesives in fiscal year 2019. In addition to polymer design, which was a process of trial and error, we worked to improve product value from a customer perspective through meticulous inspections of PET bottle recycling processes, safety and recycling facilities. Looking forward, we will apply technologies developed in this effort to further expand our product lineup.

Packaging Materials Technical Group 1, Packaging Materials Technical Division, DIC Corporation Tsukiko Takashima

We developed a 100% biomass-derived polyester plasticizer.

Assistant Manager, Polymer Technical Group 10, Polymer Technical Division 2, DIC Corporation Takafumi Noguchi

Our group has developed an extensive range of polymer modifiers that includes plasticizers, stabilizers and highly functional modifiers. In recent years, we have worked to add value to the DIC Group’s modifiers with the aim of contributing to the realization of the SDGs and to sustainability. In fiscal year 2019, we succeeded in developing Polycizer W-1810-BIO, a polyester plasticizer that satisfies all the basic performance requirements of polyester plasticizers yet is derived entirely from biomass resources. This product earned Biomass 100% Biomass Mark certification from the Japan Organics Recycling Association (JORA). The reaction to this new product has been extremely positive and it has earned solid marks in a variety of applications.

Assistant Manager, Polymer Technical Group 10, Polymer Technical Division 2, DIC Corporation Takafumi Noguchi

We are promoting the development of waterborne polyurethane resins that will contribute to the success of the SDGs.

Assistant Manager, Polymer Technical Group 6, Polymer Technical Division 2 Tomohiro Tetsui

Amid rising environmental concerns, including climate change, and increasingly urgent social imperatives, companies today face an ever-more diverse array of challenges. DIC is working to develop products that take into account the global environment, ecosystems, socioeconomic systems and other factors, with the aim of contributing to sustainability. Our group focuses on polyurethane resins that impart both texture and durability to solvent-based artificial and synthetic leathers used in automotive interiors, furniture and clothing, which DIC supplies to customers around the world. We are also contributing to the circular economy by developing production processes that achieve significantly improved efficiency and adopting bio-derived raw materials.

Assistant Manager, Polymer Technical Group 6, Polymer Technical Division 2 Tomohiro Tetsui