Basic Concept
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a process used to numerically assess the use of raw materials, their environmental impact, and their potential environmental impact on the earth and ecosystem over the entire life of a product, spanning the procurement of raw materials through to production, distribution, use and disposal. The Nisshinbo Group's Business Conduct Guidelines include Awareness and Concern towards its environmental impact. The Group promotes the reduction of environmental burdens throughout the life cycle of its products, including the stage of use, and faithfully realizes a safe and secure society for all people.
【Main measures】
- ① Improved convenience by making the same LCA software available in Japan and overseas
- ② Promoting the development and expansion of operators by holding LCA software utilization seminars
- ③ Reduction of chemical substances and waste emissions based on product LCA results
- ④ Introduction of LCA from the product development stage and application of it for the development of environmentally friendly products
Please refer to "Promotion System" in "Environmental Management" for the promotion system.
Specific Initiatives of The Nisshinbo Group
6th Sustainability Promotion Plan (to be achieved by FY2027)
Promote Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): 70% or more of total sales
The Nisshinbo Group established the 6th Three-Year Environmental Goals (6th Sustainability Promotion Plan) with the fiscal year ending FY2027 as the target year, setting the promotion of environmental management as a priority activity and establishing the above KPIs to promote Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)*.
* Life cycle assessment (LCA): Understanding of environmental load, through the life cycle of a product, from raw materials, to production, use, and finally to disposal.
For the promotion of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the proportion of the Group’s FY2025 sales totaled 50%, a 2% increase from the previous fiscal year. To achieve these goals, the KOKUSAI DENKI Electric Group, which joined Nisshinbo's initiatives in FY2024, is implementing particularly proactive measures.
Going forward, the Nisshinbo Group will collaborate across segments to develop standardized LCA calculation rules for similar businesses with the aim of further increasing the proportion of revenue generated by these initiatives.
Please refer to "Environmental Management" for details regarding of the "3-Year Environmental Targets."
Please refer to "Sustainability Promotion Plan and KPIs" for details regarding of the "Sustainability Promotion Plan."
Advancement of LCA activities
The Nisshinbo Group is expanding its LCA activities while putting LCA software to effective use to calculate LCA data in order to understand environmental impacts and promote product standards and manufacturing process improvements, as well as the development of environmentally friendly products.
Naturally, the Group draws on LCA product results to reduce energy consumption in manufacturing and emissions of chemical substances. Additionally, the Group introduced LCA from the product development stage, contributing to the expansion of sales of environmentally friendly products.
Specific Activities of the Group Companies
Initiatives to Strengthen the LCA Promotion Framework
KOKUSAI DENKI Electric Inc., is reviewing its internal structure to further strengthen its framework for promoting life cycle assessment (LCA) starting in FY2025.
The company established new subcommittees organized by product category under its existing Environmental Design Subcommittee, thereby strengthening initiatives in five key areas represented by each business division. This change created a framework that allows KOKUSAI DENKI to conduct LCA activities more effectively by tailoring them to the specific characteristics of each product category. Furthermore, to promote the use of a unified LCA tool across the company, KOKUSAI DENKI first compared it with existing calculation methods and conducted verification focused on individual products. As a result, the tool had been confirmed to be in use for 121 models as of April 2026.
In FY2026, building on its past achievements, KOKUSAI DENKI is expanding its scope of operations into a variety of different fields, including solutions, railways, public works, and special-purpose machinery. Furthermore, relevant departments are collaborating to standardize evaluation methods in the software and construction sectors, working to establish more practical and unified calculation methods.
Going forward, KOKUSAI DENKI will continue to promote LCA to visualize and reduce the environmental impact of its products and services, thereby further enhancing the Nisshinbo Group’s contributions to the environmental and energy sectors.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Environmentally Friendly Products
GOYO ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., is expanding its environmental initiatives to include overseas commercial mobile radios and such industrial equipment products as those for FPD manufacturing equipment and semiconductor lithography systems.
At the start of development, as part of the eco-design assessment, GOYO ELECTRONICS established business development goals and used the Eco-Design Assessment Sheet to evaluate whether there were any changes to the environmental impact and the direction of those changes (improvement or deterioration). Upon completion of development, the company input the basic product data for both the reference product and the evaluated product, and used the LCA Assessment Sheet to evaluate the extent to which environmental impacts (such as CO2 emissions and resource consumption) have been reduced, thereby verifying the effectiveness of the measures.
In the second half of FY2025, GOYO ELECTRONICS conducted 14 LCA assessments for industrial equipment products by December. The company will continue to strengthen their LCA efforts to drive sales growth of environmentally friendly products.
In FY2026, GOYO ELECTRONICS aims to conduct 22 LCA assessments in the first half of the year, averaging at least three per month. The company will also organize training sessions on MiLCA and work to further expand sales of environmentally friendly products.
Continued Implementation of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Education
GOYO ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., is promoting the internal use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to further strengthen environmental considerations during product development. Rather than centralizing LCA within a specific specialized department, this initiative emphasizes equipping each individual designer with the practical skills to apply LCA independently and positioning LCA as a measure to strengthen the human resource base.
By continuously implementing a phased training program that combines basic education for designers with on-the-job training (OJT) employing actual development projects, approximately 50% of company designers now have experience conducting the LCA process. Through the sharing of case studies and the promotion of best practices within the Design Department, GOYO ELECTRONICS has accumulated expertise in LCA implementation, and its adoption is becoming firmly established across their development teams.
Moving forward, GOYO ELECTRONICS set KPIs targeting FY2027 and aiming for LCA to be applied to at least 70% of their products and for 80% of designers to have experience with LCA. By establishing a system that enables the use of LCA from the early stages of development, the company aims to achieve both the continuous creation of environmentally conscious products and the development of skilled personnel.
The Use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Nisshinbo Chemical Inc. launched the FC-LCA Project in February 2025 in order to incorporate LCA into the product development process and facilitate the development of environmentally friendly products. The project team operates as a cross-functional organization comprising members from the procurement, production engineering, manufacturing, and development departments.
In FY2025, Nisshinbo Chemical conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) of its automotive fuel cell separator products (such as the CC1), covering the entire lifecycle from raw material procurement, including transportation, to product shipment and disposal. The results revealed that the transportation of raw materials and finished products had a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the company was able to identify manufacturing processes that generate substantial greenhouse gas emissions, thereby clarifying key considerations that must be addressed when moving products into mass production.
Nisshinbo Chemical will use the results of this LCA assessment to inform future product development, technological development, and process development.
Conducting an LCA for CARBODILITE® HMV-5CA-LC
Since 2024, Nisshinbo Chemical Inc. has been conducting a life cycle assessment (LCA) of its eco-friendly product, CARBODILITE®.
While CARBODILITE® contributes to the development of products with a reduced environmental impact by serving as a hydrolysis inhibitor in biodegradable resins, fuel is consumed during the transportation of raw materials and the manufacturing process. Nisshinbo Chemical assessed the current status of its flagship CARBODILITE® product, HMV-5CA-LC, by calculating the environmental impact at each stage of raw material procurement, manufacturing, use, and disposal with the LCA Department taking the lead. As a result, the company found that greenhouse gas emissions associated with the transportation of its primary raw materials had a significant impact. A comparative analysis of raw material suppliers at different production sites confirmed that selecting a supplier with lower greenhouse gas emissions could reduce emissions across the entire process by 22%.
Going forward, Nisshinbo Chemical will consider adopting raw materials from manufacturers with lower greenhouse gas emissions for carbodiimide production and will use these findings to support future product and technological development.
