September 22-24,
This two-day summit continues to advance the discussion of sustainability in the adhesive and sealant industry with a program designed to provide maximum knowledge sharing, networking, and collaboration on sustainability strategies for resiliency amid the changing geopolitical landscape.
The 2025 ASC Adhesive & Sealant Sustainability Summit continues to advance the discussion of sustainability in our industry with a program designed to provide maximum knowledge sharing, networking, and collaboration on sustainability strategies for resiliency amid the changing geopolitical landscape. Throughout the summit, attendees will identify several impactful sustainability action items for ASC to accomplish over the next year.
This highly interactive summit presents many opportunities for learning, sharing and networking with experts and colleagues during the daily program and at the evening gatherings.
Get involved and elevate your sustainability journey with your peers through understanding and consensus. We need your voice!
This industry summit is ideal for business, marketing and technical professionals responsible for setting strategic goals and metrics, leading or managing their company’s sustainability program, downstream end users, and those who are seeking to learn more about sustainability role within the adhesive and sealant industry.
Exclusive sponsorships are available to increase your exposure during pre-event marketing and during the event, showing your company’s commitment to sustainability and green chemistry initiatives for the industry.
Opportunities include:
n Badges & Lanyards n Coffee Breaks
n Onsite Program n Breakfast
n Meet & Greet Reception n Lunch
“The adhesive and sealant industry is essential to sustainability as we develop, enable and promote technologies that support a growing world population to improve quality of life and to use the planet’s resources responsibly and efficiently.”
Adhesives and sealants can contribute to and enable sustainability benefits of many products.
• Lightweighting vehicles enabling better fuel efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Air sealing in residential and commercial buildings to save energy.
• Water management solutions preventing water infiltration at critical joints.
• Better bonding and sealing solutions for multiple substrates than mechanical fasteners, extending the life of a product and reducing waste.
• Eliminating corrosion associated with metal fasteners.
For more examples, visit www.adhesives.org/sustainability where you can download several sustainability resources and papers.
- Get Involved!
Join ASC’s Sustainability Committee. Contact Bill Allmond at: bill.allmond@ascouncil.org for more details.
Special recognition for their guidance and suggestions on the planning of this Summit is given to the members of the ASC Sustainability Committee:
• Frank Billotto, DuPont
• Laura James, Kraton
• Lukas Jongkind, Synthomer
• Kayla Kenney, Dow
• Casey Mahalick, Cristina DeJesus, Henkel
• Donald McBride, Excel Colors
• Peter Migchels, Kraton
• Stephen Sepulveda, medmix
• Ben Ward, Franklin International
• ASC Staff Liaisons: Bill Allmond & Connie Howe
*presentation titles and speaker time subject to change
Monday, September 22, 2025
6:00 – 7:30 p.m. MEET AND GREET RECEPTION
Speakers and Attendees (optional)
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
6:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
7:00 – 8:00 a.m.
8:00 – 8:15 a.m.
REGISTRATION
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS
ASC Sustainability Task Force
8:15 – 8:55 a.m.
KEYNOTE: Building and Leveraging Safe and Sustainable Chemistry: Ensuring Business Resilience
Rui Resendes, Director of Partnerships and Business Development, Change Chemistry
To address the sustainability challenges that confront us, we must transition manufacturing to sustainable chemistry—chemistry that is safer and more sustainable. This is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do. Sustainable chemistry can future-proof your business. It enables innovation in product design, circular economy practices, carbon reduction and product safety. This presentation will highlight how embracing a shift towards sustainable chemistry can mitigate risk, enhance brand value, and tap into growing markets for safer, more sustainable products.
8:55 – 9:40 a.m. Industry Panel
Panelists representing suppliers, manufacturers, and end users from diverse backgrounds will discuss their sustainability program, including trends, harmonization, impact and challenges that ASC can potentially undertake to drive solutions. The panel will follow up with Q&A from the audience.
Mark Schwerdtfeger, Director Sustainability North America, Avery Dennison
Lukas Jongkind, Sustainability Director, Synthomer
Jenny Allison, Adhesives and Sealants Marketing, Covestro LLC
*Note: aditional panelists to be announced.
9:40 – 9:55 a.m. BREAK
9:55 – 10:25 a.m. Secret Sauce in the Age of Transparency: The What, Why, When of Product Ingredient Disclosures
Mike Johnson, Senior Director, Materials, International Living Future Institute
Demands for material ingredient transparency and public disclosure have been rapidly increasing for the past several years. What’s behind the drive for this information, and what are the routes available to answer these calls? Are there considerations from protection of intellectual property and where is market demand likely to go from here? Join the conversation as we explore some of the leading calls for ingredient transparency and to have a better understanding of the Whys, Whats, and How’s involved with complying and staying competitive in a more transparent product and formulation marketplace.
10:25 – 10:55 a.m. Mass Balanced Polymers for Sustainable
Johanne Wilson, Business Development Manager ChemCycling®, BASF
Adhesives and sealants are available in various forms, with a common feature being their derivation from fossil feedstocks like natural gas and naphtha. BASF, in collaboration with customers and other stakeholders, is developing solutions to establish circular models where fossil feedstock can be substituted with feedstock derived from renewable raw materials or from plastic waste to make a positive environmental impact without compromising product quality or performance. This presentation will detail the advanced recycling technologies currently available, the mass balance approach, and global considerations for implementation.
10:55 – 11:10 a.m. BREAK
11:10 – 11:40 a.m.
Sharing product related carbon footprint emissions are becoming a standard metric to share with customers interested in sustainable products. Rules around what to include in and how to calculate a product carbon footprint (PCF) calculation are however not always clear, which can lead to numbers shared by different companies to not be comparable. Having a basic understanding of which standards are commonly used, which categories are most important in our industry and what questions to ask you suppliers and customers to get and provide better data are crucial in being able to make lower carbon footprint one of your value propositions as a company. Here, we will discuss common considerations around PCF and the role industry initiatives like Together for Sustainability can play in creating a level playing field for companies of all maturity levels in sustainability.
11:40 a.m. – 12:10 p.m. Building Transparency: Advancing an Industry-Wide EPD for Sealants
Monica Morano, Product Sustainability Specialist, Sika Corporation
This presentation will explore the collaborative effort to develop an industry-wide Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for sealants. Attendees will gain insight into the goals, scope, and benefits of creating a standardized EPD that reflects the environmental impacts of sealant products across the industry. The session will highlight the importance of industry alignment, data collection challenges, and how the resulting EPD can support green building certifications and sustainability initiatives. Participants will also learn how manufacturers can contribute to and benefit from this initiative.
12:10 – 1:10 p.m.
1:10 – 1:40 p.m.
Christopher White, Senior Managing Scientist, Ramboll
The business landscape is evolving rapidly, rendering long-standing assumptions about customer sentiment, expectations, regulations, and even supply chains increasingly unreliable. The future presents a mix of conflicting signals, both perilous and promising. In such an environment, making wise investments is crucial but often difficult to navigate. Our cultural narratives are filled with stories of well-timed business successes as well as devastating failures that have led to bankruptcy. So, how should businesses proceed? This presentation introduces a strategic framework designed to help guide business decision-making in uncertain times. The framework is built around three key principles: gather information, inventory your business, and adapt.
1:40 – 3:00 p.m.
Facilitated breakouts to follow the Material Selection and Accounting session where small groups interrogate and share challenges and perspective on topics pulled from session presentations and attendee requests. The report-out to a full audience is intended to provide understanding and direction to assist companies in building a strong business case for sustainability relevant to products and markets.
Product Carbon Footprint
Facilitator: Lukas Jongkind, Sustainability Director - Adhesive Solutions, Synthomer
Lessons Learned
Facilitator: Stephen Sepulveda, Head of Sales AME Industry, medmix Framework for Developing Sustainability Strategies as a Business Case
Facilitator: Christopher White, Senior Managing Scientist, Ramboll
Produce Ingredient Disclosers and Tansparency
Facilitator: Mike Johnson, Senior Director, Materials, International Living Future Institute
3:00 – 3:15 p.m. BREAK
3:15 – 3:45 p.m. Topic & Speaker To Be Announced
3:45 – 4:10 p.m. The
Jerry Lai, S&T Director, Sustainable Construction, Imerys
As the adhesives and sealants industry advances toward a low-carbon, circular economy, performance minerals are proving essential for both sustainability and technical innovation. This presentation highlights how engineered minerals-including calcium carbonate, talc, and kaolin-help reduce dependence on petrochemical-based ingredients, lower CO₂ emissions, and enhance the durability and functionality of adhesives and sealants. Lifecycle assessments (LCAs) clearly demonstrate the environmental benefits of mineral-based solutions: calcium carbonatefilled adhesives can achieve up to 30% lower embodied carbon compared to traditional formulations, alongside measurable reductions in water consumption and energy use. These data-driven sustainability gains underscore the significant environmental advantages of integrating minerals into adhesive and sealant systems. Attendees will discover the latest advances in mineral engineering, real-world case studies of sustainability improvements, and practical strategies for leveraging mineral solutions to meet ambitious environmental targets. Join us as we redefine the role of minerals-from inert fillers to active drivers of sustainability and value creation in the adhesives and sealants sector.
4:10 – 4:35 p.m.
5:30 p.m.
GROUP DINE AROUND
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
7:00 – 8:00 a.m.
8:00 – 8:40 a.m. Building in Shelf Appealing Packages that Checks All the Boxes
Salvatore Pellingra, Vice President, ProAmpac
An overview of sustainability drivers in packaging, where collaboration with suppliers helps deliver the best designs impacting sustainability metrics across the product life cycle. The selection of materials, processing, and recycling options considered during the design phase of packaging are often surprising contradictions of their impact on authentic sustainability advancements.
8:40 – 9:20 a.m. Addressing Sustainability and Design in Processing Systems
Giancarlo Caimmi, Commercial Director, Nordmeccanica Spa
The converting of films to functional packaging for consumer products requires an understanding of substrates, coatings, laminating and cutting processes that best optimize design and function while advancing holistic sustainability from cradle to cradle. Innovation in materials and processing enables environmentally friendly solutions.
9:20 – 9:35 a.m. BREAK
9:35 – 10:05 a.m. Evolving Innovation Into Real Products - RFID Labels
Designed for PET Recycling
Matt Wilkinson, Senior Sustainability Manager, Avery Dennison
This session explores how innovative RFID label technology is being transformed into real-world solutions compatible with PET recycling. It highlights the challenges and breakthroughs in designing smart labels that support product tracking without compromising recyclability. Attendees will learn about the collaborative efforts driving sustainable packaging innovation and the impact of these solutions on the circular economy. Ideal for professionals focused on packaging, sustainability, and product innovation.and staying competitive in a more transparent product and formulation marketplace.
10:05 – 10:35 a.m.
Ashley Kresen, Global Marketing Manager, Barrier Coatings, H.B. Fuller
New EPR laws are coming into force in 2025 and the multiple, ever-progressing design for recycling guidelines make the development of sustainable, food-safe packaging an exceedingly complex task. H.B. Fuller will explore the role of adhesives in the packaging, their behavior in the recycling process of various packaging materials and how they may be part of the solution. This may entail facilitating recycling, reducing packaging materials, redesigning packaging formats, or enabling compostable packaging. Much of the environmental impact
of a package is determined during the design stage and adhesive suppliers, brought in at the early stages of packaging R&D can make the difference.
10:35 – 10:50 a.m. BREAK
10:50 - 11:35 a.m. Design Workshop
Moderators: Salvatore Pellingra, Vice President, ProAmpac & Giancarlo Caimmi, Commercial Director, Nordmeccanica Spa
Small breakout groups will critique various consumer packaging examples using the lens of how materials, processing and design contribute to best performance while delivering the best sustainable option for the industry. Common misconceptions in current trends will be used to elucidate the dynamics between materials, processing and design on advancing end of life options in packaging.
11:35 a.m. – Noon Engineering Copolymer Blends Targeting Degradable Pressure Sensitive Adhesives
Alex Nyarko, Research Associate, Avery Dennison
The design of renewably sourced, readily degradable pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) that exhibit tunable adhesion properties is beneficial to address sustainability concerns associated with traditional, fossil based counterparts. In this presentation, pressure sensitive adhesives with polyester copolymer blends having bio-sourced and renewable components, were designed. These novel adhesives showcase good adhesion properties but most importantly, exhibit hydrolytic degradation within 30 days, offering a sustainable end-of-life scenario showcasing its potential for composting.
Noon – 1:00 p.m. LUNCH
1:00 – 1:40 p.m. KEYNOTE: The Future Packaging Landscape - What Should We Strive Towards and How Can Our Industry Help to Achieve It?
Charles Paul, Principal, GlueIQ
The disturbing reality of the “plastic patch” in the Pacific ocean and microplastics in our food are combining with the regular personal experience of plastic litter in our communities to make plastic a bad word. The waste is not managed well, and the recycling of plastic is inadequate. Brands which want to still package in plastic are turning to “green stamps” they can put on containers to alleviate the guilt consumers feel when buying their products wrapped in plastic. Publicly they make commitments to fully recyclable packages in the near future, a promise few consumers buy as the reality is far off. Paper can and is recycled to a high degree, and degrades in the environment. It should be papers day! But paper has limitations. Various technologies to overcome these limitations are advancing, but all increase cost, and are often partial solutions. Should the packaging industry focus on making paper better or making plastic more acceptable? How do greenhouse gas emissions, the concept of circularity, and the ongoing reality of landfilling come into play in this decision? What would an ideal future look like and is it sensible to strive towards it? If so, how can our industry help?
1:40 – 2:25 p.m. GROUP DISCUSSION & SUMMIT WRAP
to Register
Registration can be found online at www.ascouncil.org/sustainabilitysummit
Note: Regular registration ENDS
August 29, 2025. Rates go up 20% after August 29. No refunds after August 29.
REGISTRATION FEES:
Group Rate (3 or more)
(must be processed at the same time)
Hotel Cleveland, Autograph Collection
24 Public Square Cleveland Ohio 44113
Phone: 216-696-5600
reference the “ASC 2025 Sustainability Summit”
ASC Discount Group Rate: $199 Single/Double
Room deadline: Monday, Aug. 29, 2025
Reserve Your Room at the group rate. The hotel and ASC does not work with third parties working on behalf of the hotel and/or the Council. Be sure you contact the hotel directly. Also, ASC does NOT sell attendee lists from an ASC event to third parties.
per
The group rate is available until 5:00 p.m. ET on August 29, 2025. Reserve your room as soon as possible as the group rate will not be available if the ASC room block sells out prior to the deadline. Reservation requests received after August 29 will be charged standard rates as rooms are available. If you call the hotel directly be sure to mention that you are attending the ASC 2025 Sustainability Summit to receive the discounted rate.
ASC kindly asks that you only reserve the number of rooms you need, so other attendees will not be turned away because the ASC hotel room block is full. We appreciate your consideration.