Overall Picture of Our Business

The Sumitomo Forestry Group conducts a wide range of business activities centered upon wood.

We have built strengths unique to the Sumitomo Forestry Group, including the technology and know-how in wood accumulated for over 330 years since our founding, ties with customers, networks built in and outside Japan, and the brand power established over years. Based on these strengths, we utilize wood as an environmentally sound natural resource to provide a diverse range of lifestyle-related services that contribute to the realization of a sustainable and prosperous society.

Value Chain
Environment and Resources Business		Timber and Building Materials Business		Housing Business/ Overseas Housing Business/ Real Estate Business	Lifestyle Services Business
• Seedling Farming • Site Preparation • Garden Vegetation • Cultivation • Harvest • Transport	Procurement Fuel Production Power Generation Sales	Verification of Legal Compliance/Sustainability Procurement Shipping/Sales Delivery	Product Development Raw Material Procurement Manufacturing Delivery	Sales/Product Development Design Materials Procurement Construction After-Sales Support	Elderly Care Business Insurance and Solutions Business Golf Course Management Lodging and Community Revitalization Business

Integration of ESG Measures in Each Business

Environment and Resources Business

Forests provide a range of benefits, including water source recharge, mitigating global warming, conserving biodiversity, and supplying forest products. Managing a forest means ensuring its sustainability. It is essential to oversee the cycle of planting and growing trees, cutting them down and effectively using them, and planting new trees.

In Japan, many planted forests are in the harvesting period, and reforms are being aimed at promoting the use of wood to transform forestry into a growth industry. The clear-cutting of areas will expand in Japan’s forests as the use of domestically produced wood increases. This will necessitate ensuring a stable supply of seedlings for reforestation. In the domestic forestry business, we are using advanced forestry machines that increase productivity, while establishing and enhancing a seedling production system.

In the overseas forestry business, we will face a further decrease in the supply of natural wood due to a global decrease in the number of forests and stricter regulations on logging in natural forests. Under these circumstances, we are conducting large-scale tree planting projects and effectively using logs as raw materials in our manufacturing business. Through these measures, we are striving to achieve sustainable forest management in harmony with local communities and environment while producing industrial materials. In December 2022, we acquired 100% of the shares of PT. Bina Ovivipari Semesta (BIOS), which owns and manages mangrove forests. We are aiming to create high-quality blue carbon credits by conserving and managing the mangrove forests as conservation forests.

In the renewable energy business, we are mainly focusing on wood biomass power generation to deal with the shortage of sustainable energy services. Specifically, we are converting waste building materials and unused forest resources into chips for use as biomass fuel. Through this business, we can supply renewable energy and also contribute to the effective use of forest resources, the improvement of local forest environments, and the further development of forestry.

Timber and Building Materials Business

In the timber and building materials business, we are conducting a range of projects focused on wood and taking measures against various social issues in the procurement, distribution, and manufacturing processes. Specifically, we are establishing a recycling-oriented resource supply system based on a timber industrial complex, and striving to standardize carbon neutral design through the expanded use of One Click LCA.

In distributing timber and wood products, we recognize the importance of ensuring respect for human rights as well as occupational health and safety, giving consideration to biodiversity conservation and local communities, and complying with laws, regulations, and social norms. We have set a target for the handling rate of sustainable timber and wood products, and incorporated a process for checking the sustainability measures taken by suppliers into our business processes. In this way, we are integrating ESG measures with our business activities.

In manufacturing, we recognize that it is essential to build an environment in which employees can work with safety and peace of mind, and to reduce our environmental impact. To meet these requirements, we endeavor to improve our safety measures and working environment while also reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and increasing our recycling rate.

Housing Business

In the housing business, we provide customers with houses and services that help them live with safety and peace of mind for many years. The important challenges we strive to meet in our business include giving consideration to the global environment in the development, design, and construction stages; using sustainable wood and building materials; and ensuring the safety of our construction sites.

We can contribute greatly to the reduction of environmental impact by reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases from houses in occupancy. We recommend to our customers the construction of Net Zero Energy House (ZEH) that can conserve and create energy, have high resilience, and also meet their needs. We are working to obtain more orders for ZEHs, which will reduce energy consumption among households. Also, we are selling life cycle carbon minus (LCCM) houses.

Trees continue to store CO₂ as carbon even after being processed into wood products. In that sense, building wooden houses means to create a “forest” in a city.

The Sumitomo Forestry Group is going beyond merely working to achieve decarbonization at our own company. We are aiming to contribute to decarbonization throughout society by providing ZEHs and LCCM homes made from wood—a natural material which absorbs CO₂ and stores it as carbon.

Overseas Housing Business

In the overseas housing business, we focus on constructing buildings that are in harmony with the local culture and climate. We respect the management policies of our overseas subsidiaries and provide products and services that are optimized for the area. For example, in some areas of the United States, we offer homes with high energy efficiency and low environmental impacts, provide landscaping services that match local features like the scarcity of water resources, and plant indigenous trees in consideration of the local environment.

In Australia—a country where sustainability-related systems are being established—we are working on decarbonization and higher energy efficiency by standardizing the electrification of houses and solar panel installation.

In Asia, we are striving to standardize carbon neutral design by making use of the design ability we have developed in the domestic and overseas housing business as well as our knowledge about building materials with low environmental impact. We are developing environmentally friendly houses in countries such as Indonesia, while focusing on the acquisition of EDGE certification.*

Our overseas subsidiaries are adhering to the Sumitomo Forestry Group’s policies on important issues, including risk assessments on the development of houses and occupational health and safety at construction sites. They communicate with the head office of Sumitomo Forestry and take the necessary measures promptly without fail.

*The Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE) certification system is an international green building certification developed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that evaluates the utilization efficiency of energy, water, and building materials.

Real Estate Business

In the real estate business, we are striving to develop net-zero-carbon real estate to help create a decarbonized society.

When working on a project to build an office, we proactively create a design that helps increase environmental performance by utilizing the carbon storage effect of wood. We also give consideration to the accessibility of the location as well as the health and comfort of the people who will work in the office. Also, we are striving to obtain environmental certifications for green buildings such as the environmental certification LEED*¹ and the healthy office certification WELL.*² Through these measures, we will provide offices with added social and environment value.

In 2017, we formed a business and capital alliance with Kumagai Gumi Co., Ltd., which has a proven track record in the civil engineering and construction fields. Then in 2021, we made COHNAN KENSETSU INC. a part of our group. This company possesses know-how related to steel-framed and reinforced concrete buildings as well as to construction management. By combining their expertise with Sumitomo Forestry’s technologies for wooden buildings and wooden interior and exterior materials, we will expand our business for non-residential buildings, such as medium- to large-scale wooden buildings. Through projects in which we propose the use of wood for non-residential medium- to large-scale buildings, we will contribute to the creation of a sustainable society where economic activities harmonize with the environment while passing on the culture of wood and revitalizing forestry.

*1LEED is an environmental performance evaluation system that targets buildings and land use. It was developed and is operated by the US Green Building Council.

*2WELL Building Standard is an evaluation system for buildings that focuses on people’s health and comfort. Scores are given to buildings based on the results of a documentation review and on-site inspections based on 10 concepts concerning matters that influence the well-being of people. The buildings are then ranked into four levels based on the scores gained.

Lifestyle Services Business

Japan’s aging rate has continued to increase since the country became a super-aging society in 2010, and reached 29.3%* in October 2024. The rate will rise further and exceed 30% in 2030. It is one of Japan’s most important social challenges to deal with the rapid aging of its society.

In response, in the lifestyle services business, we have been opening more nursing homes for the elderly to increase the number of rooms that we can offer. In the Mid-Term Sustainability Targets Phase 2 (2025 to 2027), we set the target of increasing the number of rooms at our private nursing homes for the elderly to 1,882 rooms, and have attained this goal by opening a new facility in November 2025.

*According to the Annual Report on the Ageing Society FY 2025 by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare