Adhesives and sealants are everywhere: in the car you drive, the building where you work, the smartphone in your pocket. Yet the industry behind them rarely gets the attention it deserves.
A sector of significant scale
The adhesives and sealants industry boasts more than 50,000 employees, 430 companies and 650 manufacturing sites in Europe. It contributes €20,7 billion to the European economy and an annual investment of €580 million in research and development. 85% of the companies in the sector are SMEs.
From wind turbine to smartphone
Adhesives and sealants are custom-developed for specific applications, often in close collaboration with customers in automotive, energy or electronics. Electric vehicles rely on adhesives for batteries and lightweight body construction. Wind turbines depend on high-performance adhesives to ensure the structural integrity of rotor blades. In electronics and smartphones, adhesives enable the precise assembly of increasingly complex and miniaturised components. Because the sector is active across so many value chains simultaneously, the A&S sector is involved in many different value chains and strengthens the innovation capacity of the industries that depend on it.
Growing pressure on a strong sector
Global production capacity for chemicals continues to expand rapidly, including in regions where governments actively support new investment but energy costs in Europe, which remain significantly higher than elsewhere, ripple through the entire value chain via raw materials and intermediates, directly affecting A&S production costs. European producers compete in that global market without equivalent support, with the risk that production and expertise will gradually shift to other regions.
The sector fully supports Europe’s regulation for chemical safety and environmental protection and calls for consistent enforcement, especially for imported products. At the same time, other obligations are stacking up: national requirements on top of European rules, overlapping legislation and diverging definitions. For the 85% of SMEs in the sector, this is no abstract burden: it is a tangible brake on investment and innovation.
Strong foundations but a vulnerable environment
The adhesive and sealant sector has many strengths, including strong innovation capacity, highly skilled people and close connections with key manufacturing sectors. Ensuring that this expertise remains anchored in Europe is not just a sectoral concern. It goes to the heart of Europe’s industrial competitiveness. The sector finds itself at the crossroads of multiple EU policy initiatives. Europe needs a regulatory framework that supports competitiveness and innovation.
