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Eight North American resin suppliers, representing 100 percent of the polymeric diphenylmethane diisocyanate (pMDI) market and >95 percent of the urea-formaldehyde (UF) market for interior wood composite panels (IWCPs), participated in an exploratory phone survey conducted in July and August 2008 that was designed to better understand their product positioning and “green” resin strategies. These eight firms were identified as the largest suppliers to the IWCP industry, which includes particleboard, medium density fiberboard, hardwood plywood, and hardboard. In 2007, the IWCP resin industry was highly concentrated and dominated by UF resins. Resin suppliers rated research and development work and technical support as the most important competitive advantage factors they used. Moreover, resin suppliers perceived the following product and service attributes to have the greatest importance to their IWCP customers: low formaldehyde emissions from finished panels (4.8 of 5), fast resolution of customer complaints (4.5), reduced volatile organic carbon emissions during panel pressing (4.3), support during resin trials (4.3), and on-time delivery (4.2). The regulatory environment (i.e., California Air Resources Board [CARB]) was the most important driver of IWCP resin manufacturers' green resin programs. Results showed a trend of increasing importance for green IWCP resin market development for the time periods defined as today, next 2 years, next 5 years, and next 10 years for pMDI suppliers, whereas UF suppliers rated green IWCP resin market development highly important over all four time periods.

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