Joint Meeting of the First Meeting of the Green Innovation Strategy Meeting and the First Meeting of the Working Group for the Green Innovation Strategy Meeting Held

1. Outline of the joint meeting

Date and time:

July 7 (Tue.), 2020; from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Venue:

Shared Meeting Rooms 1 to 3 on the 17th floor, METI Main Building
Note: This meeting was held physically as well as using a video conference system as a measure for preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus disease.

Participants:

METI State Minister Matsumoto; Mr. Iida Yuji, Director-General, Industrial Science and Technology Policy and Environment Bureau; Mr. Watanabe Shoji, Deputy Director-General, Industrial Science and Technology Policy and Environment Bureau; Dr. Yamaji Kenji, Senior Vice President and Director General, Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth; expert members; and others

2. Details of the joint meeting

(1) Efforts for achieving the “Beyond-Zero” initiative

Against the backdrop that climate change is a global issue, Japan formulated the Environment Innovation Strategy in January 2020, aiming to achieve the “Beyond-Zero” initiative in which Japan should retroactively reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in accordance with the stock base approach, i.e., reducing CO2 emissions more aggressively than the “Zero-Emission” initiative. The Green Innovation Strategy Meeting was inaugurated as a control tower to ensure the implementation of the strategy, and, on July 7, 2020, a joint meeting of the first meeting of the Green Innovation Strategy Meeting and the first meeting of the Working Group for the Green Innovation Strategy Meeting was held. In the beginning of the joint meeting, State Minister Matsumoto delivered a speech and stated that Japan will utilize the joint meeting to further strengthen the advancement of innovations toward the “Beyond-Zero” initiative.

Following this, in the joint meeting, with the attendance of the expert members, participants held discussions on the progress in the strategy and it held discussions on future advancement of the strategy, including the examination of the development of an “Green Innovation Dashboard” which provides a progress list for each research and development theme and of the establishment of a new post called an “Green Innovation Analyst” comprised of experts in charge of managing the progress in the respective themes.

(2) Discussions on carbon recycling and CCUS

At the meeting, some representatives of a participating company made a briefing on the company’s cutting-edge efforts in Carbon Recycling and carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology. Following this, the meeting of the working group was held and participants held discussions on trends in and measures for technological development at home and abroad.

3. Discussions on future actions

The joint meeting announced the start of the “Zero-Emission Challenge,” a new project supporting companies in tackling efforts for innovation toward the realization of a decarbonized society, which was inaugurated to encourage companies to attract private funds, including ESG investments,* in the field of zero-emission innovations. Moreover, it held discussions on: potential impacts of social changes on the fields of energy and the environment, taking into consideration the situations which may be brought about by the novel coronavirus disease and other factors; related future actions; and other issues.

The joint meeting also decided that the Green Innovation Strategy Meeting will annually convey a “Zero Emission Progress Report” to people at home and abroad as a compilation of information on the progress in the strategy.

Links to related information

• Green Innovation Strategy Meeting (Website on Prime minister’s office) (in Japanese)
• Documents distributed at the meeting (in Japanese)