Making Progress toward Social Transformation and New Market Creation for Carbon Neutrality with the 440 Companies Endorsing the GX League!- Second Segment Held

1. What is the GX League Basic Concept?

The GX League is scheduled to go into full-scale operation in FY2023 as a framework for companies with ambitious carbon reduction goals to invest toward reducing emissions and voluntarily start emissions trading aimed at achieving those goals.
Through this framework, Japanese companies that take the following three steps and challenge themselves to become carbon neutral aim to create an environment that drives the transformation of the economic and social systems in their entirety and the creation of new markets, allowing them to exert their competitiveness in the international business world.

The GX League offers three places

A place to discuss how society looks in the future:

A place to discuss and create a vision of the sustainable, carbon-neutral future in 2050

A place to develop market rules:

A place to discuss market creation and rulemaking in the carbon-neutral era

A place for voluntary emissions trading:

A place for companies to conduct voluntary emissions trading to achieve their own targets

We announced the GX League Basic Concept on February 1 of this year and opened a call for companies who could endorse its content by March 31.

2. Companies Endorsing the GX League Basic Concept

A total of 440 companies have agreed to endorse the GX League Basic Concept. Those companies' names will be listed on the newly established GX League website (in Japanese) after 2:00 p.m. on April 1, 2022.

We have received endorsements from a wide array of industries, including:

• Energy companies specializing in electricity, gas, oil, and other areas;
• Industries with heavy CO₂ emissions, such as steel, metal, chemicals, and paper/pulp;
• Manufacturers of automobiles, appliances, industrial machinery, foods, and more; and
• A range of businesses in the service industry, including those in information communication, finance, retail, construction, and transportation.

In addition to so-called large companies, startups, SMEs, and companies with foreign capital have also endorsed the concept.

We calculated, reported, and published the total CO₂ emissions of all endorsing companies using their 2018 published figures, based on systems in the Act on Promotion of Global Warming Countermeasures published last month. They totaled approximately 302 million tons, which accounts for about 28% of Japan's total emissions (38% in the industrial, business, and energy conversion sectors).

3. Starting Talks with Endorsing Companies

From this month, we will maintain communication with the 440 endorsing companies regarding the GX League's operation, scheduled to start in FY2023 as a framework for companies with ambitious carbon reduction goals to invest toward reducing emissions and voluntarily start emissions trading.
Specific future plans and a schedule will be made available to the public through the GX League's website (in Japanese).

Division in Charge

Chemical Management Policy Division, Manufacturing Industries Bureau