First Plenary Meeting of Community Partnership for Energy Conservation Held

1. Outline

In July 2024, METI established Community Partnership for Energy Conservation in collaboration with over 200 financial institutions and energy conservation support organizations (hereinafter referred to as “partner organizations”) in order to build a community-wide framework to support SMEs in advancing energy conservation.

In response, on Wednesday, September 25, METI held the first plenary meeting of the Partnership as an opportunity for partner organizations to meet for the first time since the Partnership’s establishment. The meeting brought together 174 financial institutions and 43 energy conservation support organizations as partner organizations as well as 20 prefectural governments and the Central Federation of Societies of Commerce and Industry as observers.

2. First plenary meeting

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Yoshida Nobuhiro, Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, delivered remarks, mainly stating the following points.

• Energy conservation is becoming increasingly important as the first step towards implementing green transformation (GX) in SMEs enterprises and as an initiative that leads to business improvement. 
• The Government of Japan has strongly promoted support for SMEs in upgrading energy conservation equipment.
• SMEs in various communities have potential needs for energy conservation. METI hopes to discover such needs through the Community Partnership for Energy Conservation, encourage efforts for and investment in energy conservation, and thereby create a movement leading to decarbonization and economic growth throughout Japan.
• Our hope is that this meeting will become a trigger towards place partner organizations at the core of communities to execute leadership in advancing energy conservation by SMEs.

Key points of the agenda

In the first half of the meeting, the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy held a presentation on the current state of energy conservation policies and support measures for SMEs.

At the panel discussion held under the theme titled “Toward further acceleration of energy conservation in communities,” panelists from the following organizations delivered presentations: financial institutions (the Shizuoka Bank and Resona Bank, Limited), energy conservation support organizations (Carbon  Management Initiative Organization and Shizuoka Environment Resources Association), SMEs (Otsuka Corporation and Nippon Wico Co., Ltd.), the Financial Services Agency, and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. They explained their initiatives to date and exchanged views on challenges in future efforts.

In the second half of the meeting, the Energy Conservation Center, Japan, held a presentation on points to focus on when providing advice to SMEs on energy conservation, while METI provided a briefing on Japan's initiatives and support measures for GX.

In addition, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu LLC., a company serving as the Secretariat of the Community Partnership for Energy Conservation in FY2024, made a presentation on the key points that financial institutions should note when encouraging SMEs to conserve energy.

Finally, METI held a networking event for participants, which proved very successful. It hopes that this meeting will become a driving force towards allowing partner organizations to support SMEs in advancing energy conservation, thereby further accelerating efforts in various communities for energy conservation and GX.

Related Link

• Portal website for energy conservation

Division in Charge

Energy Efficiency Division, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Department, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy