April 2021 to March 2022

Masayuki Azemi (Senior Fellow, Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies)

   The importance of global environmental issues such as climate change has been recognized for a long time, and in recent years, under the leadership of the U.S. and European administrations, these issues are starting to be promoted very strongly. Japan is also aiming to achieve carbon neutrality (i.e., net zero greenhouse gas emissions) by 2050. These global trends in environmental issues need to be closely monitored and carefully considered because they are also expected to have a significant impact on the business sector. 

   In this study, we investigated the global trends in climate change countermeasures and decarbonized societies, the policies of each country and region and their implementation status, the risks of promoting green policies and decarbonization, and the initiatives of smart cities and local government aimed at combating global warming and decarbonizing society, with a particular focus on international organizations, think tank reports, and government policies. In addition, as some specific examples of business services from the perspective of IT digital × decarbonization and the category of urban development/smart cities, we turned our attention to the use of renewable energy (aggregation businesses), smart pole systems, waste collection/processing, natural disaster risks (disaster prevention), and the use of IT technology for adapting to rules and regulations in terms of ESG disclosure and reputational risk, examining the details of each case together with examples from each company/region etc. and the future market trends. 

   Our study shows that despite Japan’s uncertain political and economic situation, the trends of climate change and decarbonization will remain unchanged not only in the short term but also in the medium to long term, and that business practices and ideas on how much these devices and services can contribute to global warming prevention and decarbonization are already in place in terms of the extent to which these devices and services are contributing to decarbonization and tackling climate change. Our findings also suggest that it is important to see these trends as a business opportunity, and to aim not only for decarbonization of individual products and services, but also the composite development of environmental business consulting services and the like.