Going beyond Zero Carbon

In a society moving toward carbon neutrality, regional prosperity should be clarified, shared, and continued by developing factors, such as the environment, ecosystems, food production, employment, traditions, and culture, all of which contribute to a sustainable region. Also, they have to be sustained in a net zero carbon^*1 manner. To promote this perception through the latest scientific and technological approaches, co-creation among industry, academia, and the public will be effective. Specifically, a collaborative approach will be essential, involving engineers and companies with technologies and execution capabilities, researchers with cutting-edge knowledge, and community people with local knowledge (characteristics and narratives).

Beyond “Zero-Carbon” is a conceptual framework developed by this project to draw out the future society in which we wish to live. It aims to realize a sustainable society where a region can enjoy and sustain its prosperity through efforts for net zero carbon. Its specific goals include developing and implementing Co-JUNKAN^*2 platform, where technology, knowledge, and humans can be organically integrated and circulated in a high-level partnership among public-private-academic sectors. A technology and knowledge database on this platform will become accessible to anyone. It will foster co-learning opportunities regardless of age or background, enabling anticipatory (pre-emptive) design initiatives to realize the desired future societies. Specific research themes include but are not limited to:

• Green transformation (GX) in agriculture and forestry to sustain stable food production and ecosystems
• Realizing public transportation to resolve various regional problems
• Designing reliable and sustainable thermal-and-electric-energy supply services as a solution for regional energy issues
• Demonstrating and implementing school and social educations to explore various solutions through co-learning
• Proposing ways of public-private-academic co-creation to encourage the region to be self-directive, so that their potential problems can be identified and resolved in mutual partnership

Social demonstrations at regional satellites (Iwate, Wakayama, Sado Island, Tanegashima Island, and Queensland) will verify and validate the effectiveness of the Center's initiatives.

*1) net zero-carbon: To reduce greenhouse gas emissions to virtually zero so as not to alter atmospheric CO2 concentrations
*2) Co-JUNKAN: A word coined by this project. A combination of Co-, a prefix meaning ‘together’ in English and ‘good’ in Japanese, with JUNKAN, which stands for ‘circulation’ in Japanese.