Declaration on "Challenge Zero"

With the adoption of the Paris Agreement by the United Nations in 2015 and the recent global increase in extreme weather events, there is a greater sense of urgency about the issue of climate change than ever before.

Over the past 20 years, Japan's business community has taken the initiative in tackling climate change issues through “Keidanren's Voluntary Action Plan for the Environment” and “Keidanren’s Commitment to a Low Carbon Society,” and has made steady progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We will continue to steadily promote our initiative through a PDCA cycle.

In June 2019, the Japanese government formulated the “Japan’s Long-term Strategy under the Paris Agreement,” which calls for a "decarbonized society" which means "achieving a balance between global greenhouse gas emissions and absorption (i.e., net zero carbon) as early as possible in the second half of this century," and the creation of business-led innovation is key to achieving this goal.

The challenge of achieving a decarbonized society is now an important management issue, and a prerequisite for sustainable growth as well as enhancing corporate value. Solving social issues through business-led innovation is a core concept of the "Society 5.0 for SDGs" that Keidanren aims for.

The Japanese business community, strongly aware of the importance of its role as the primary driver of innovation, hereby declare as "Challenge Zero" (Challenge Net Zero Carbon Innovation), to boldly take on innovation challenges that will contribute to the realization of a decarbonized society.

A number of challenges must be overcome to achieve this ambitious vision of achieving a decarbonized society. As a concrete action, the business community will actively take the following challenges with a view to realizing a virtuous cycle of environment and growth:

[A] Development of net zero emission technologies (including transition and adaptation/resilience technologies),

[B] Dissemination and implementation of net zero emission technologies,

[C] Finance for companies that are engaged in the above challenges ([A] or [B]).