H-UTokyo Lab Holds 10th Anniversary International Symposium with Imperial College London ‘Value Creation for Sustainability through Nature and Biodiversity’
Hitachi-UTokyo Lab 10th Anniversary International Symposium
Hitachi-UTokyo Laboratory hosted the 10th Anniversary International Symposium on 6th of July 2026. It was delivered jointly with the Hitachi-Imperial Centre for Decarbonisation and Natural Climate Solutions covering the frontier topic of “Value Creation for Sustainability through Nature and Biodiversity,” which is at the core of both Industry-Academia collaborations. This event brought 330 participants together among academics, representatives of environmental planning, departments of private companies and policymakers. Key insights include the need of nature-positive market signals to drive action, and the multi-faceted characteristics of nature-positive actions at local and regional levels compared to more standardised approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The event opened with remarks from the Heads of Hitachi-UTokyo Laboratory, Professor Ryoichi Komiyama, The University of Tokyo, and Dr. Nobuo Nukaga, Senior Project Manager at Hitachi, in which they shared an overview of the activities from 2016 to 2026.
The event opened with remarks from the Heads of Hitachi-UTokyo Laboratory, Professor Ryoichi Komiyama, The University of Tokyo, and Dr. Nobuo Nukaga, Senior Project Manager at Hitachi, in which they shared an overview of the activities from 2016 to 2026.
Dr. Will Pearse, Associate Professor in Evolutionary Ecology, Imperial College London, presented the Keynote Lecture on “Accurately valuing ecosystems to benefit business and society.” He emphasised that protecting biodiversity is not just environmental conservation and a cost, but it is a means to make business activities more efficient and competitive. Integrating nature into businesses creates tangible economic value, such as reducing fertilizer in agriculture, protecting infrastructure from natural disasters such as floods and fires, and improving cooling effectiveness. He presented the database and analysis developed in his laboratory, as part of the Hitachi-Imperial centre, to examine and forecast the relationship between ecosystem services and various levels of biodiversity. This tool allows to focus on the necessary levels of biodiversity to secure desired outcomes such as clean air, clean water, enough food, carbon sequestration, protection from flooding, etc. This was followed by three presentations highlighting the benefits of including species into the ecosystems model to improve the estimates of ecosystem functions, the potential of blue carbon of removing gigatons of CO2 while supporting marine biodiversity and providing nursery grounds for fisheries, and the use of scenario simulation to understand the complex interplay of various sectors and the approaches to meet decarbonisation targets.
Panel discussion
The panel discussion on “Value Creation for Sustainability through Nature and Biodiversity” was moderated by Dr. Efrain Tamayo, Chief Researcher at Hitachi. Ms. Aya Nagata, Director at Ministry of the Environment, Japan, and Dr. Monden Kazuya, Senior Manager at Hitachi joined Professor Komiyama and Dr. Pearse as panellists. In the panel discussion, the challenges, and opportunities unique to nature-positive were discussed, comparing them with the decarbonisation journey.
The main points raised during the panel discussion are summarized as follows:
- Professor Komiyama pointed out that, unlike decarbonisation, nature-positive has not yet formed clear market signals and stressed the need for the formation of appropriate signals to unlock investments, and actions from diverse stakeholders. Market signals such as carbon pricing are functioning in the decarbonisation field, but in the field of nature-positive, policy predictability and value evaluation methods have not yet been established, and rules are still in the process of being formulated.
- Dr. Pearse and Ms. Nagata touched on the locality and regionality of nature-positive and argued that it is necessary to create easy-to-understand signals and a mechanism for regional promotion.
- Dr. Monden stated that Hitachi will also make efforts to integrate nature-positive into the corporate management agenda in anticipation of clearer KPIs, which was one of the prominent topics in the panel discussion. Greenhouse gas emissions reduction metrics can be treated as fungible indicators of the same effect independent on the location in the world where the reduction occurs. However, biodiversity cannot be simply measured by a single indicator because the value and function of biodiversity are completely different depending on the region and ecosystem, such as forests, coral reefs, and grasslands.
- Dr. Pearse suggested that measuring “three different indicators” at “three different times,” and using “three different methods” could be an approach to address the KPIs issue in biodiversity.
The presentations and panel discussion highlighted the importance of an integrated approach for decarbonisation and nature-positive as they are interconnected and there are trade-offs between the initiatives targeting them. This symposium provided an important compass showing the valuable business opportunities aligned with the integration of decarbonisation and nature-positive actions. Based on the gained insights, as next step, a white paper will be prepared detailing the transition processes of decarbonisation and nature-positive, their integration, and the levers to enable value creation and scalability.
The symposium concluded with a call to work together, further involving academia, industry, and government like-minded partners, and to disseminate the activities expanding from energy and decarbonisation to nature-positive.
