(The original article in Japanese was posted on October 28, 2022)

 

On October 25 and 26, a workshop of Innovations for Co-creating Future Society Laboratory¹ hosted by Yoshiki Yamagata, Ph.D. Professor, Graduate School of System Design and Management (SDM), Keio University, was held in Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture. The subject of this event was “innovations to make Hokuto City a city with zero carbon emissions and people having increased feeling of wellbeing.” For two days, the participants reported on and discussed many different topics including locally produced and consumed green electricity, autonomous driving electric vehicles, zero emission villages, woducation (work + education + vacation) with flowers and lush green fields, the forestry utilizing drones, and visions for the future of tourism, from various perspectives.

The research subject of Prof. Yamagata, the organizer of this workshop, is “designing a future city.” His vision is to create a sustainable smart city utilizing advanced technologies by viewing transportation, energy, industry, and communities as one system. In Hokuto City, it is aimed to “create a future society that no one has seen yet” by taking “Alpine Pearls,” an NGO that promotes eco-friendly and broad area ourism based in Werfenweng, Austria, as the role model. Prof. Yamagata, as an initial attempt, chose the Kiyosato area, a major place for sightseeing, and the Nagasaka area, which has many core facilities such as administrative bodies, municipal hospitals, and community halls as model areas, and has been proposing the creation of sustainable communities that utilize autonomous driving electric vehicles, drones, and locally produced and consumed energy.

Aiko Ito, Director of the Carbon Neutral Business Research Institute², spoke about a project of demonstrating a regional economic cycle model that started in the Yatsugatake Mountains. Three people from Yano Research Institute Ltd., namely, the leader of the research team in charge of energy and living environment, a researcher who works on future forecasts by industry using artificial intelligence (AI) and economic ripple effects of tourism consumption, and I, participated in this workshop. We exchanged opinions on a wide range of issues, including the tourism industry, the smart forest industry utilizing drones, and how to build and promote the brand of Hokuto City, under the main subject of next-generation mobility and green power.

Demonstrations and experiments on autonomous driving and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) are beginning to gain momentum in many areas in Japan. Japan plans to implement a new level 4³ autonomous driving system, which will allow the movement of unmanned vehicles on public roads throughout the country under certain conditions. However, creation of a sustainable city cannot be achieved only by advanced technologies and development of legal systems. Making many cross-sectoral efforts and building a consensus of the local community are fundamental factors to achieve the successful urban development. Local stakeholders including Yatsugatake Tourism Management (general incorporated association) and Zeroemi Yamanashi (same) also took part in the workshop and discussed strategies to promote locally produced and consumed electricity and soft mobility together. Here in Hokuto City, there exist a solid vision toward decarbonization and organizations working hard to achieve the goal in the private sector, as well as the leader who plays a strong leadership to encourage and support the private sector, which is the biggest competitive advantage of the city. Yet, it is also essential for the public administration to give a push to the relevant activities to make the project successful. I look forward to the city taking “one more step.”

 

1: Innovations for Co-creating Future Society Laboratory is an organization working on research on and practice of sustainable urban systems to realize a future society in which the environment and wellbeing are circulating favorably.

2: Carbon Neutral Business Research Institute was established by Yano Research Institute in December 2018. This institute sees the trend of the shift in the social and industrial structure toward decarbonization as a business opportunity and aims to create new values. In July 2022, they started “Kokorade Project” as a demonstration and an experiment of a small economic cycle model in the Yatsugatake Mountains in Nagano Prefecture, under the theme of “Climate Change, Food and Community.”

3: Level 4 is the stage where complete automatic driving is allowed under specific conditions, out of 6 levels (Level 0 to 5) defined by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT). Expected driverless autonomous vehicles to be used are delivery robots and tour bases taking specific routes while being monitored remotely.

 

This Week’s Focus, October 28

Takashi Mizukoshi, the President