On Friday, November 29, 2024, the fifth session of Kyoto University’s “Green Entrepreneurship” lecture was held. Mr. Mitsuteru Rokuda, Executive Officer/Deputy General Manager of R&D Division, Daicel Corporation, was welcomed to the lecture to learn about “ecology” and “economy” at the forefront of corporate initiatives. Facilitation was provided by Professors Karube and Yamada. Under their facilitation, a lively discussion ensued on Daicel’s initiatives and industry-wide issues related to ecology.

Daicel is currently engaged mainly in the “Materials Business,” “Smart Business,” “Safety Business,” “Engineering Plastics and Polymer Products Business,” “Healthcare Business,” and “Life Science Business. In this context, he stated that although it is very difficult to pursue both “ecology” and “economy,” we should basically aim to provide high value-added products or services in order to secure sustainable profits. He also mentioned that the conventional gray zone such as energy measurement in the ecological part should be clarified as black and white as possible, and that even if the product is ecological, efforts should be made to visualize the profit.

In this regard, he also mentioned that, from a macro perspective, there is a need to create a value chain and work on it throughout the industry. To this end, he said, it is important to (1) aim to create cycles, (2) create many small cycles, (3) turn them into big cycles, and (4) increase the number of like-minded people.

Some commented that “value-added” is meaningful only when the supply is commensurate with the size of the need, and that it is necessary to adopt a flexible strategy to consider either the means or the goal in start-ups and new businesses to increase the success rate as much as possible.

In addition, he stated that in order to create innovation, it is important to “cross borders” to overcome various fields and to be willing to create your own beast path.

In the latter half of the lecture, there were active questions from the students, and Mr. Rokuda gave detailed and thoughtful answers, which helped the students who asked questions and the other students deepen their understanding even further.