Monday, March 28, 2022 | The Japan Times | 7

sustainable japan

ESG promotional content
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Cofounder of SDG Impact Japan applies years of global experience

Son of refugee
helped across world

Bradley Busetto: Green
investments, great returns

Name: Bradley Busetto

Title: Co-CEO, SDG Impact Japan
URL: www.sdgimpactjapan.com
Hometown: Vallejo, California
Years in Japan: less than 1

Leaders & Readers
TIMOTHY SCHULTZCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Of all the types of finance, green financesimply sounds … interesting. Perhaps it isthe tension in the name: Like the phrases“teenage werewolf” or “military intelligence,” “green finance” is two slightly oxymoronic words describing a single thing.
This catches your attention, and leaves
you wondering: Can the pursuit of profit(a ruthless endeavor) be environmentallypositive (an altruistic action)? Can doing
the right thing make shareholders money?
Bradley Busetto is here in Japan to answer
that question. Together with Mari Kogiso andMamoru Taniya, he is one of the founding
partners of SDG Impact Japan, the country’s

Mohandas Gandhi’s phrase “be the change in theworld you want to see” has inspired Busetto
throughout his life. HIROMICHI MATONO

first full-service sustainable investment firm.
SIJ sees environmental and social challenges
as technical limitations; companies that solve
them will simply make more money. To
Busetto and his team, ESGs aren’t obligations,but opportunities.
The first category of opportunity encompasses the innovators. ”We’re looking for
great ideas. For instance, we just jointly
announced the first close for an agri-tech/food-tech fund with a Singapore based globalventure capital platform. The aim is to findcompanies developing new technologies
that limit the use of inputs (such as waterand pesticides) and enable other companies
to create a more productive and sustainable
food supply,” Busetto said. His ambition isbroad. “There are many different sectors, wethink, that will really profit by seeking thesekinds of technologies.”
It is the second category of opportunities
that make Busetto stand out. SIJ and its partners aren’t just targeting good ESG companies; they are also looking for companies not
yet leveraging their ESG potential. It is a space
few other impact funds are looking at. “A lotof the ESG funds are more about reportingon things, box-ticking exercises or selecting
companies that are already ‘good.’ They don’t
focus on the vast majority of companies whohaven’t really thought about sustainability,
so they aren’t helping them move forward,”
Busetto said. “That’s what we’re focused on.
We take an outcome-focused, engagementfocused approach.” I was confused — what
outcome was he talking about? He got specific. “We’re looking at companies in Japan
who might not be top of the class in sustainability, but they have room to grow. And
we’ve identified leverage points that canincrease their ESG performance, which will
also increase their financial performance.”
Ah, now I understood. It is the oldest gamein finance — find an undervalued company.
Except now the improved corporate value
would come from improving a company’soperations via ESG technologies
Busetto is a new arrival here in Japan, acountry he sees as a natural fit for his sustainable mission. “Japan has inherent drivers forsustainability just among the people and theculture. We wanted to be at the edge of thespear and help push it along.” To Busetto, thesustainable values in Japanese finance arequickly following the sustainable values ofJapanese society. “In Japan, one of the first big
moves was when [Hiromichi] Mizuno-san at
the Japan Pension Fund started aligning theirpolicies on investment toward sustainableindices.” He argued that good financial stewardship is just good sustainable investment. It
is the same. It is not “either-or,” it is “and.” “Andnow, today, we’re really at a tipping point, agood place.”
What kind of training does a green financeprofessional need? Short answer: a uniqueone. Before he joined SIJ, Busetto wore
many hats, including a blue one: He was thehighest-ranking U.N. official in Armenia forfive years. “With the U.N., I had many roles.
I started out working in conflict, then there
was the election work,” he said. “But all of it
could have been called sustainable development in some way.” He elaborated about his
time in Armenia. “Yes, there was a politicalangle to that, the free and fair elections, sure.
But it was also about figuring out how theU.N. could help the government kick-start
the economy and build a more inclusive andbroad economy.”

Times Gallery

Bradley Busetto grew up in Vallejo, California, the son of an educator father
who came to America as an Italian refugee from World War II. He attended
Stanford University, where he earned
both undergraduate and graduate
degrees in philosophy.
It was then that he started a longcareer with the United Nations,first as
country manager for the U.N. World
Food Programme and then as a United
Nations representative to Armenia. Itwas there that he began the first of
many U.N. initiatives to foster innovation and sustainable technology.
Busetto then helped design the U.N.’sJoint SDG Fund, and then was named
inaugural director of the U.N.’s new
global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainability in Singapore.
He now lives in Tokyo, where he likes
to cycle across the city and enjoy someoutdoor and downtime in parks.

HIROMICHI MATONO

At this point, I became a little skeptical. I
asked Busetto what all that really meant; inmost developing countries, governments“kick-start” a sector by handing it to anoligarch … or to the president’s cousin. Hechuckled at my cynicism. “Well, we helped
identify sectors that they could develop, andhelped them craft policies that would help
those sectors grow,” he said. “For example, inArmenia we discovered there was actually avery cool nascent startup tech scene. Armenia had been a node of what we now call‘deep tech’ within the former Soviet Union

Tsukuba ‘bar’ guides both visitors
and revitalization efforts
Satoyama~AuthenticJapanOn the occasion of the commemoration of the 178th anniversary of theIndependence Day of the Dominican Republic, the Embassy of theDominican Republic in Japan hosts a reception at the Okura Tokyo
Hotel on Feb. 25. EMBASSY OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLICIrish Ambassador Paul Kavanagh at the Yokohama St. Patrick’s Day
Parade. From left: Mary Corbett, John McCormack, Paul Opera, Parade
Grand Marshall Tom Tyrrell, Kavanagh, Hiroshi Takarada and YokohamaParade Committee Chairman Hideki Mimura. EMBASSY OF IRELAND

Katsunari Matsuda,president and representative director ofMeiji Co. Ltd., visitsAmbassador MelbaPria at the Embassy ofMexico. He presented
a wide variety ofproducts from hiscompany made withthe exotic white cacao
from Mexico.

Jamaican Ambassador Shorna-Kay
Richards meets withMasaaki Takei, mayorof Tokyo’s Minato
Ward. They discussed
his plans for the cityand the possibility ofcollaboration tocelebrate Jamaica’s
60th anniversary ofIndependence.

EMBASSY OF MEXICOEMBASSY OF JAMAICA

Representatives of the German, Israeli, Swiss and U.S. embassies gather
in front of the German Embassy’s wall art to commemorate the centennial of Albert Einstein’s visit to Japan on his birthday, March 14.
EMBASSY OF GERMANY

Ambassador of the Republic of Kosovo Sabri Kicmari meets withprofessor and famed philosopher Kojin Karatani in Hachioji, Tokyo.
EMBASSY OF KOSOVO— stuff like astrophysics. So we helped thegovernment nurture that through policies
and the U.N. too.” From this anecdote andothers, he described a career of doing goodacross the world: nurturing democracy, identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, helping innovators compete. Many government
officials only add another layer of bureaucracy to commerce, but Busetto hadn’t done
that. He spent over 15 years at the U.N. accelerating hundreds of technologies. My skepticism was replaced with admiration.
Now he is here in Tokyo, partnering withexcellent asset management firms, helping
companies radically improve their value
through hands-on investment. He is here toachieve both financial and sustainable return
through positive impact for Japanese investors: Just before our interview, SIJ announced
it had entered into a capital and businessalliance agreement with Meiji Yasuda Life
Insurance. “This approach, it’s been done
before. Others have proven it works,” hesaid. “But it’s still new. It’s an outcomes-based
approach. It’s about actually transforming
how companies operate and generate profits in a way that is linked to their ESG performance.” After I heard Busetto’s passion, I
understood why they had backed SIJ.
Japanese institutions are always searchingfor new ways to make more money. Now
they can make the world a bit more sustainable, too. Mohandas Gandhi once said, “Be
the change you want to see in the world.”
Busetto and SIJ are proving that the same
could be said for investments.

The Embassy of Lithuania commemorates the 32nd Anniversary ofRestoration of Independence of Lithuania and expresses solidarity withUkraine with the participation of Oleksandr Semeniuk, deputy head of theEmbassy of Ukraine in Japan. EMBASSY OF LITHUANIA

Cuban Ambassador Miguel A. Ramirez exchanges views with the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives,
Minoru Kiuchi. EMBASSY OF CUBA

MAIKO MURAOKACONTRIBUTING WRITER

On the outskirts of Tsukuba in Ibaraki
Prefecture, there is a homey place called
Tamaribar, a play on words combining“tamariba” (“hangout”) and “bar.” It serves
local delicacies, the kind that people eat
everyday without noticing their value,
like fresh eggs with locally grown rice. It
also sells souvenirs and fresh-picked vegetables, holds various events and rents
the space for new activities such as cooking lessons. But the most valuable thing
you can get at Tamaribar, if you are looking to learn about the area or considering
moving there, is connections with localpeople.
Tamaribar is located in Oda, one of theeight districts that surround the central
area of Tsukuba. Similar to other rural
towns in Japan, it faces various challenges due to the aging of residents anddepopulation. “The house vacancy rate
in Oda is rising. The community will lose
its sustainability as the number of empty
houses increases,” Hiroyuki Orui, directorof the nonprofit Tsukkura, which manages Tamaribar as well as other eventsand projects in the community, said in a
recent online interview with The JapanTimes.
Orui has been aware of these issues forquite some time, since for many years heworked for a construction company as anarchitect specializing in the restoration
and reconstruction of old buildings. HeCommunity members attend a Tamaribar
music event. These events are held on the first
Sunday of every month. TSUKUBA CITY

PAGE: 7is originally from Tokyo but was transferred to the company’s headquarters inTsukuba 17 years ago. “Once you settle ina community, you start to realize issues
that the community has. Just like Japansuffers from the issue of overpopulation in
urban metropolitan areas and depopulation in rural areas, the population in thecentral part of Tsukuba is increasing, while
the opposite is true in the surroundingarea, with more houses becoming empty,”
he said.
Orui started thinking about what hecould do to revitalize the town by utilizing
existing resources and vacant houses, andjust before he turned 70 he found a place
where he can realize his ideas. It was avacant building that once had been a general store that everyone in the neighborhood, from children to the elderly, used tovisit daily.
He renovated it and turned it into aplace where people gather again, this time
not only from the neighborhood but also
from outside the community. This is how
Tamaribar was born in December 2019.
“More than 100,000 visitors come to thearea to enjoy trekking in Mount Hokyo,
which is part of the Tsukuba mountain
range, but there are not many places toeat, have coffee or shop,” Orui said. There
are also many bikers who come to ride on
the Tsukuba Kasumigaura Ring Ring Road,a cycling path that runs through the town.
But Tamaribar’s purpose is not justcatering to the needs of temporary visitors. Orui explained that there are peoplewho are actually looking for places to livein the area, including foreign researchers
commuting to Tsukuba Science City. One
might think that renting vacant houses tosuch people would be a perfect solution,
but it is not easy to find the right person
to talk to if you are an outsider.
That is where Tamaribar becomes useful, because where people gather, information gathers too. Tsukkura members
and supporters who help run Tamaribar
are a diverse group, from university students to local landowners. Outsiders areable to find the information they want,receive useful advice and be introduced tothe kinds of people they had been looking for.
However, Orui said, there is yet anotherproblem that one needs to be aware ofThese members of the Nagata House Project
have a special interest in traditional minka
houses and renovation. TSUKUBA CITY

when trying to find a solution for vacanthouses. “Many of the owners are simply not interested in renting the empty
houses,” he said, either because they don’t
need the money or because they want tokeep relatives and neighbors from speculating about their financial situation. “Insuch cases, underlining economic values
would not help,” he said. “The keyword toconvince these owners would be ‘contribution.’ We need to make clear that theywould be contributing to the people andthe community by leasing those vacanthouses.”
In addition to promoting the use ofvacant houses, Tsukkura runs the Nagata
House Project renovating a 90-year-old
traditional house near Tamaribar. Oruisaid about 20 volunteers, including graduate students and foreign students at theUniversity of Tsukuba, come to help withthe work.
“We want to use this house as ashort-term accommodation for foreign
researchers. With this as a model case, weaim to work on other vacant houses toturn them into
various facilities
such as a sharedhouse, co-working space andgroup home forthe elderly,” Orui
said.
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