Non-Financial Information and Company Information
Third-Party Opinion
Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences,
The University of Tokyo and the University of Tokyo University Research Administrator

Dr. Momo Nakanishi
Dr. Nakanishi completed a PhD in agriculture in the University of Tokyo’s Graduate
School of Agricultural and Life Sciences. After working as a post-doctoral fellow at theHospital for Sick Children (Toronto) and a researcher in the Japan Science andTechnology Agency’s Department of Industry-Academia Alliance, she took a position asa Project Research Associate in the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Agriculturaland Life Sciences in 2016. She became a Project Lecturer in the same department in
December 2017, and has been in her current role since April 2021. She has administered
the University of Tokyo’s One Earth Guardians Development Program since its founding.
The resources produced by the Earth are finite. The rate at whichhuman activities are consuming these resources outstrips their rateof production, with Earth Overshoot Day*—the point at whichhuman consumption will have used up all the resources that theEarth can regenerate in a calendar year—set to be August 2nd in
2023. If everyone in the world lived as we do in Japan, this datewould be May 6th. In other words, life in Japan today takes an“advance”on the Earth’s resources before we are even halfway
through the year. Unless we work to establish a circular economy assoon as possible, a challenging future for continued human life on
Earth is all too easy to imagine.
When it comes to recycling of resources, what kind of industrial
waste treatment processes we can implement is a key question forpresent-day society. From the point of view of the resource balance
described above, we no longer have the luxury of throwing awayunnecessary“waste.”As a recycling company, Daiseki advocates aview of waste materials as resources and tackles this key challenge
directly. I consider Daiseki to be standard bearers for a societal shift
toward a circular economy.
The One Earth Guardians Development Program (OEGs) wasstarted in 2017 within the University of Tokyo’s Faculty ofAgriculture in the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
It aims to develop a group of scientists, the One Earth Guardians,
who will take action to secure the future of the Earth so that humans
and all other forms of life can be living here together in harmony
100 years from now. The OEGs is a framework for the University
and a range of organizations and individuals to cooperate todevelop human resources with the skills to do this, allowing industry
and academia to work collaboratively to solve social andenvironmental issues.
Daiseki has been closely involved in the work of the OEGs since2022. A core component of the OEGs curriculum comprises
practical internships that foster the ability to identify and solve issues
within their social context. During practical internships with Daiseki,
students have gained insight into Daiseki’s areas of activity andexpertise and engaged in approximately six months of debate andresearch around the question of successfully balancing solutions toenvironmental issues in the aim of creating a circular economy andbusiness feasibility, after which they put forward their own
suggestions in this area. While the different format of the internshipto their research at the University may sometimes be confusing,participating students have also learned about and gained direct

experience of perspectives that will be crucial to the businessviability of their ideas. This approach to the issue is not one thatstudents can easily discover and adopt purely within the educationaland research setting of the University, yet it is a vital skill for taking
action that brings in wider society. Discovering the possibilities forlinking the research findings they have been learning about to onthe-ground problem-solving has not only opened up their future
career options but also seems to have been an encouraging
experience for them. This is a step on the path to developing humanresources who, while drawing on their training and perspectives as
scientists, will work in a variety of fields to contribute to creating asustainable society, something that can give us hope for the future.
I would like to briefly touch on the concept of the“bioeconomy,”a sister concept of the circular economy that refers to economic
activity that utilizes biotechnologies and biological resources withoutstraining the biosphere. There is significant overlap between the twoconcepts, and the idea of the“circular bioeconomy,”which brings
the two together, is gaining prominence in the US and Europe.
My field of study, agricultural science, is dedicated to making useof natural resources through learning from living things andcapitalizing on their capacities. Yet this discipline, too, considers thecircular use of resources to be a matter for urgent attention. In orderto bring academic expertise to bear in solving real-world issues,cooperation with industry players is indispensable. I feel that ourcollaboration with Daiseki, leaders in creating recycled products
from industrial waste, has enormous potential, and it also gives me arenewed determination to consider what we can achieve byworking together.
The expression“venous industry”perfectly captures the characterof the sector. Animals maintain their vital functions by circulating
fluids through their bodies, and cannot sustain life if their blood flow
stops or they lose a great deal of blood through external bleeding.
While the arteries that deliver blood to all of our internal organs may
be the better-known of the two blood vessels, the circulatory system
could not exist without the veins that return blood flow to the heart.
When we extend this metaphor to society and economic activity, it
is clear that Daiseki has a significant role to play in its capacity as
part of the venous industry. If we were to consider the Earth as asingle huge and complex living entity, we would hesitate to declarethat it is entirely healthy in its current state—but we can hope thatthe flow of the veins back to the heart of our planet will revive it.

*For more information on Earth Overshoot Day, please follow the link below.
Global Footprint Network https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/past-earth-overshoot-days/

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