Mr Hiroaki Ishizuka
Chairman
New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization(NEDO)
Mr. Ishizuka was appointed as Chairman of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in April 2018. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Chemical Science in 1972, he joined Mitsubishi Chemical Industries Limited (current Mitsubishi Chemical corporation). He held various positions within Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation and became Member of the Board, President and CEO in 2012 and Senior Corporate Advisor of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation in 2017.
Mr. Gorissen has been head of the International Policy Directorate at the Federal Environment Ministry since July 2018. The directorate comprises six divisions and covers a.o. coordination of environment-related G7 and G20 issues, the 2030 Agenda, international climate finance, including the International Climate Initiative (IKI), international energy and urban policy and bilateral relations to all non-EU member states. After graduating in mechanical engineering from the RWTH University in Aachen, he held several positions at the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) in the field of transport and environment before joining the Federal Environment Ministry in 1999. He became head of the division “International and EU Affairs in the Field of Renewable Energies” in 2003, head of the European Affairs Division during Germany’s EU Council Presidency in 2007, and head of the division “International Climate Finance, International Climate Initiative” in 2008. Between 2013 and 2016, he served as EU lead negotiator for climate finance in the Paris Agreement, and initiated the OECD report “Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth” during Germany’s G20 Presidency in 2017.
Ms. Ursula Borak serves as Deputy Director-General in the energy department in the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) since 2008. Her responsibilities include international cooperation, nuclear, coal, oil and budget coordination. Since joining BMWi in 1987, she held several posts at the Ministry, including several ones abroad, and previoulsly worked as an academic assistant at the Energy Economics Institute (EWI), Cologne University.
Mr Shinichi Kihara
Deputy Commissioner for International Affairs
Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE)
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)
Shinichi Kihara was appointed in July 2020 as the Deputy Commissioner for International Affairs of Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE). Mr. Kihara earned a Bachelor of Economics from University of Tokyo in 1993. He earned an MBA in 1998 from Cornell University, USA. After joining METI in 1993, he held various positions within METI, including Director for Policy Planning and Coordination Division of Trade Policy Bureau, Director for Middle East and Africa Division and Americas Division. He was also involved in energy related work including the International Affairs Division in 2004 and Nuclear Power Safety Administration Division in 1998. He served as Director for International Affairs for four years since 2012 and took the lead for the G7 Kitakyushu Energy Ministerial in 2016. Mr. Kihara served as Senior Energy Analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris since 2009. He contributed to their flagship publication, the World Energy Outlook.
Mr. Arima is Professor for Energy and Environmental policies at the University of Tokyo. While being a senior Policy Fellow at the Economic Research Institute of ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), he is also Project Leader of the 21st Century Public Policy, and Distinguished Senior Research Fellow at Asia Pacific Institute of Research (APIR), a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Energy Economics of Japan (IEEJ), a Consulting Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). He is also a Council Member of the German Japan Energy Transformation Council (GJETC) and Lead Author, IPCC 6th Assessment Report WG3.
After joining the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1982, he became Deputy Director, International Affairs Division, Agency of Natural Resources and Energy in 1992. From 1996 to 1999, he served as Counselor at the Permanent Delegation of Japan to the OECD in Paris. He returned to ANRE, energy Environment Office in 1999. From 2002 to 2006, he was head of Country Studies Division of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, before returning to ANRE, in charge of a Director, International Affairs Division, International Energy Negotiation. After his appointment as Deputy Director General of Global Environmental Affairs (METI), he served as Director General, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in London from 2011 to 2015.
Mr Philipp Hauser
Industry Project Manager at Agora Energiewende
Philipp D. Hauser is an Industry Project Manager at Agora Energiewende, responsible for transformation issues in the steel, cement and chemical industries. Before joining Agora, Philipp Hauser worked for ENGIE in Latin America for over ten years. As Vice President for Energy Transition, he coordinated the development of climate protection projects, discussions on the sustainability of electricity production, and strategic issues related to climate policy and energy transition.
Philipp Hauser holds a degree in chemistry from the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany, and completed a two-year MBA program at the Coppead Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
Dr. Klaus Freytag has been involved in mining and lignite mining for over 30 years. Since 2001 he has been permanent deputy to the President of the Brandenburg and Berlin State Mining Office. After the merger into the Brandenburg State Office for Mining, Geology and Raw Materials (LBGR) in 2004, Dr. Klaus Freytag was appointed president to the new office. Since December 2015, he has been head of the "Energy and Raw Materials" department at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and, since 2018, has also been the Minister President's Commissioner for the Lusatia region.
Mr Toshikazu Mito
Kitakyushu Foundation for the Advancement of Industry, Science and Technology (FAIS)
Mr. Mito started his work career as an environmental officer at the Japanese Environmental Agency in 1996. He moved to Rwanda in 2007 and joined the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as an environmental officer. In 2009, he left both positions and became a freelance environmental consultant in Rwanda and dealt with environmental topics such as climate change, asbestos eradication, and landfill renovation. He moved back to Japan in 2016 and is currently assisting solid waste management improvement in African cities together with the Japanese Government, UN, and the World Bank. He also works at FAIS and is promoting renewable energy and artificial intelligence (AI) with Kitakyushu City. He has a Master’s degree of the Applied Environmental Studies (MAES) at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
Mr Christopher Kardish
Advisor at adelphi and the Secretariat of the International Carbon Action Partnership
Christopher Kardish is a Carbon Markets Advisor at adelphi and the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), an intergovernmental forum on emissions trading systems (ETSs). He specializes in the design of ETSs through ICAP’s Technical Dialogue Workstream, which produces research on aspects of ETS design and convenes member jurisdictions for exchanges on these issues. His main technical area of focus is carbon leakage and economic competitiveness, including free allocation, alternatives to free allocation (e.g. border carbon adjustments), and industrial decarbonization. He is a co-author of ICAP’s 2020 report “Carbon Leakage and Deep Decarbonization: Future-proofing Carbon Leakage Protection.” Through adelphi, he has also supported the European Commission and the German Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) on analysis of carbon leakage protections and alternatives to free allocation.
Prof Dr Cornelia Reiher
Graduate School of East Asian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
Cornelia Reiher is professor of Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and vice director of the Graduate School of East Asian Studies. Her main research interests include rural Japan, food studies, globalization and science and technology studies. Her recent publications include a special issue on fieldwork in Japan (2018), book chapters on transnational protest movement(s) in Asia (2019), and urban-rural migration in Japan (2020) and the methods handbook Studying Japan: Handbook of research designs, fieldwork and methods (2020, co-edited with Nora Kottmann).
Dr Bernd Wenzel
Head of the Competence Center Climate Protection in Energy-Intensive Industries (KEI)
Dr. Bernd Wenzel has been working in the energy industry for 25 years - especially in climate protection as well as the integration of renewable energies into the energy supply system. After professional stations in research, project management as well as corporate and political consulting, he has been responsible for setting up the Competence Centre on climate change mitigation in energy-intensive industries in Cottbus since May 2019.
Dr Chris Tuppen
Founder of Advancing Sustainability, Ltd.
Chris Tuppen has been involved in sustainability for over twenty years. He is Visiting Professor of Smart Technologies at University Campus Suffolk. He has served on the boards of CSR Europe and BSR (Business for Social Responsibility). He co-chaired the Global Reporting Initiative’s G2 measurement working group and chaired the Global e- Sustainability Initiative and the European Telecommunication Network Operators Association’s environmental working group. He was initiator and co-editor of the report SMART 2020 – Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age.
He is currently a member of the Executive Board of the Prince of Wales Accounting for Sustainability project, and a member of the BBC Sustainability Advisory Group and the Science Based Targets Initiative’s Technical Advisory Group.
Dr Akira Yabe
Fellow, Energy System & Hydrogen Unit, Technology Strategy Center (TSC), NEDO
Before entering NEDO as a Director General of Technology Strategy Center for Energy System & Hydrogen Units in April 2015, Mr. Yabe had been a Vice-President of AIST for 7 years as a Director General for Environment and Energy Research Fields. He completed his PhD in Mechanical Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology at 1979 and joined the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (MEL) of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). He served as a Head of Fluid Engineering and Quantum Engineering Research Lab and Research Planning Office for MEL. He became a Director for Advanced Manufacturing Research Center on Micro and Nano Scale Science and Engineering, AIST on 2001, Director of AIST Chugoku Regional Research Center and Director of Research Collaboration Promotion Department.
Mr. Yabe was concurrently a Professor of Institute of Engineering Mechanics and Systems, University of Tsukuba (1992-2010), Adjunctive Professor of Science University of Tokyo (1995-2009), Russell Severance Springer Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley (2001), Professor (Cooperative Chair) of Tokyo Institute of Technology (2005-2013), Adjunctive Professor of Kanazawa Institute of Technology (1997-2013). He also served as the President of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) (2013-2014).
He published the “Comprehensive R&D Principle for Sustainable Society (The NEDO’s Principle)” with the member of Technology Strategy Center of NEDO in February 2020 where the importance of “Circular Economy”, “Bio-economy” and “Sustainable Energy” would be stressed to realize the sustainable society.
Mr. Higuchi entered Lawson, Inc. in 1996. In the past years, he held various positions in the Store Construction Department before being appointed to the Energy Management Section in 2012.
Mr Masanobu Sasaki
Senior Manager, Sales Unit, Tepco Energy Partner
Mr. Sasaki graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan University (Mechanical Engineering) in 1996 and joined Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in the same year. He served in the Heat Pump & Thermal Storage Technology Center of Japan and in various positions within TEPCO before joining TEPCO Energy Partner in 2016. He was appointed as Senior Manager at the sales unit of TEPCO Energy Partner, Inc. in October 2020.
Dr. Büscher currently serves as Director of the network “Energy Sector” of the Energy Agency North Rhine-Westphalia. In this position, he founded the association “Blockchain.NRW”, established the working groups “Smart Cities NRW” and “digitization in the energy sector”. Previously, Dr. Büscher was Director of the International Coordination-office of German Geothermal Enterprises and Assistant Professor at the University of Applied Science Bochum and the RWTH Aachen. Dr. Büscher graduated in Civil Engineering from the RWTH Aachen and holds a PhD in Environmental Management from the University Witten/Herdecke.
Dr Ichiro Kutani
Senior Research Fellow, Assistant Director & Manager
Strategy Research Unit, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan
Mr. Kutani has been engaged in energy policy analysis since joining IEEJ in 2007; his main field of research is analysis of global energy market and energy security issues with emphasis on Asia. The latest study project engagement includes ASEAN power grid connectivity, energy efficiency in the transport sector, quantitative assessment of energy security, development of energy plan for Myanmar, and Japan-Germany joint study on energy transition. Prior to his current role, Mr. Kutani has held positions of Leader of Gas Group, and Visiting Researcher at IEEJ, where his research has addressed US, European, and Asian gas and LNG markets, global coal markets and clean coal technology. Mr. Kutani began his career at JFE Engineering Corp where he designed and managed gas pipeline projects. He holds a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Waseda University, Japan.
Prof. Peter Hennicke is an internationally reknown and awarded expert in the field of energy and climate policy as well as energy and resource efficiency. He was appointed President of the Wuppertal Institute from 2000 until 2008 and is Senior Advisor until today.
Prof. Hennicke is Full Member of the Club of Rome and has been a Member of the Management Board of the European Environmental Agency (EEA) as a representative of the European Parliament. Between 1989 and 2002, he was an Expert Member of three Enquiry Commissions of the German Bundestag on Climate and Energy.
Since nearly two decades, Prof. Hennicke has been dealing with energy and environmental policy in Japan through lecture tours, congresses, articles and advisory board activities. Since 2016, he is Co-Chair of the German-Japanese Energy Transition Council.
Prof Dr Uwe Riedel
Head of the Institute for Low CO2 Industrial Processes of the German Aerospace Center, DLR
Uwe Riedel is the acting director of the DLR-Institute of Low-Carbon Industrial Processes in Cottbus and Zittau founded in 2019. In this role he is responsible for the scientific set-up. The focus is on the specific requirements and research needs for the decarbonization of energy-intensive industrial sectors (power plants, steel production, cement industry, petrochemical industry, chemical industry, ...).
As a professor in the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Stuttgart, his field of work is the physicochemical properties of conventional and synthetic fuels with a focus on aviation fuels. From 2015 to 2019, he was the project leader of the two DLR cross-sectional projects "Future Fuels", which conduct cross-sectoral research on future fuels in energy, transport, aviation and space.
Uwe Riedel holds a doctorate in physics and a habilitation in physical chemistry from the University of Heidelberg.
Dr-Ing Peter Juchmann
Operations Director Bandgießen/Warmwalzen, Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH
Dr. Ing. Peter Juchmann completed his PhD in 1988 at the Institute of Materials Science at Hanover University. He joined Salzgitter AG Corporate Planning Div. in 1998 and became Managing Director of Salzgitter Magnesium-Technologie GmbH, a subsidiary of Salzgitter AG for Magnesium Flat-Rolled products, in 2001. Since 2011, he is Head of Belt-Casting /Hot Rolling at Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, and since 2020 part of the SALCOS Management team (Salzgitter Low CO2 Steelmaking) of Salzgitter AG.
Mr. Sakamoto joined the Fire and Disaster Prevention Section of Yamanashi Prefecture in 1997 and served in the Power Generation General Control Center. He has been in charge of the construction of new power plants and the operation of the Power Storage Technology Research Site as a Research and Development officer in the Electricity Section of Yamanashi Prefectural Enterprise Bureau since April 2008. He focuses on topics such as superconducting flywheel energy storage systems, hybrid hydrogen battery systems and Power-to-Gas systems. Currently, he is the head of the project "Development of P2G system technology Aiming to Build a CO2-free hydrogen society" by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
Ms Lisa Willnauer
Senior Manager Hydrogen, RWE Generation SE
After graduating from Braunschweig Technical University in Industrial Engineering, Ms. Willnauer gained 3.5 years of work experiences in the hydrogen business as well as 5+ years in business development and project management. She joined RWE in 2017 and is currently responsible for the development and management of hydrogen projects at RWE Generation SE.
Mr Matthias Schritgen
Industrial Engineering, Fahrzeugwerk Bernard Krone GmbH & Co. KG
Mathias Schrigten is a trained industrial mechanic, studied mechanical engineering, and completed an MBA while working. Since 2016, he has been working at Fahrzeugwerk Krone in Werlte as a project engineer in the Industrial Engineering department. The focus of his work is on the central planning and supervision of investment projects, including the investment in the new surface center. He is 36 years old, married, and lives together with his wife and 2 children in Wietmarschen.
Dr Toshihiro Wakabayashi
General Manager, Environment and Energy Management Development Dept., Toyo Engineering Corporation
After joining Toyo Engineering in 1994, Mr. Wakabayashi has worked mainly as process engineer and has dedicated to work for distillation technologies as technical expert covering a conceptual design to an operation in numerous projects such as refinery process, petrochemical process, etc. His R& D efforts for novel energy saving technology won him several awards from the government, academia and industry. He got his PhD in Chemical Engineering at Kyoto University in 2013. He was assigned as General Manager at the Environment and Energy management Development Department at Toyo Engineering in 2018.
Mr Tomohisa Takeuchi
Senior Engineer, Metals & Recycling Div., Recycling Technology Dept., JX Nippon Mining & Metals
Mr. Takeuchi joined JX Mining & Metals Co., Ltd. In 2003. Before being appointed as Senior Engineer at the Recycling Technology Department of Metals and Recycling Division at the Technology Group, Advanced Technology and Strategy Department, LiB Recycling Project Office, he held various positions at the Saganoseki Smelter and Refinery.
Dr Seiji Nomura
Fellow, Nippon Steel Corporation
Dr. Nomura has been dedicated to iron making research for over 30 years. He joined iron making research laboratory of Nippon Steel Corporation in 1989 and the Nagoya Works of Nippon Steel Corporation in 1995. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. in 1997. In 2012, he was assigned general manager at the iron making research laboratory of Nippon Steel Corporation. For his performance he was honored with international prizes for his outstanding contributions in the iron and steel sector. Since 2020 he is a Fellow at Nippon Steel Corporation.
Dr Andrea Herbst
Competence Center Energy Technology and Energy Systems, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
Dr. Andrea Herbst is senior researcher at the Competence Centre Energy Technology and Energy Systems at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in Karlsruhe. Her research focuses on the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries, the assessment of circular economy for decarbonisation, and scenarios of industrial energy demand and CO2 emissions. Andrea Herbst currently coordinates a multi-disciplinary centre of expertise for the energy transition (EnTEC) funded by DG ENER as well as the analysis on industrial transformation in the German Copernicus project ARIADNE. She has further been involved in various national and European projects, e.g. to support the industrial in-depth analysis of the EU 2050 long-term strategy or to support the impact assessment of technological innovations in industry for the EC Innovation Fund.
Dr Lucas Witoslawski
Chief Operating Officer, Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer (AHK Japan)
Dr. Lucas Witoslawski is Deputy Delegate of the German Commerce & Industry in Japan and Chief Operating Officer of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan (AHK Japan) since 2016. He is mainly responsible for the service section DE International, which supports German business in starting or extending their business in Japan and facilitates the bilateral exchange between German and Japanese business in almost all industrial areas.
Before of his current position he was in charge for global business development of a major German technical service provider as well as head of digital transformation of a business stream for the same company. During his professional career, he facilitated the transfer of innovative products and services from Germany to Japan. He used to work and study for several years in Japan and Germany and has consultancy experience in both countries.
Dr. Lucas Witoslawski has studied business computing at the University of Paderborn in Germany with focus on international management, networking technologies and operations research. He holds also a PhD from Yokohama National University in Japan, where he specialized on the influence of human resource related difficulties of European businesses in Japan and the influence of motivational factors of local employees working for European businesses in Japan.