Showa Shell Sekiyu, through Showa Shell Sekiyu Foundation for the Promotion of Environmental Research, had indirectly supported study efforts on environment by young researchers for twelve years. We, as an energy company and for a more active involvement in the creation of a sustainable global society, have decided to transfer from this indirect support of researchers to a direct engagement in the building of strategies on sustainable energy.

The "Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science¹" (IR3S) is founded under the directorship of Hiroshi Komiyama, president of the University of Tokyo, with a world-class educational research network as its central member. IR3S and Showa Shell Sekiyu inaugurated "Energy Sustainability Forum", which aims to build strategies on sustainable energy. Three researchers of Showa Shell Sekiyu will directly work in cooperation with five participating universities and four cooperating institutions of IR3S, as well as Shell Group and Saudi Aramco for investigations and researches on future energy in Japan and its surrounding countries of Asia.

We are also considering to take part in "International Alliance of Research Universities²" (IARU), which is composed of ten of the world's top universities including the University of Tokyo, as well as in "Alliance for Global Sustainability³" (AGS) composed of four overseas universities including the University of Tokyo and which together seeks to create a sustainable anthropogenic sphere.

More specifically, our researchers will work with IR3S to try to find answers to the following issues:

• Estimations for 2030-50 of the form and demand of energy in Japan and its surrounding countries of Asia.
• Potentials of the existing energy in terms of duration and efficiency.
• Estimated demand for alternative energy, such as wind power, solar power, biofuels, synthetic fuels and hydrogen system.
• Sufficiency of the existing technological development researches on alternative energy.
• Necessity of developing new technologies, like the CO₂ capture technology.

Based on results of the above investigations and researches, we will study strategies on sustainable energy to mitigate global warning, and will make proposals to policymakers.

Showa Shell Sekiyu will contribute the funds of 500 million yen, which it had donated to the Foundation for the Promotion of Environmental Research, to the University of Tokyo Foundation. We have also sent three researchers to IR3S as a visiting professor and project associate professors. The three researchers will seek to strengthen alliance with the members of IR3S by contributing to the research on sustainable energy, and are going to support lectures under a new program called "Sustainability Education Program (masters program)" which will be open to students at the University of Tokyo.

1 Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S)

Participating universities: the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Hokkaido University, and Ibaragi University.
Cooperating institutions: National Institute for Environmental Studies, Toyo University, Tohoku University, and Chiba University.

2 International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU)

Participating Universities: the University of Tokyo, the Australian National University, National University of Singapore, Peking University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, University of California (Barkeley), University of Cambridge, University of Copenhagen, University of Oxford, Yale University.

3 Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS)

Participating universities: the University of Tokyo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden).