Announcement of the L2-Tech List(Draft)in Fiscal 2014 (Press Release)

1. Purpose and Background

Under the environmental constraint of living on "a single earth", it is necessary to promote the dissemination and introduction of boldly low-carbon technologies that have very low emissions of energy-derived carbon dioxide, in order to break away from a society dependent on mass production and mass consumption, to realize a low-carbon society where every citizen is truly affluent and to achieve an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Under theses backgrounds, the Minister of the Environment announced the L2-Tech JAPAN Initiative in March 2014. This initiative includes compiling information on leading low-carbon technologies that will lead to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, publishing information both domestically and internationally and making use of it to promote major reduction of energy-derived carbon dioxide emissions and to build a low-carbon society.

2. Contents of the L2-Tech List

L2-Tech refers to "Leading Low carbon Technologies", which represents leading element technologies reducing energy consumption or carbon dioxide emissions or equipment and instruments to which they are applied. They are supposed to be most effective for reducing energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.

The L2-Tech List (draft) comprehensively arranges information such as explanations of equipment and instruments, explanations of indicators, L2-Tech standards level (figures on actually realized maximum efficiency) in each stage of "after commercialization", "before commercialization", and "development goals (2030)" and so forth in six fields, i.e. [A] Industry and commercial (common to sectors), [B] Industry (sector-specific manufacturing equipment, etc.), [C] Transportation, [D] Households, [E] Energy conversion, and [F] Waste treatment and recycling.

In compiling the list, information was obtained by and relevant experts for respective technologies, while retaining the scientific and objective viewpoints.

Technologies in the L2-Tech List are classified into six fields as written in Table I or Table II according to whether we can set index of efficiency measured under certain conditions or potential of social extension.

	Classification and Sector, etc.
[A] Industry and commercial (common to sectors)	Air conditioning, heat sources, etc.
[B] Industry (sector-specific manufacturing equipment, etc.)	Iron and steel industry, chemical industry, paper and pulp manufacturing industry, petrochemical industry, automobile manufacturing industry, construction machinery, agricultural instruments (for cultivation), agriculture (horticultural facility), etc.
[C] Transportation	Automobiles (passenger cars), automobiles (commercial vehicles, heavy vehicles), two-wheeled vehicles, railways, shipping, aircraft
[D] Residential	Domestic electrical appliances, water heaters, window glass, etc.
[E] Energy conversion	Renewable energy, coal-fired power plants, natural gas-fired power plants, etc.
[F] Waste treatment and recycling	General wastes treatment, industrial wastes treatment, material recycling, sewage treatment, sewage sludge treatment, etc.

3. Future Plans

The " L2-Tech List in Fiscal 2014 (Draft) " has been compiled according to the information that was collected between April and July 2014. In future, it is scheduled to continue collecting basic information and to announce the " L2-Tech List in Fiscal 2014 " at the end of fiscal 2014.

Because technology is constantly progressing, it is intended to keep collecting basic information on leading low-carbon technologies and to examine effective ways for updating the L2-Tech List (it is also planned to consider the listing of manufacturers' names) from fiscal 2015 onwards^*.

While enhancing the list through such efforts for the time being, we intend to make use of the List for the Ministry of the Environment's policies and measures, supporting introduction, development and demonstration of the technologies and so on. We also publish the information both domestically and internationally so that various entities (business operators, local governments, NPOs and civilians) can refer to it when introducing technologies.

* Updating in fiscal 2015 and onwards is conditional depending on the budget securing.

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