Decarbonisation Challenge 2026 Summer was held in Tokyo, with 7 companies and 2 local governments participating. Of the 9 teams, 2 are considering implementation in society, and the winners of the Judges' Grand Prize, Student Grand Prize and Judges' Encouragement Award were announced.
The 10th Decarbonisation Challenge, which aims to create new decarbonisation-related businesses based on consumer input, was held over 5 days at a venue in Tokyo from 4 to 14 September 2026. The participants comprised 7 companies and 2 local governments. Students and each company or local government jointly developed ideas addressing the challenges set by the participants, with the programme providing support through the stage of considering implementation in society.
The Toyo Seikan Group Holdings,Ltd. team won the Judges' Grand Prize, the Panasonic Energy team won the Student Grand Prize, and the Mitsui & Co. team won the Judges' Encouragement Award. The theme for the Judges' Grand Prize was “Design the world's coolest resource collection system,” and the team's proposal using paper containers from cinemas was highly rated. The Student Grand Prize was awarded for a household resource collection system based on the concept “Two bows, two claps, one cycle,” while the Mitsui & Co. team's proposal to use underutilised fish was also cited as a factor behind the awards.
A common feature of the ideas was a circular-economy perspective focused on how to make use of resources already available, such as cinema containers, batteries stored in households and underutilised fish. Many proposals incorporated the idea of embedding systems that connect consumer behaviour with solutions to social issues into everyday life. It was also revealed after the final presentations that 2 of the 9 teams are considering implementation in society.