b'C E L E B R A T I N G 7 0 Y E A R S9 5 2-20 2 Shinichi Sandro Hasegawa1 2A General Manager of Energy Innovation Initiative AmericasN DDB NOYETell us more about your role as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Energy Innovation Initiative Americas and how your previous experiences helped meet challenges now and for the future. Since joining Sumitomo, I have been engaged in project development related to Oil and Gas and infrastructure. The main markets are the Middle East and Africa, and most recently, until March this year, I was stationed in So Paulo, Brazil for over four years, working to develop new projects in South America. EIIA was established this April and thats when I moved to New York.Our ultimate goal is to reach Carbon Neutrality by 2050 and EIIAs missions is to create new innovative businesses that have not yet been established anywhere in the world. My past experiences and the current activities of EIIA have a few things in common. I recall two things. The first one is developing businesses in sub-Saharan Africa countries, and the second one is the development of a solar power generation business in Japan. In Africa, I was a member of a company-wide project called Sub-Saharan Africa Development from 2006 to 2011. At first, there were only two members, just my colleague and myself.I learned about the potential of Sub-Sahara Africa during my business trip to Nigeria for our LNG project. My colleague and I made a proposal, applied to the company that had an open inno-vation challenge similar to Zero to One challenge, and started activities with the support from the company. Since then, we began to carry out various development activities, including those countries where Sumitomo did not have offices, such as Angola, Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Ethiopia, etc. My other experience was back in 2012 when the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) for renewable energy started in Japan. After finishing my assignment in Africa, I was transferred to the department in charge of solar power generation just after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. 2012 was the first year of FIT in Japan, and the Department was cautious about starting Solar IPP businesses in Japan because the regulations were still unclear at the time. There was no assigned team to the project, therefore three people, including myself, who had no experience in the solar power generation business took initiative to start the activity.There are two similarities between EIIAs activities and those experiences. I also faced similar sit-uations in South America when I was stationed in So Paulo. First, needing to start from scratch since there was no assigned team to work on the project. Second, it was a field and market area of business in which Sumitomo had relatively little experience. Of course, starting from scratch is a hurdle though that should not keep us from tackling new challenges.I strongly believe that there are infinite possibilities and I am just as excited about EIIA projects in the same way as it was with the Africa development and the solar IPP business in Japan. Obstacles are inevitable in the new business world, but when you gain the right perspective, they become opportunities for even greater success.SCOA has made a commitment to Carbon Neutrality by 2050, how are we acting on thiscommitment and what impact have we made so far?Many countries and companies including Sumitomo have committed to achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2050. I am often asked Can it really be achieved? My answer is that we have to achieve it for our descendants and our globe. Climate change is already happening in reality. Taking urgent action to tackle climate change is no longer option in order to prevent future catastrophe.16 visions Fall 2022'