Mitsubishi Corporation Invests in Climate-tech through Breakthrough Energy Catalyst

Apr 25, 2022 11:46 JST

Source: Mitsubishi Corporation

TOKYO, Apr 25, 2022 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is pleased to announce its decision to invest in Breakthrough Energy Catalyst (Catalyst), a program dedicated to accelerating innovative climate technologies. MC plans to invest 100 million USD in Catalyst, and in doing so will become the first company headquartered in Asia to make a commitment of this scale to the fund.

Catalyst is a first-of-its-kind model that brings together companies, governments, and private philanthropy to accelerate the adoption of critical, next generation climate technologies. Catalyst is part of Breakthrough Energy, a network of initiatives founded by Bill Gates in 2015 dedicated to funding, developing, commercializing, and scaling the technologies that will be necessary to avoid a climate disaster.

By making targeted investments in climate technologies that have proven their potential through research and development, Catalyst aims to speed up their large-scale commercialization. This will significantly decrease the price of new clean products, increase their availability in the market, and demonstrate how to finance the infrastructure of decarbonization at scale.

Having unveiled its own roadmap to carbon neutrality in October 2021, MC has publicly disclosed both its greenhouse-gas emissions reduction targets and energy-transformation (EX) investment guidelines. As a private entity with ownership in resource, energy and many other businesses, MC is fully committed to doing its part in the worldwide push to decarbonize.

Renewables, hydrogen, ammonia and methanation are just some of the next-generation energy initiatives that MC is now examining as future earnings pillars, but MC also understands the challenges to achieving a net-zero world. Swift application of new technologies and innovations will be crucial to meeting those challenges.

Catalyst creates a framework in which Breakthrough Energy and its public and private sector partners including governments, corporations, and philanthropic organizations, will work together to commercialize high-impact decarbonization technologies through measures such as equity investment, grant funding and offtake agreements. These technologies will underpin a zero-carbon economy but are currently more expensive than their existing fossil-fuel emitting counterparts. The difference between these costs is what is now referred to as "Green Premium."

The current Catalyst focus areas are (1) Clean Hydrogen (and related infrastructure), (2) Long-duration Energy Storage (LDES), (3) Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), and (4) Direct Air Capture (DAC). In future, the Catalyst program and its partners may expand its focus to include other hard-to-abate sectors. MC also considers these technologies vital to its own EX strategies and net-zero roadmap.

By participating in this program, MC is demonstrating a commitment to growing climate technologies and further reducing our carbon footprint in ways that will not compromise our quality of life.

At MC we are proud of the wealth of expertise and networks that we have built up in Japan and throughout Asia. We remain dedicated to optimizing those assets so that we can assist our Catalyst partners in steel, aviation, finance, energy and other industries. Together we will work to enhance the program's value and help us transition to a carbon-neutral world.

Program Details
Please refer to the program guide for details.
https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/scaling-innovation/catalyst