In February 2006, Shiro Hosojima and Kazunori Kobayashi from Japan For Sustainability interviewed Mr. Takashi "Tachi" Kiuchi and Mr. Peter D. Pedersen, two organizing members of RSBS (Research on Scientific Basis for Sustainability), which published the "Science on Sustainability 2006 -A view from Japan" report (PDF, HTML).

Peter D Pedersen. SOS 2006 Executive Committee Chief Executive of E-Square Inc. www.e-squareinc.com	Takashi Kiuchi. SOS 2006 Board of Investigation Chairman of E-Square Inc. www.e-squareinc.com Chairman of Future 500 www.future500japan.org

Shiro Hosojima (Q) (JFS)
Peter D. Pedersen (PP) (E-Square Inc.)
Takashi Kiuchi (TK) (E-Square Inc.)

(Q) First, I would like to ask you about the overall structure of the SOS 2006 Report. Just what is the SOS 2006 Report?

(PP)This was a very unique project in Japan I think, in the sense that it has been a broad collaboration between Japan's largest [non-life] insurance company, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., 176 scientists -primarily from Japan, and 30 other scientists from overseas. We also had prominent scholars and leaders from Japan's science council. Professor Yamamoto from Tokyo University and professor Kitagawa from Waseda University were some of the originators of the report.

The report itself was created to give a bird's eye view of the current global situation of sustainability. Because too many reports are, in some way or the other, colored by the intentions with which the reports are created, we are trying to create a neutral report that will be read by decision makers in Japan and overseas. That was the motivation for starting this project.

One interesting note is that Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., Japans largest [non-life] insurance company agreed to become the sole sponsor of the report without attaching any strings to the outcome of the 6-month processes. We call this open source - anyone can access the website and download the report.

We can also share the printed reports at cost, and we make public all the different materials that we have used. The whole process is transparent, and the outcome is open source, so that's a new initiative - that a private company agrees to sponsor something like this, and make it available to other companies so they can enjoy the fruits of this collaborative work.

(Q) What was the motivation and primary reason for starting the SOS 2006 Report?

(TK) E-square has been working with a number of scientists, and my feeling is that most of the scientists - almost all of them - have said that the world is moving exactly as they predicted many years ago - even worse. That's the first thing. Number two is that I think insurance companies are interested in knowing what things they have to anticipate and expect. Scientists are saying that when the year 2055 comes, the actual insurance payment will be larger than all the 200 nations in the world can afford to pay. In other words, all the accumulation of GDP will not be enough to cover the insurance. Things will be that bad, and scientists are saying those things. Ok? There's a very strong interest. If people are not necessarily working with this on a daily basis they should have enough information of where they are heading and what to expect. I think they have very real need to know what scientists know. When you ask about motivation, that's what I like to bring up.

(PP) I'd like to add that the motivation behind the report is, of course, seen in the title also. It's called the "SOS 2006". SOS stands for "Science on Sustainability." Its Scientists are taking a neutral look as the state of sustainability at present. But at the same time, you realize that we are in an SOS like situation like the things we touched on. We have to make some major transitions in the society: energy, economy, manufacturing, in lifestyles, and many other areas. We need a scientific basis for making shifts. We need to have an agreement, what we call a "new values base" - a new base upon which we plan our policies, corporate strategies, to plan and act. Value is based on other important decision taken on societies.

(Q) Do you have a preferred audience? People in developed nations, etc?

(PP) Well, I think my view is that the report is accessible for anyone - basically we update the report. We have to get the decision makers or decision takers in industrialized countries to make dramatic shifts and transition in society. I would say the main target of the report is, first of all, politicians in Japan and business leaders in Japan - overseas, but primarily in Japan. They must come to the realization that we are in serious situation, we need a new foundation, a new values base upon which we plan and enact policies and strategy for the future.

(TK) And I would like to emphasize that the general public should know this, so that people are prepared. They have to sometimes change their lifestyles. It hasn't been done, and I hope this will make more leverage for them to change.

(Q) I would like to ask you about the process and technicality of SOS 2006. You have mentioned that there has been much involvement with many researchers in this project, and how did you manage to get these researchers involved in this project?

(PP) Well, it was basically through the key originators of the project, Professor Yamamoto from Tokyo University, Professor Kitagawa from Waseda University, and the head of one of the committees Professor Mizutani from Nihon University. Through their contact and our contacts also we got together a team of 50 committee leaders, and among those committee members, there are leading authorities in the different fields the report covers: climate change, energy, resources, biodiversity, and so on. The leading authorities in Japan are represented in the committees.

Initially setting up the committee went quite easily. The more difficult thing was to get the committee to work (laugh), because these top scientists are extremely busy - they are just as busy as a top executive in a company. Sometimes more busy, and with less payment (laugh).

To get them involved in a sort of cross-sector or cross-disciplinary report, which doesn't necessary give them credentials, and they need to have scientific credentials, or have their papers published in what are called A-journals - the best scientific journals. This report is not going to be published in A-journals, it is not something that gives them scientific credentials in their scientific community, so to get them to spend time on actually working on this was much more difficult. So what we did was we had series of committee meetings, about once a month. In-between, the secretariat did a lot of research, and we sort of scanned all the recent reports on the issues, mainly reports after 2000 or 2001 on different issues. And we fed this information to committee meetings and committee members, discussed different issues, and through this tedious, or in a way slow, process we started to build a basic framework for the report.

We did have some hard times getting scientists to create this substantial report in 6 months. It takes them 6 months to make one article for scientific paper - at least 6 months, sometimes much more. So, to get a 300-page report together that has scientific value with the involvement of 55 committee members, seemed to be virtually impossible.

(TK) But we were lucky to have a time limit that was very hard on us. Otherwise we would be doing this still now - forever. But we had a strong, precise time limit, October 31st. We had to complete it. It was difficult to do, but it was a good thing for us to have that deadline.

(PP) I should mention that, of course a lot of people worked hard on it, so I am very thankful for the committee members with the involvement that they did provide although they didn't get any significant payment for the actual work. So, we are thankful for the commitment, and very thankful to the about 120 scientist of which 30-35 are from overseas and rest are Japanese scientists who contributed in other ways by reviewing the manuscripts, giving us feedback. We did interviews with scientists, maybe about 60, and people spent a lot of time meeting us with for these interviews and providing information, giving us the most recent papers, and so on. We had great collaboration, although it was quite often with very short notice. We had great collaboration from the scientific community, I think.

(Q) You mentioned the most complicated part about constructing this report. Were there any other complications?

(PP) Yes, one other very difficult issue, which is to define what is "scientifically neutral". So we decided that what we would do is to present the different views in the same chapter. Quite often you have an environmental report that only projects one view of the situation. Our aim was to look at the scientific background for discussing the issue of sustainability - mentioning clearly when or where there are differing views. In all cases we wanted to have scientifically substantiated [information], so we are looking at scientific background. But even in the science world, we can find greatly different views on a lot of issues. Like energy for instance, [some say] "we are heading toward an imminent oil crisis - do we have enough oil for next 100 years?" Or for resources, "are we running out of crucial resources?" or, "it's simply a matter of cost if we go further into the arid regions. If we go deeper into the mountains, spend more money if we have better technology, we can go on pulling out earth's resources forever", - some scientists would say. So, we found that there are quite different views in many areas.

(Q) I'd like to talk about the theme and contents of SOS 2006. What do you want the readers to absorb from this report?

(TK) I hope this will be a start for them to think. I think people are basically optimistic. They don't want to see or absorb the bad news. So from this report, if we are talking about climate change, for instance, one thing I'd like them to remember is the one chart, a very important chart, I think, comparing the 15 years starting from 1970 with the 15 years starting from 1986. There are numbers showing how the category 4 and 5 hurricanes got started during those 15 years. And if I remember correctly, I think, for the first 15 years, they were talking around 171, but next 15 years it escalated to something like 270.

Ok, that's the trend and that is exactly what scientists are talking about. And I hope it will be a wake up call, to everybody who reads this. This is one good example and when it comes to water, food, energy, or waste, each section has that kind of wake up calls. So don't try to memorize or try to remember this, whoever reads this, find those things they are interested in, and start from there. Because we have to wake up, and I think that if people do that - and people should do that - I will be very happy for this report.

(Q) I have read it, and it was really interesting and but got scared too.

(PP) I would like to add little on the themes we covered in the main part of the report. We covered 5 aspects of sustainability; climate change, energy, resources, food & water, forestry, and biodiversity. And some of our findings - and there is largely scientific consensus I think in those areas - are very severe. This is true in the field of climate change, food and water, and biodiversity in particular.

The Climate change we are facing is probably one of the largest challenges that humanity has ever faced. We have not been taking the actions that add up to the magnitude of the challenge.

The second issue is food and water - we had magnificent growth in food production in the latter half of the 20th century, which was higher than population growth. Towards the end of the 20th century there was a clear sign that we can draw no more fish from the oceans. And per capita production of grain has dropped since the 1990's, and lots of indicators are not entirely positive on the food supply side. As for water, there is a general sense of crisis, basically that by 2025 possibly half of the population may live under what is called water stress. This is not water scarcity, but a very tight water situation. This is quite widely accepted in the scientific community.

When it comes to biodiversity, this is like the natural infrastructure of society; you need this as the basis for different activities in society. I think there is widespread concern now that this sort of ecosystem fabric; the basis of the society, this natural infrastructure, is being severely damaged by human activities. We are not restoring it at the same pace as we are destroying it. Those three fields in particular are in a pretty critical situation.

(TK) There's one more thing I would like to add - remember this is very easy reading. Ok, it's scientific stuff, but it is easy to read.

(PP) I like to add the remaining two fields, energy and resources. It's not like we are facing imminent depletion or total depletion of these resources, but we are facing very severe supply/demand issues. For energy we see already how the oil prices are kept high due to the severe gap between supply and ever growing demand. The same is happening in the resource field, where big mining companies have to dig deeper and the resources are not as high quality as what that they used to find, which means they have to dig up more earth and dirt to get to the resources and the cost is rising, which is seen in different industries already.

There is a huge economic impact from the relative scarcity that we are facing in the field of energy and resources. And, if we look at real long-term perspective - which is what sustainability is all about - there is what we call the "intergenerational responsibilities", our responsibilities for future generations. We are in pretty severe situation, basically in the energy field we are facing the end of oil civilization in a few decades probably, and we are not taking concerted effort that matches the magnitude of that challenge.

(Q) What is the relationship between science and sustainability? What structure or role does science play on sustainability?

(PP) That's a pretty good question! Actually sustainability is not automatically a scientific issue. Sustainability is an ethical issue first of all - an issue of values and an issue of ethics. If you forget all of them, you can't even talk about sustainability. And the key ethical element is that we have responsibility to secure some kind of decent life for people around the earth, no matter where they are. There is great disparity in living standards now, and people are still basically starving. So we have an ethical responsibility to insure more balanced development, and we have another responsibility to ensure that ability of future generation to fulfill their needs is not threatened. That is what we are doing right now. And whatever work we do on sustainability, whether it's scientific, or in the business world, we must stand on these two principles quite firmly. We mention that at the beginning of the report - these are the basic principles of sustainability.

But, sort of accepting that as a point of arch, science plays a huge role because you have a lot of demagogue, and on the other side, you may have the sort of eco-extremists, who want to paint a bleak picture of the future. You may even have religious people saying the world is about to blow up! On the other side, you may have people manipulating it in other way, saying that there are no issues at all, just a bunch of eco-extremist making up the whole thing. So we do need scientists, and we need scientific consensus. We need a lot of research on several data as indicators for the way the world is moving. These are only indicators - based on different indicators, we get we must take political decisions, business decisions, and lifestyles decisions.

Making actual decisions is not an issue of science, it is not somewhere where you can say we do this because science has told us to. "Scientists are some of the contributors". Now, we can ask scientists for answers, but one of the key contributors Professor Steven Snyder from Stanford University, an expert on climate issues, has said "scientists have insights, we don't have answers". We can provide insights, and we can't provide you with answers. And it's very irresponsible for a politician to demand an answer from the scientists.

(Q) Some sort of ethical changes are prevented from science inputs?

(PP) If we have solid scientific input, it may assist the right ethical choices for the future.

(Q) How different is this report compared to other scientific reports? What is so special about this report?

(TK) Number one is that it will give you a whole view. Now, everything is segment by segment. But this will give you birds-view of the entire issue. That is, I think, very important. Each section has depth in it, and every section has deep analysis. I hope people take it as a starting point.

(PP) I should say, that the English translation is only the summary version of the report. Unfortunately, we don't have the full report available in English. So, what people are able to see in English is only the summary. That's important to know, but still, based on the feedback that we have received from many people in corporations or government in Japan, we see that they feel this is a neutral report - it's not colored by any sort of hidden intention or hidden agenda. They feel that is really a neutral report. That was really our goal, because if it is neutral the report itself has credibility, and if the report has credibility, it can become basis for decision-making. The moment it is seen being loaded, the moment it is seen as having a hidden agenda, people will not base their decisions on it. So in that way, based on the people we have talked to so far, I think we have succeeded in making a more neutral report than most reports that are out there.

(TK) How about weighing the issues, deciding whether something is very important, or a little important, or what. Is that the reader's decision? To make out whether this is more important than this issue.

(PP) Making the decision is the reader's task, but we do mention that the issues of climate change, biodiversity, and food and water issues are probably very critical right now. And we do have very serious long-term challenges also in terms of energy and in the field of resources so we do provide some guidance - but basically we are not giving policy prescriptions. We are asking people to make their own decisions based on what they read. We think that any sensible person would make decision toward more sustainability oriented policies or corporate strategies.

(Q) Why, as you have mentioned, does the subtitle include "A View from Japan?"

(PP) Well its unique in the sense that it was produced in Japan, because there were few initiatives or projects promoted overseas or made available for an overseas audience. There were very few if they were coming out from Japan. That is very an important aspect also.

(TK) I put two meanings to it. One is a modest way to express it - it's just a view from Japan. At the same, since we have leadership issues in this country, when we say a "view from Japan", I hope some political leaders in the industrial arena will take this as their engine. To show and come up with their own strong message toward whatever arena they are working on. I hope political leaders will take this and say, "it may be just a Japanese view, but this is what I believe in, what we should do this and that." And from there I hope we start seeing some political leadership.

(Q) If there is a big change in Japan, do you want this kind of SOS report to spread globally in the future? You have mentioned that it's not available in English in depth right now, but in the future do you want to implement this project on a global level if it has been changing Japan?

(PP) Well, I don't know. Of course there are plenty of similar reports globally. This is unique in that it was produced in Japan, by the Japanese scientific community. It is also being exported - at least the summary report - being made available for international audience. But I don't think you need to necessarily update each aspect to publish a 2007 report, 2008 report, and so on. More important is that some of the things that are mentioned in the report are translated to actual action. Here I do believe Japan has a special role to play.

If we look at United States at present, it is the most wasteful nation on the earth. Actions taken by the US government, states, or corporation again do not match what US has put itself and the world and, at least with present administration, we cannot expect major changes. So I think that in the field of sustainability, Japan must take leadership basically. Taking leadership doesn't mean becoming part of a committee of United Nations and it doesn't mean saying things or sending out reports. It means, as I think Gandhi said, "there is no leadership except by example". You have to make an example, you have to translate it into action, you have to start with your own company, your own country or region, basically. From such action real leadership is projected to the world. I do believe Japan has a unique opportunity and a unique role to play also.

(TK) We are very encouraged by the reaction from those people who read this. I think for the last 2 to 3 weeks we talked about it in Europe and the United States and Japan. And reaction was very positive, so regarding the question of whether the English version should cover the entire 286 pages, I think we have a strong demand for it.

(PP) That would be interesting.