From 22-24 November 2022, Saitama City will host the ‘Saitama Sustainable Cities Summit ~E-KIZUNA Global Summit~’, which brings cities from Japan and around the world together to share and spread various ideas and environmental issues. The point of this summit is ‘Realizing sustainable cities through immediate action’, Saitama hopes that the summit will be an opportunity to encourage people to think about what climate action can be taken daily to achieve sustainable cities.
In Saitama City, CO2 emissions from cars are high, and in order to reduce these emissions, the city has been promoting the ‘E-KIZUNA project’, a policy to promote the use of electric vehicles (EVs), since 2009. As part of this project, the ‘E-KIZUNA Summit’ has been held nine times since 2010 on an ongoing basis, with the aim of building wide-area cooperation between cities in Japan.
The summit, which will be held in November, is an expanded version of the ‘E-KIZUNA Summit’. In addition, based on the experience of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, which resulted in shortages of petrol and electricity, Saitama has been working to develop a disaster-resilience city, with a low-carbon lifestyle and energy security in the event of a disaster. However, the global-scale environmental burden is increasing, and in order to achieve sustainable cities, efforts must be strengthened not only at the national level but also at the city level. Given this background, the ‘Saitama Sustainable Cities Summit ~E-KIZUNA Global Summit~ will be held in cooperation with domestic and international cities and companies to exchange opinions and share information on the advanced initiatives and knowledge to realize sustainable cities.

Four Thematic Breakout Sessions: Energy, Mobility, Smart Cities, and Resilience

The keynote speeches on Day 1 will be given by Gino Van Begin, Secretary General, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and Kazuhiko Takeuchi, President, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), who will speak on national and international trends towards the realization of sustainable cities. On Day 2, six breakout sessions will be held on four themes; Energy, Mobility, Smart Cities, and Resilience. Through these sessions, Saitama hopes that people will learn how serious the impact on the global environment is and what cities and companies are doing now to develop sustainable cities, and what each of us can do to protect the planet.
The summit aims to realize the desire; ‘Create sustainable cities where people can live comfortably, especially for children, who will lead the next generation.’

For more information and the official report, click here.