On Wednesday, March 22, ULI Japan hosted the first event in a three-part series; ESG/Proptech Annual Series: Their Evolution and Present Status 1/3. This event featured heavyweights and movers in proptech and ESG in Japan. The consensus in the room was that while the status of the Japanese market still lags well behind the United States and Europe, it is also priming for change. 

Japanese firms have notoriously been known to be slow to innovate.  Even when foreign firms and countries have already begun to adopt new methods that innovate and improve efficiency, Japanese firms would often seem to remain reticent.  Foreign firms in the space of ESG and proptech have found it frustratingly difficult to localize, with language barriers and institutional barriers to change barring the way. However, the event’s speakers spoke to innovative practices and experiences with ESG and proptech being carried out in real time in their respective local firms.  

Fumiaki Sato, Senior Manager, Planning Strategy Department, Tokyu Fudosan Holdings Corporation leads opening keynote at ULI Japan ESGxProptech kickoff event

The event started with a keynote by Fumiaki Sato, Senior Manager, Planning Strategy Department, Tokyu Fudosan Holdings Corporation. Sato provided a market overview, before diving into a number of project case studies being undertaken at Tokyu Fudosan Holdings.  His presentation spanned various aspects of proptech and community improvement; approaching the subject with a refreshing frankness, highlighting areas of failure and needs for improvement, and detailing several ongoing key projects that are testing the boundaries of proptech. The diverse projects include a collaborative project between Tokyu Fudosan and Linough, aimed at reducing CO2 emissions caused by delivery trucks to residential buildings, a partnership with TRYETING and Tokyu Resort to create an application for smart staffing, matching and optimizing staff skills and work schedules,  as well as HashPalette, which is experimenting with using NFTs to manage access to the popular powder skiing resort destination of Niseko Tokyu.  

Sato’s keynote speech was followed by two case studies featuring Tokyo Gas and CSR Design in the first and GOYOH and AXA Investment Management in the second.  These studies looked at actual cases of proptech being introduced at Tokyo Gas and AXA IM respectively, focusing on both energy efficiency as well as social and community development. 

Ryuichi Horie, Co-Founder and CEO, CSR Design Green Investment Advisory (left) and Keisuke Shintani, Assistant Director, Solution Co-creation Dept., Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. (right) answer audience questions after session two

Finally, the event was rounded out by a presentation from Satoshi Murakami, Director, Head of APAC, MetaProp, and Shinsuke Nuriya, Chief Investment Officer, SYLA Technologies. Nuriya introduced SYLA’s ‘Rimawari-kun,’ the largest real estate crowdfunding platform in Japan, as a means of addressing inherent market inefficiencies and slow pace of digitization in the real estate market.  Murakami and him then looked into experiences and case studies involving US-based firm MetaProp, such as the sustainable pre-fab multi-family developer Juno, which achieves drastic reductions in both embodied carbon and operating carbon, as well as other tech and logistics partnerships, which focus on synthesizing data from multiple buildings, cloud applications and other systems for improved operational efficiency.  

Shinsuke Nuriya, Chief Investment Officer, SYLA Technologies Japan (left) and Satoshi Murakami, Director, Head of APAC, MetaProp Ventures lead proptech focused discussion in third session

Murakami acknowledged the difficulties of breaking into the Japanese market, citing language differences in construction technique and materials as the primary limiting factors, but also emphasizing that the case studies finding success in the US could be adapted to Japan market.  

Yukihiko Ito, CEO and Founder, GOYOH Inc. (left) and Kazuhiko Yamamoto, Head of Asset Management Japan, Real Assets, AXA Real Estate Investment Managers (right) share about their social impact initiatives with AXA REIM Japan for their residential portfolios

This event series plans to continue to explore advances in proptech and ESG measures with the second event scheduled for this summer.  The ULI Japan Spring Conference Japan Council session on May 18 will also feature a proptech discussion, drawing together ULI Japan’s group of investors, developers, architects and more into an information packed series of sessions by some of the leaders in the real estate industry. For more information and to register to Spring Conference 2023: https://ulijapanconference.org/en/index.php