Over the past half-century plus, the global supply chain has been the primary driver for the Japanese manufacturing sector that relies on steady and massive streams of inexpensive imported oil, raw materials, and food.

While this industrial model has brought unparalleled economic prosperity to Japan, its inherent mass-production, mass-consumption, and mass-disposal nature has had an adverse impact on society, such as environmental pollution, resource depletion, and a strain on relationships among people, just to name a few. Today, increasingly serious climate change and resource depletion directly and indirectly cause the worsening of infectious diseases and the outbreak of wars and conflicts around the globe. With the global supply chain partially disrupted, combined with soaring energy and materials prices, as well as trade restrictions imposed by some countries, Japanese businesses face enormous procurement risks.

Moreover, Japanese society is plagued by an aging and shrinking population. It is obvious that the traditional industrial model can no longer sustain the growth of economy and society in Japan under triple pressures, namely soaring energy and materials prices, rising labor costs, and the shrinking market.

As the traditional model has lost its relevance, how can we sustain business growth? The AMITA Group's answer to this proposition is to establish an ecosystem society in which natural and relational capital will be enhanced in a virtuous circle as economy and society grow. An ecosystem society is a circular society that produces no waste, drawing inspiration from natural ecosystems that maintain an optimal state as a whole while constantly and dynamically changing.

The key to establishing an ecosystem society is circularity. To achieve maximum return on minimum investment, we must initiate the following three processes:
1．Predict demand to better control production and cut down on waste
2．Replace a conventional business model of selling products per se with a servicizing model of selling products' functionality
3． Pursue a circular supply chain that facilitates local procurement of materials

These processes enable businesses to make a switch from a traditional produce-sell-and-consume model to a more sustainable, ESG-embedded model that makes a circular use of functionality of products made from locally procured circular materials based on demand prediction. Consumer products companies that operate on this sustainable business model will have a greater chance to earn public trust and respect and bolster their profit margins—even in a shrinking market—by cutting back on ad budgets and personnel costs, as well as by better controlling the cost of sales.

The AMITA Group's long-term business strategy is focused on assisting businesses in transitioning to a sustainable business model and achieving greater profitability in a challenging market environment. More specifically, we intend to establish the MEGURU PLATFORM, which consists of MEGURU STATION®, a resource-collection site that promotes mutually supportive engagement among community residents, and MEGURU FACTORY, a facility that converts collected traceable resources into circular materials.

Our goal is to have MEGURU STATION® in every school district around the country, which serves as a community spot where residents can drop by to dispose of household waste for recycling and mingle with others. The station also compiles information about residents' behavioral patterns and the type and volume of collected waste.

MEGURU FACTORY receives collected waste from MEGURU STATION®, recycles it into value-added circular materials, and ships them to manufacturers for commercial use.

The AMITA Group's role is to assist businesses in procuring circular materials produced locally by MEGURU FACTORY, as well as to predict community-specific consumer demand for any given product based on big data on residents' use and disposal of materials, and to share findings with local businesses and municipalities.

To make MEGURU PLATFORM work, a community must have a sufficient number of MEGURU STATION® locations in operation and have a materials circulation scheme in place. As a viable solution to this challenge, AMITA offers a community development scheme, named Co-Creation City (CCC) Initiative, for consideration by municipalities. It is intended to address the four major community challenges—population drain, aging and shrinking population, rising costs of social security programs, and declining employment opportunities—by facilitating greater engagement among residents and other stakeholders, as well as greater circulation of materials. Under this initiative, MEGURU STATION® will become a part of implementing a community development measure initiated by a municipality, rather than offering an ad hoc solution to specific community issues concerning the environment and residents' welfare. This approach will make it easy to expand the network of MEGURU STATION® locations geographically.

Establishing the MEGURU PLATFORM is a cross-industry, collaborative effort. AMITA teams with NTT Communications in compiling and analyzing information gathered through MEGURU STATION®, works with J-CEP¹ and CLOMA² to recycle collected waste into usable materials and value-added products, and partners with Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and the BELL Group to add more value to MEGURU STATION®.

1.Japan Circular Economy Partnership, a cross-industry corporate alliance that drives a circular economy
2.Japan Clean Ocean Material Alliance, promoting cross-industry collaboration in addressing marine plastic litter