Tokyo, Dec. 9 (Jiji Press)–The Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, announced on Monday a plan to support technological innovation by companies for achieving carbon neutrality.
   

Under the “Challenge Zero” plan, Keidanren will publish information on member corporations’ efforts to develop or introduce technologies for realizing carbon neutrality, or balancing the amounts of carbon dioxide emitted and absorbed. Such technologies include carbon capture and the use of hydrogen as fuel.
   

The move goes one step further than an initiative for achieving a “low-carbon” society.
   

Corporations taking part in the plan by the biggest Japanese business lobby will be required to declare that they will aim to become carbon neutral.
   

“Not just explaining measures taken so far, we want to support companies’ moves to make such declarations and redouble efforts (to achieve carbon neutrality), in order to create a movement encompassing the whole Japanese economy,” Keidanren Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi said at a press conference on Monday.
   

“We want to seek the participation by companies that can commit (to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050),” he added.
   

The organization plans to publish in May-July 2020 information on carbon neutrality measures taken by some 100-200 companies.
   

The Challenge Zero plan will also be presented at the ongoing 25th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP25, in Madrid.
   

Japan has been a target of criticisms for not being enthusiastic about combating climate change. As an example of such criticism, the country was recently given the satirical “Fossil of the Day” award by an international nongovernmental organization.