Issues such as global warming, clean water shortage and depleting fossil fuel resources are major challenges to our society but are also opportunities for companies to develop technologies to address these problems. Toray Group's “Project EcoChallenge” was designed to explore and develop new business models to remedy the serious challenges that face our society.

On August 28, 2009, six U.S. Toray Group companies met at TREC headquarters in Troy, Michigan for the first EcoChallenge Meeting. Ms. Deborah Viges, from TREC, opened the meeting with an overview and presented market research on the fastest growing “Clean Tech” markets in North America. These markets include solar energy, wind energy, bio materials, electric vehicles(EV) and the SMART grid. Significant investment in each of these market segments by the U.S. government, corporations and venture capitalist are creating new industries with rapid growth in the United States. Mr. Masahiro Minami, Deputy General Manager of Toray Global Environment Business Strategic Planning Dept. introduced Toray’s EcoChallenge and the Global Environmental Group Mission.

Because of the large scope of this topic, TREC decided to focus the first EcoChallenge Meeting on power generation technologies including fuel cells, clean energy generation and battery technologies. Each of the group companies provided information on their current technology and applications in these markets. Discussions followed to determine which applications provided the most opportunities.

We discussed synergies between our groups and developed action items for the upcoming year. Some of the areas we are focusing on for 2010 will be EV and hybrid vehicle (HEV), batteries, battery separators and the next generation of automotive seating.

In the future, we hope to continue our efforts in these markets and explore other expanding eco markets.