English press release for announcing the Japanese E-idea winners

1. Press Release
6 Young Japanese Eco-Entrepreneurs Win the British
Council and LRQA E-idea Competition
The British Council and LRQA’s E-idea is an innovative competition that funds,
supports and mentors young eco-entrepreneurs from seven Asia-Pacific countries
29th August 2011. For Immediate Release
Six young eco-entrepreneurs triumphed over a field of 63 applicants in the E-idea competition, to
win up to 600,000JPY in seed funding as well as mentoring and international training opportunities
for projects they have devised to address some of the environmental challenges facing their local
communities.
E-idea is an innovative competition that funds and mentors young eco-entrepreneurs in Australia,
China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, and was launched by the Rt Hon
William Hague, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs in January in
Australia.
In each country, three prizes for start-up ventures and three ‘step-up’ prizes for expansions of
existing projects were recruited The winning projects were selected by panel of LRQA and British
Council specialists through face-to-face interviews after document screening.
In Japan, E-idea was open to Japanese citizens and residents aged 18-35, and applicants were
asked to formulate proposals for projects that address one or more of the following sustainability
issues: transportation, waste reduction, energy reduction and efficiency, sustainable design;
initiatives for creative industries, and positive communications campaigns. The projects were
further evaluated on their ability to produce behaviour change amongst a defined target audience,
focus on a specific community or industry, capacity to be replicated or expanded over time, clear
communications plan, prospects for future commercialisation and investor/donor appeal.
The winning eco-entrepreneurs will each receive seed funding of up to 400,000JPY for “start-ups”
or 600,000JPY for “step-ups”to implement their project. They will also enjoy professional
mentoring and access to LRQA’s global business network of 60,000 clients to gain the leadership,
business, project management, technical, fundraising and marketing skills they will need to bring
their E-ideas to fruition. The winners will also have opportunities to gain exposure through in-
country, regional and UK media campaigns conducted by the British Council and LRQA. All the 42
selected eco-entrepreneurs in the region will be announced on September on the E-idea website
www.e-idea.org. The awards ceremony for E-idea winners in Japan will be held at the British
Embassy on 21st September 2011.
E-idea Competition Details:
Organisers: British Council, Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance Limited (LRQA)
Supported by: Ministry of the Environment (MOE)

2. Details of the projects from the 6 E-idea winners in Japan to follow:
■Start –up E-idea winners
『Exploring rice fields through Segways』 Taishi “Brian” Azuma （34years old Mimasaka
City, Okayama Prefecture）
Mountain villages and the maintenance of terraced rice fields are being
affected by aging populations and reduction in rice production. Our project
is aiming to use the drainage systems of the terraced rice fields to produce
energy through the use of a micro hydroelectric generation system. This
project aims to create a new value to the cost of maintaining existing rice
terrace fields by providing energy for local use. We aim to use the energy
for developing eco-tourist opportunities, powering Segways to increase
access to local sites, and promoting interaction between rural and urban
communities. We are also looking to use the energy source to power
vehicles and farming machines in place of the currently used fossil fuels to make our community
more sustainable.
『Cyclus』 Satoshi Yanagisawa （33 years old Nishi Tokyo City , Tokyo City）
A fundamental paradigm shift is necessary to promote user awareness of a
true sustainable future, and design has a crucial role to play as a catalyst for
this shift. Cyclus has been designed as a hand-held, portable power
generator, which can be taken anywhere and used in daily life Using
practical and reliable technologies, users can rotate the lower part of the
Cyclus several times, providing constant rotational energy which can be
used to recharge, for example, various hand-held digital devices without a
negative impact to the environment. Through its design and use, Cyclus
also aim to promote user-awareness of the movement toward a more
sustainable society.
『Horses and Humans together』 Tatsunori Kikuchi （35 years old Daito Ward, Tokyo
City ）
Self-sufficiency rates for agriculture production are falling in Japan and the
food mileage of the products we buy are increasing. How can we increase
production in areas that are suffering from a fall in the number of the
working population and a decrease in the number of farms? For our project
we are using unused land at a horse riding club in Tomisato City, Chiba
prefecture. Using the horse manure from the riding club, we are developing
a farming project which reduces dependency on fossil fuels and contributes
to the conservation of local ecosystems. We are also looking to increase
the food self-sufficiency ratio in our area and also to address the issue of
unused farm land in communities.

3. ■Step Up E-idea Winners
『Energy Literacy Platform』 Shuichi Ishibashi （31 years old, Kawasaki City,
Kanagawa Prefecture）
Conserving energy is important both for environmental and economic reasons,
but how many people really know how much electricity is used for the various
appliances and devices which surround them, or how much energy is saved
by switching them off? Normally, we only realize how much energy we have
used once the bill comes from the electric company. However, the bills
cannot tell us how much energy was used for individual items such as the
refrigerator and the vacuum cleaner. The Energy Literacy Platform (ELP) is a
tool that shows you how much electricity you are consuming in your home for
individual items. Users can learn more about the amount of electricity that
they are consuming every day in a more intuitive way, and so increase their
home energy literacy. Through the use of ELP, our goal is to reduce wasteful
electricity usage and promote more efficient home energy consumption.
『Art School by FUNFAM』 Tsuneyuki Fujioka (35 years old Adachi Ward, Tokyo
City）
"Deforestation" has now become a hot issue worldwide, and there has been a
tightening of regulations for timber harvesting. Our goal is to make people
aware of an alternative to fossil-fuel derived products by promoting bamboo
tableware as a sustainable and renewable resource. We believe
environmental issues will not be tackled until we examine our culture of mass
production and mass disposal. The "Art School' workshop is an interactive
program for children to make original bamboo plates through their own
designs in collaboration with the bamboo craftsman at FUNFAM. Through the
workshop, we aim to raise awareness of environmental issues among children
and their families and provide an opportunity to learn more about the super,
eco-friendly material- bamboo.
『Tie for Change』 Hiromi Morimoto （34 years old Suginami Ward, Tokyo City）
Tie for Change aims to change our perception and behaviour from a position
of looking at what we don’t have to one which embraces the richness of what
we already possess. Utilising unwanted, donated neckties, we clean and
remake them, and also use the ties to fashion into other items such as
cufflinks, tie-clips and hair bands, which we sell at fairs and markets through
our professional image consultants. Tie for Change aims to contribute to
sustainability by creating an ecological, educational and empowering
platform, where “looking better” can lead to “making society better” by being
more environmental friendly through the reuse of unwanted items. In the
remaking of the ties, we provide employment opportunities to disadvantaged
people in the society such as homeless and single mothers. We are keen to
expand this initiative to other countries.

4. About Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance Limited (LRQA)
LRQA is a member of the 250-year-old Lloyd’s Register Group and is a leading independent
provider of Business Assurance services including certification, validation, verification and training.
The Group enhances the safety of life, property and the environment by helping our clients to
ensure the quality construction and operation of critical infrastructure. It comprises charities and
non-charitable entities, which support the charities in their main goal.
LRQA brings a well-established independent and authoritative professional global network as well
as a high level of technical climate change expertise. The E-idea competition will give the young
winning entrepreneurs the opportunity to work with LRQA’s global business network of 60,000
clients.
For more, please visit: http://www.lr.org
About the British Council
The British Council is the UK's international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural
relations. We create international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and
build trust between them worldwide. We work in over 100 countries in the arts, education and
English and in 2010/11 we engaged face to face with 30 million people and reached 578 million.
We have 6,800 staff worldwide. Our total turnover in 2010/11 was £693 million, of which our grant-
in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was £190 million. The remainder was
generated through trading activities such as English language teaching. For every £1 of taxpayer
money invested we earn £2.65 in additional income. For more information, please visit:
http://www.britishcouncil.org
With a proven track record working with young people across countries and cultures, the British
Council is ideally positioned to engage and empower young people committed to finding solutions
to climate change and sustainability issues.
Note: Company names and product names written on this page are registered trademarks.
E-idea Contacts
E-idea www.e-idea.org
British Council
Japan contact Asia-Pacific contact
Naoko Jihira Adam Pillsbury
Head of PR and Marketing Senior Communications Manager
British Council Japan Climate and Sustainability, British Council Beijing
T. +81 0(3) 3235 8068 T +86 (10) 6590 6903 ext. 257
E. pr@britishcouncil.or.jp E. adam.pillsbury@britishcouncil.org.cn
Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance Limited (LRQA)
Asia-Pacific
Richard Cook
Corporate Communications Manager Asia
Lloyd’s Register Group
T. +85 2 2287 9375
E. richard.cook@lr.org