Asuene Inc., a leading climate tech company in Japan, has established its first overseas subsidiary in Singapore, Asuzero Singapore Pte. Ltd. (hereinafter “Asuzero Singapore”). Positioning the subsidiary as a central hub for its business expanding in APAC, Asuene starts full-scale provision of “Asuzero,” the cloud-based climate platform for measuring, reporting and reducing carbon emissions, as well as a one-stop service for decarbonization.
Asuzero has been introduced to more than 500 companies in Japan. Its next target is to become Asia’s No. 1 climate tech, and Asuene’s ever-evolving service lines now include English support and the product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) function.
The “Singapore Green Plan 2030” was released by the Government of Singapore in 2021, setting clear targets for sustainability in Singapore, including CO2 emission reduction targets and promotion of green finance. The government has approved a budget to raise the carbon tax in 2022, and the entire country is working toward achieving carbon neutrality. The Singapore Exchange (SGX) has also announced that it will gradually require listed companies to disclose GHG emissions for Scope1-3 (*1) and climate-related reports based on TCFD from 2023.
Companies based in Singapore are often responsible for the entire APAC region as a hub for business activities. Asuene has established Asuzero Singapore to contribute to decarbonization of entire Asia by driving forward CO2-measuring and reduction initiatives from Singapore.
In the Series B round in 2022, Asuene was evaluated for its high potential for business development in APAC, and raised US$20 million from Pavilion Capital, an investment company under the Singapore government and Temasek, Axiom Asia Private Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Masayuki Mochida from Tybourne Capital Management and others.
“Pavilion Capital has been supporting Asuene’s Singapore/Southeast Asian expansion by providing market intelligence and connecting them with local players,” said Chee Kong Choun, head of Japan Investments at Pavilion Capital. “We are confident of their knowledge, products and services, and approach to the decarbonization of SaaS space, and we wish them the best in bringing Japanese best practices in ESG to the region, and at the same time leveraging on regional insights to eventually go global.”
“Singapore has developed initiatives and policies to combat climate change and is promoting them on a national level,” said Kohei Nishiwada, co-founder CEO of Asuene. “We are pleased to develop our business in Singapore to accelerate decarbonization in enterprise management. We look forward to bringing our one-stop decarbonization solutions, including Asuzero, the climate cloud platform for measuring, reporting and reducing carbon emissions, and Sustainability Transformation (SX) consultation, to our customers in APAC. We continue to take on the challenge to become Asia’s No. 1 climate tech company.”
Today many countries impose carbon tax on a per-product basis, and the demand to calculate carbon footprint of products is growing. Through the product LCA function, Asuzero Singapore supports companies in their decarbonization management by measuring and reducing CO2 emissions throughout the supply chain.
