We regard energy and environmental challenges as issues shared by the whole world, and we actively pursue partnerships with universities, research institutions, and companies overseas.
Saito Laboratory regards energy and environmental challenges as issues shared by the whole world and actively pursues partnerships with universities, research institutions, and companies overseas. In particular, we engage in international joint research, personnel exchange, technology demonstration, and international standardization in fields such as air conditioning, refrigeration, and heat pumps; thermal energy management; human space design; next-generation refrigerants; and the circular economy.
In recent years, as the Asia-ASEAN region has continued to see economic growth and rising living standards, demand for air conditioning and refrigeration in the region is expected to expand rapidly. At the same time, this growth brings a range of challenges, including rising energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, refrigerant leakage, the collection and recycling of end-of-life equipment, and the health and comfort of people in the region. Rather than addressing these challenges individually, Saito Laboratory approaches them as a single, integrated field of research that unites equipment, architecture, energy, information and control, and human science.
An academic consortium for a next-generation HVAC&R ecosystem, bringing together Waseda University and universities and research institutions across the ASEAN countries.
As a central pillar of this engagement, we are advancing the "WASEAN HVAC&R Consortium," which brings together Waseda University and universities and research institutions across the ASEAN countries. Working together with universities in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and elsewhere, we address high-efficiency air conditioning and refrigeration technologies suited to tropical climates, low-environmental-impact refrigerants, refrigerant management, digitally enabled equipment management, demand response, resource circulation, and human resource development.
We also collaborate with researchers and international organizations across Europe, North America, China, and beyond, exchanging information and pursuing joint research on heat pump technology, thermal energy utilization, carbon-neutrality policy, and international standardization. We are likewise active in presenting research at international conferences, inviting visiting researchers, sending students abroad, and running joint educational programs with overseas universities.
Saito Laboratory's goal is not simply to export Japan's advanced technologies overseas. We place great importance on understanding the climate, culture, ways of life, industrial structure, and energy circumstances specific to each country and region, and on working together with local researchers, students, companies, and government bodies to co-create technologies and social systems suited to that region.
Going forward, we will continue to advance international joint research and human resource development in tandem, contributing to the realization of "human-centered, sustainable air conditioning, refrigeration, and energy systems" that achieve both a comfortable, healthy way of life and a decarbonized society.
