Atsushi Kobayashi (MBA Class of 2025) reflects on his recent participation in Global Network Week (GNW) in Sydney, Australia.
At Hitotsubashi ICS, the mission is to achieve the “Best of Two Worlds” by embracing complexity, connecting different values and perspectives, and creating new possibilities. For him, this mission has also become a vital lens through which he thinks about the kind of contribution he hopes to make as a professional after his MBA.
“This experience brought my own vision of the ‘Best of Two Worlds’ into sharper focus.”
Having spent many years in the non-life insurance industry and hoping to continue contributing to society through its development, I do not see the transition to Net Zero as simply an environmental issue. I believe the insurance industry can do more than provide traditional risk transfer and risk management support; it can also help enable responsible transitions for companies and society. In that possibility—linking existing insurance functions with new social roles—I see a concrete form of the “Best of Two Worlds” and hope to implement it in my future career path. With a strong desire to explore the potential of that role more broadly, I joined this program.
Global Network Week is a signature program offered by the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM), of which Hitotsubashi ICS is a member. It gives students from partner schools around the world the opportunity to visit a host school in person and experience each institution’s unique perspectives and areas of expertise through face-to-face classes and exchange.
I traveled to Sydney, Australia—a city known for its sustainability initiatives—to join an intensive course at UNSW Business School titled "The Race to Net Zero." As an institution with a strong presence in the fields of clean energy transition, it provided me with exactly the right setting in which to explore these questions. The program offered opportunities to think about Net Zero from multiple angles, including climate science, policy and regulation, financing, climate psychology, and a "Just Transition." This journey included a field trip to Hunter Valley and a climate action simulation on the final day. The learning I gained through these in-person interactions and field-based experiences became a major asset—something difficult to gain through online learning alone.
Group photo with fellow students from around the world during the field trip to Hunter Valley.
Navigating the Friction of Diversity
What struck me most on the first day was the sheer diversity of the participants—and the difficulty that came with it. This course brought together 55 students from 15 universities around the world, including many people working in countries and industries very different from those of my classmates at Hitotsubashi ICS.
Through my learning at ICS, I had come to see diversity as a positive force that deepens learning. But this time, I realized that with a topic like Net Zero—where the Earth’s finite resources and the distribution of benefits and burdens are at stake—diversity does not simply enrich discussion. It can also create confusion and friction, making consensus much harder to reach. Each participant approached Net Zero with different concerns, goals, and preferred pathways. As a result, views differed on what trade-offs should be accepted and what should be prioritized. These differences were highly stimulating, but they were not something I could accept in a purely positive way. In a field that requires global cooperation, how could this diversity be turned into a strength? On the first day, I was deeply aware of that difficulty.
The turning point came through our interactions outside the lecture hall. During group work, coffee breaks, and long lunch discussions, we began to share the specific challenges facing our respective countries and industries. By listening to each other’s realities, we gradually built a foundation of mutual trust. We realized that while our priorities differed, we were a team facing a shared challenge. These informal interactions allowed us to foster an environment where diversity could finally be leveraged. Looking back, this initial uncertainty became the starting point of my learning—of thinking more seriously about why responding to Net Zero is necessary.
An intense group discussion on creating realistic pathways to Net Zero.
Why Responding to Net Zero is Necessary
Before this program, I had understood climate change in somewhat fragmentary terms: melting ice, rising sea levels, and more natural disasters. Through the lectures, however, I learned that climate change is not simply a change in the natural environment; it is an issue that can alter the very assumptions on which our societies and businesses are built.
If extreme weather becomes more frequent and intense, industries that depend heavily on natural conditions, such as agriculture and livestock farming, will be greatly affected. But the impact does not stop there. Climate change influences the way people live, their consumption patterns, and even their core values and preferences. For example, rising disaster risks may affect where people choose to live or what kinds of services they need. If that happens, business models and demand forecasts that once worked well may need to be reconsidered.
In everyday business, we normally predict the future based on past experience and accumulated data. On that basis, we build strategies and operations. Climate change, however, destabilizes the assumption that the future will follow as an extension of the past. If it affects human behavior and market structures, past data alone will no longer be enough to read the future accurately. In other words, these changes go beyond the environment and affect the stability of the economy and society itself. Responding to Net Zero is necessary to protect the foundations of our society. It is a deeply human problem.
A Holistic Approach to a “Just Transition”
Another key takeaway was that Net Zero cannot be achieved simply by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What matters is creating a sustainable balance between reduction and removal, while thinking about how the burdens and benefits generated in that process are distributed. We cannot judge technology by surface-level effects alone. Whether it is electrification, hydrogen, or nuclear energy, each comes with its own constraints and trade-offs regarding costs, supply chains, and social safety. We must ask whether something is truly sustainable across its entire lifecycle—from production to disposal—in an "end-to-end" way.
Furthermore, for a transition to move forward, being technically correct is not enough. It is essential to minimize negative impacts on people and distribute risks and opportunities fairly. This is the idea of a “Just Transition.” It is not just an idealistic concept; it is a precondition for making the transition socially acceptable and practically implementable. Net Zero cannot be achieved unless we look across different fields such as agriculture, energy, investment, technology, and psychology.
Believing in a Big Future, Taking Small Steps Forward
The more I learned, the more I understood that achieving Net Zero is far from easy. Geopolitical tensions, energy security, and resistance to lifestyle changes make major transformation difficult. At the same time, however, I saw that the world has already begun—little by little—to move toward a shared goal. Technology is advancing, and many companies are working to reconcile growth with emissions reduction. By seeing these realities, I began to feel that even if the world does not change overnight, the accumulation of small steps has real meaning.
Through repeated discussions with fellow students from different countries and industries, the “difficulty of diversity” I felt on the first day gradually changed. We began to feel that we could think together as a team facing a shared challenge. Those initial differences became a way of seeing the issue in a more multidimensional way, revealing realistic pathways I would have missed on my own. Diversity can, in fact, be turned into strength. What matters is to believe in a big future while continuing small steps of progress.
Bringing the Vision Home
I believe this is also where the role of a non-life insurance company lies. We may not be able to change society all at once, but we can support someone’s challenge, encourage new initiatives, and make the next step in the transition possible. Continuing to support such small advances can eventually lead to broader change.
The Race to Net Zero was an opportunity to reexamine the meaning and potential of my own work. After my MBA, I will return to the front lines of the non-life insurance business. There, I hope to contribute by helping insurers support the responsible transition of companies and society through the functions of insurance and investment. The transition to a sustainable society cannot be achieved by one company alone. Even so, it is possible to support someone’s challenge and make one step forward possible. For me, that is the essence of gradually giving shape, in my professional world, to the “Best of Two Worlds” that I have been learning about at ICS.
Final presentation