Japan Inc.’s climate ambitions leave small suppliers asking for help

FUKUYAMA, Japan — Terada Iron Works, a small company of 60 employees perched on the coast of the picturesque Seto Inland Sea, is a living history of Japan Inc.’s environmental transformation.

Starting out as a maker of water towers for steam locomotives in the western Japanese city of Fukuyama in Hiroshima prefecture, the company later served oil refineries by making distillation towers. When air pollution became a social problem in the 1970s, the company started making desulfurization units. Today, it develops carbon capture systems and produces solar thermal panels amid a global push toward decarbonization.