The Tripartite Presidents Meeting (TPM) among the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES) of China, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) of Japan, and the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) of Korea, was initiated by CRAES and jointly established by NIES and NIER in 2004. Under the TPM framework, the TPM meeting and the parallel workshop are held annually in turn, with the other two institutes sending the delegations led by their Presidents to attend the meeting.

The principle of TPM is “Friendship, Communication, Cooperation, and Win-Win”. It is aiming to study the mechanism of similar environmental pollution problems and jointly develop technologies for control and management of pollution emission, transport and transformation, so as to tackle domestic and regional key environmental issues. The goal of TPM development is to jointly promote the environmental quality improvement and sustainable development in the North East Asia, through the enhancement of tripartite cooperation and communication in areas of common interest.

Currently, 15 TPM meetings were successfully held by CRAES, NIES and NIER, together with the parallel workshops. 15 TPM joint communiques were signed jointly, with technical communication and joint study on Fresh Water Pollution, Air Pollution, Urban Environmental Eco-city, Dust and Sand Storm, Chemical Risk and Management, Biodiversity Conservation, Solid Waste Management, Climate Change, and Disaster Environment. Besides, the TPM has once invited Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment Monitoring of Mongolia, Sino-Japan Friendship Environmental Protection Center of China, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as well as local environmental protection bureaus and local environmental research institutes as the observers, enhancing the meeting influence and advancing development of local ecological and environmental protection.