Green Japan: Environmental Technologies, Innovation Policy, and the Pursuit of Green Growth 9781487514914

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Techno-Environmentalism: Making Science and Technology Work for Society
Environmental Sacrifice: Japan’s Economic-Environmental History
Green Growth Policies: The Japanese Government’s Environmental Strategies
Green Infrastructure: The Foundations of Green Growth in Japan
Green Cities and the Development of Environmental Potential
Pushing the Enviro-Technology Frontier: Big Dreams, Big Gambles
Japanese Economic Environmentalism in Review
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

GREEN JAPAN Environmental Technologies, Innovation Policy, and the Pursuit of Green Growth

JAPAN AND GLOBAL SOCIETY Editors: AKIRA IRIYE, Harvard University; MASATO KIMURA, Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation; DAVID A. WELCH, Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo How has Japan shaped, and been shaped by, globalization – politically, economically, socially, and culturally? How has its identity, and how have its objectives, changed? Japan and Global Society explores Japan’s past, present, and future interactions with the Asia Pacific and the world from a wide variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives and through diverse paradigmatic lenses. Titles in this series are intended to showcase international scholarship on Japan and its regional neighbours that will appeal to scholars in disciplines both in the humanities and the social sciences. Japan and Global Society is supported by generous grants from the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation and the University of Missouri–St Louis. Editorial Advisory Board Frederick R. Dickinson, University of Pennsylvania Michael Donnelly, University of Toronto Joel Glassman, University of Missouri–St Louis Izumi Koide, Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation Gil Latz, Portland State University Michael A. Schneider, Knox College Patricia G. Steinhoff, University of Hawaii at Manoa Patricia Wetzel, Portland State University For a list of books published in the series, see page 269.

Green Japan Environmental Technologies, Innovation Policy, and the Pursuit of Green Growth

CARIN HOLROYD

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2018 Toronto Buffalo London www.utorontopress.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4875-0222-5 Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Holroyd, Carin, author Green Japan : environmental technologies, innovation policy, and the pursuit of green growth / Carin Holroyd. (Japan and global society) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4875-0222-5 (cloth) 1. Environmental policy – Japan. 2. Sustainable development – Technological innovations – Japan. 3. Japan – Environmental conditions. 4. Japan – Economic conditions. I. Title. II. Series: Japan and global society HC465.E5H65 2018

363.700952

C2017-902774-3

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement du Canada of Canada

Contents

Foreword

vii

Acknowledgments Introduction

ix

3

1 Techno-environmentalism: Making Science and Technology Work for Society 14 2 Environmental Sacrifice: Japan’s EconomicEnvironmental History 45 3 Green Growth Policies: The Japanese Government’s Environmental Strategies 74 4 Green Infrastructure: The Foundations of Green Growth in Japan 106 5 Green Cities and the Development of Environmental Potential 130 6 Pushing the Enviro-Technology Frontier: Big Dreams, Big Gambles 156 7 Japanese Economic Environmentalism in Review Notes

195

Bibliography Index

247

225

175

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Foreword

University of Toronto Press, in cooperation with the University of Missouri–St Louis and the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation of Tokyo, has launched an ambitious new series, “Japan and Global Society.” The volumes in the series explore how Japan has defined its identities and objectives in the larger region of Asia and the Pacific and, at the same time, how the global community has been shaped by Japan and its interactions with other countries. The dual focus on Japan and on global society reflects the series editors’ and publishers’ commitment to globalizing national studies. Scholars and readers have become increasingly aware that it makes little sense to treat a country in isolation. All countries are interdependent and shaped by cross-national forces so that mono-national studies, those that examine a country’s past and present in isolation, are never satisfactory. Such awareness has grown during the past few decades when global, transnational phenomena and forces have gained prominence. In the age of globalization, no country retains complete autonomy or freedom of action. Yet nations continue to act in pursuit of their respective national interests, which frequently results in international tensions. Financial, social, and educational policies continue to be defined domestically, with national communities as units. But transnational economic, environmental, and cultural forces always infringe upon national entities, transforming them in subtle and sometimes even violent ways. Global society, consisting of billions of individuals and their organizations, evolves and shapes national communities even as the latter contribute to defining the overall human community. Japan provides a particularly pertinent instance of such interaction, but this series is not limited to studies of that country alone. Indeed,

viii Foreword

the books published in the series will show that there is little unique about Japan, whose history has been shaped by interactions with China, Korea, the United States, and many other countries. For this reason, forthcoming volumes will deal with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and compare their respective developments and shared destinies. At the same time, some studies in the series will transcend national frameworks and discuss more transnational themes, such as humanitarianism, migration, and diseases, documenting how these phenomena affect Japan and other countries and how, at the same time, they contribute to the making of a more interdependent global society. Lastly, we hope these studies will help to promote an understanding of non-national entities, such as regions, religions, and civilizations. Modern history continues to be examined in terms of nations as the key units of analysis, and yet these other entities have their own vibrant histories, which do not necessarily coincide with nation-centred narratives. To look at Japan, or for that matter any other country, and to examine its past and present in these alternative frameworks will enrich our understanding of modern world history and of the contemporary global civilization. Akira Iriye

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to many people who helped me enormously over the years I was working on this book. Officials in many Japanese ministries and departments, including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, generously shared information on the activities and initiatives of their various departments. Municipal officials from the cities of Kitakyushu, Osaka (and Osaka prefecture), and Yokohama were also very welcoming and informative. I am immensely grateful to all of the Japanese officials for their assistance and knowledge. Officials at Shimizu Corporation kindly met with me to tell me about Green Float and the Luna Ring. I was very fortunate to receive financial support for the research that went into this project from the Japan Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. This was invaluable and I am most appreciative. Thank you to the University of Waterloo, particularly the Political Science department, where I was based during the early part of the research for this book. Special thanks to my colleagues in the Political Studies department at the University of Saskatchewan, and to the University itself, especially for its publication grant. Thank you also to Natasha Kikot, Sachiyo Kanzaki, and Joelena Leader for their excellent research support. Over the years, I presented various sections of the book at the Japan Studies Association of Canada (JSAC) conferences; I am most appreciative of the feedback and support I received from my JSAC colleagues. Special thanks to Andrew DeWit of Rikkyo University, who has been

x Acknowledgments

incredibly generous in sharing his insights and encyclopedic knowledge of the Japanese energy eco-system. Thank you also to Kuniko Urashima, Tetsunari Iida, Kanae Suzuki, David Edgington, David Welch, Atsushi Sunami, and Kimie Hara. Some of the ideas advanced in this book were published in Carin Holroyd, “Japan’s Green Growth Policies: Domestic Engagement, Global Possibilities,” Journal of Japanese Political Economy 40, nos. 3−4 (2014). Parts of the Osaka and Kitakyushu sections of Chapter 5 are drawn from Carin Holroyd, “Local Economies and the Future of Environmental Sustainability in Japan and Asia: Osaka and Kitakyushu,” The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 10, no. 42 (2012). Working with the University of Toronto Press was a real pleasure. I want to express my sincere thanks to Daniel Quinlan for his advice and assistance throughout the entire editorial process and to Wayne Herrington for taking the book to completion. Barry Norris was an excellent and thorough copy editor and improved the manuscript significantly. I continue to be amazed at the changes in my daughter, Hana, over the life cycle of this book. It has been amazing to watch her change from an amazing little girl into a remarkable young woman. And for Marlon, I will pray that the next few years are better than the last ones. My biggest thanks are reserved for my husband, Ken, for his support, interest, encouragement, and love. Thank you for everything, Ken.

GREEN JAPAN Environmental Technologies, Innovation Policy, and the Pursuit of Green Growth

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Introduction

Japan’s preoccupation with the juxtaposition of energy and the environment goes back half a century. In the wake of rapid reindustrialization in the 1950s and 1960s, Japan was a global poster child for poor environmental planning and a symbol of the ecological consequences of rapid economic growth. Although the country cleaned up its act – and its landscapes – in the 1980s and 1990s, energy-poor Japan remained preoccupied with the identification of long-term energy supplies. Like other leading industrial nations, Japan also wrestled with the dramatic transformations of the global economy associated with freer trade, the rise of China, and rapid technological development. Furthermore, with deep spiritual, artistic, and cultural connections to the land and to nature – philosophies and values more akin to those of Indigenous peoples than to western European and North American assumptions about human domination of the land – the Japanese live with the inherent physical contradictions of a spiritual world view, economic development, and quality of life. The Fukushima nuclear meltdown in 2011 brought all these elements into stark relief, combining the desire to protect the environment with the realization of national dependence on electrical power, fear of economic collapse, and a combination of distrust of and reliance on nuclear technology. Fukushima had been a source of “clean” energy and, with a nation-wide commitment to nuclear power, had symbolized Japan’s ability to anticipate the global consequences of overdependence on fossil fuels. The disaster made it clear to the Japanese that the country’s technological infrastructure carries risks as well as dangers, that modern society depends upon ready access to cheap energy, and that national prosperity is far more vulnerable to natural disasters than

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Green Japan

most people appreciated. Fukushima alerted Japan to the complexities of modern technology, and highlighted the delicate balance between environmental sustainability and national prosperity. Japan is not alone in its concern about energy and sustainability. Brought into global prominence by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the international political campaign to combat climate change, conserve energy resources, and focus on environmental sustainability has found strong adherents in many countries. Over the subsequent two decades, countries have explored alternate energy sources, examined conservation alternatives, investigated cleaner energy solutions, and otherwise sought to mitigate the escalating effects of global climate change. The leading industrial nations have led the political campaign, but efforts to introduce dramatic environmental initiatives frequently have run afoul of domestic concerns about economic development and national prosperity. Equally, the heavy polluting developing nations, particularly China and India, resent global efforts to force them to cut back on their development strategies to compensate for generations of excessive energy consumption and pollution in the leading industrial countries. As scientific evidence of climate change mounts, political leaders and governments have come to the realization that affirmative and sustained action is necessary. A series of inconclusive international summits, particularly in Bali and Copenhagen, sought to chart a path for environmental sustainability, but failed to achieve consensus or meaningful action. Then, in November 2015, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP 21), China and the United States signed on to an international accord that commits the world’s leading industrial nations to substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Japan endorsed the Paris accord, continuing the country’s commitment to environmental sustainability. Japan views climate change in the context of a nation that lives with remarkable levels of uncertainty and vulnerability – including access to energy and exposure to environmental shifts, but starting with a long and tragic history of natural disasters that long ago affirmed the supremacy of the environment over human beings. Andrew DeWit, one of the leading analysts of Japan’s environmental strategies, sees a direct connection between the country’s historic vulnerabilities and its approach to the risks associated with unchecked climate change. DeWit notes that, on several key indices of environmental risk, Japan operates in a different world than do most of the leading industrial nations:

Introduction 5

“Among incentives to secure a resilient future is the fact that Japan’s Tokyo-Yokohama region’s natural-disaster threat is rated by Munich Re at 710, compared to 167 for San Francisco, 42 for New York, and 15 for both Seoul and Beijing … The US National Bureau of Economic Research … also assesses Japan’s risk from typhoon damage, through 2090, as being a staggering USD 4.4 trillion of the global total of USD 9.7 trillion, with perhaps diminishing capacity to recover from repeated disasters.”1 Japan has not been a paragon of environmental virtue – to be fair, no country in the world really qualifies for that descriptor, although Denmark is trying. As discussed in Chapter 2, Japan has been at the centre of some of the world’s worst industrial pollution. Critics such as Alex Kerr, for example, write about how thirty years of ill-conceived construction projects have created a concrete jungle out of a once-beautiful archipelago. In Japan, as in a growing number of other countries, the pursuit of environmental and energy strategies tied to greater sustainability is colliding with the need to sustain and enhance material well-being and national income. As attractive as the pursuit of truly sustainable practices is in principle, no country has willingly accepted a dramatic decline in quality of life and per capita income in order to adopt more environmentally sound policies. In the struggle for a balance between economic development and environmental sustainability, the scales continue to be tipped in favour of the economy. This, in sum, is the central dilemma of the twenty-first century: can economic development and a general improvement in the quality of human life be pursued at the same time as environmental and ecological policies that preserve and improve both national ecosystems and the global environment? Japan has been developing a strategy that can be described as “Green Growth” – although the policy package has not been given a formal title by the government – which seeks to draw together the two disparate strands of national planning: environmental sustainability and economic development. To a significant degree, for the past two decades, the Japanese government and the national business community have believed that the country’s future lies in the development of new ecological and environmental products and services that will improve the national environment and contribute to general economic growth and prosperity. At the same time, Japan’s national innovation strategies have shifted from the industry-led and science-based pursuit of economic opportunity to society-focused concerns about long-term

6

Green Japan

sustainability and quality of life. A significant body of thought holds that improving the Japanese and global environment can be good for Japanese business, ushering in the latest phase of innovative-based business development and general prosperity. Japan’s Green Growth experience holds interesting lessons for many other countries, particularly since the signing of the near-global accord – by almost two hundred countries – in Paris. As the euphoria of reaching an agreement that was decades in the making subsides, however, the reality of the economic impact of the commitments these countries made will hit politicians, bureaucrats, and the general public. Already, government leaders and analysts in various countries are declaring the accord an opportunity to sell environmental technologies and to create a green economy. As an example, here is what Canada’s minister of the environment, Catherine McKenna, said in referring to the creation of a low carbon economy: “It is not just critical we do it to save our planet, ensure a more sustainable future for our kids. It is also a huge opportunity for Canada. We have a lot of expertise in terms of green technology. And we have already seen now with 195 countries coming together, they’ve sent a message to the markets that there should be investment going towards green technology, clean technology. So I see it as a huge opportunity for Canadian business … The economy and the environment have to go together.”2 Green Japan examines Japan’s effort to balance economic well-being and the environment, focusing primarily on national policies and programs and the long-vaunted relationship between government and business. Japan has repositioned itself repeatedly in the post–Second World War era, from re-emerging industrial nation to economic superpower and high-tech nation to the centre of a global network of Japanese-owned and -controlled businesses. The country overcame the environmental excesses of the 1960s and, at the 2005 World’s Fair in Aichi, presented itself as at the cutting edge of environmental innovation. The pursuit of a balanced strategy, however, has been far from even. For the past twenty years, successive national governments have been preoccupied with the lingering recession and the need to stimulate economic development. Jobs and prosperity still take precedence over ecological strategies. But the emergence of a Green Japan approach, which links business development to rapid environmental change and improvements, remains a key element in Japanese national thinking. Japan is not the only country promoting the idea of Green Growth.3 In the last two decades of the twentieth century, governments and business

Introduction 7

recognized the potentially synergistic relationship between the search for global sustainability and economic growth. Much of the effort focused on the development of alternative energy sources, led initially by major investments in solar energy and wind power. South Korea began competing with Japan and Germany for commercial supremacy in new energy systems, as did countries as diverse as Israel, Sweden, and Canada, only to be overtaken by China, which has claimed global prominence in the field. Other countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, and India, realized the combination of ecological self-interest and commercial opportunity in the evolving “green” economy. In their own ways, and with no fixed strategy or consensus necessarily on what constituted Green Growth, countries developed strategies that sought to combine the commercialization of scientific and technological developments related to the environment and the promotion of sustainability and economic growth. East Asia is increasingly gaining attention as promoter of both national innovation systems and Green Growth. Japan, therefore, stands to capitalize on developments throughout East Asia, and could benefit from ready access to and familiarity with some of the world’s most robust, consumer-friendly, and technologically savvy markets. These countries – China, Taiwan, and South Korea – are also characterized by strong central governments that have the authority and predilection to impose dramatic policies on the population. In the era of Green Growth and national innovation systems, which benefit from consistent and substantial government investment and policy support, East Asia has the potential to emerge as a world leader in the creation of the twenty-firstcentury economy. Japan, for historical and commercial reasons, plays a key role in the development of the region, and will do so in the emergence of the region’s Green Growth strategies. Not surprisingly, a great deal is at stake in the campaign to promote green business and green innovation. The world has experienced an unprecedented surge in personal incomes and quality of life for the past fifty years. There is evidence that the general public wants this trajectory to continue, and expects governments to deliver. But if even the moderate forecasts of the effects of climate change and global warming come true, the costs and consequences of not stabilizing and reversing carbon levels and the general overuse of planetary resources will become truly formidable. Green Growth – promoting environmental business development as a means of producing higher incomes and national prosperity while also promoting greater environmental sustainability – is

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Green Japan

perhaps the most viable option available to humanity. There is little evidence of widespread support for dramatic reductions in energy use and general levels of pollution, particularly in the developing world. Yet there is mounting evidence of a world heading, ostrich-like, towards the environmental abyss, without attention to the need for substantial shifts in lifestyle and resource use. Advocates of economic-based strategies, including various approaches to carbon pricing that properly reflect the environmental costs of production, argue that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is the only realistic solution. If, the argument goes, companies and individuals can profit through the creation and use of environmentally sensible products and services, market forces will themselves push the economy towards greater sustainability. At a national level, the argument is similar. The country that switches from environmentally consumptive production (such as heavy industry or energy-intensive manufacturing) to environmentally sustainable production (alternative energy systems, self-sustaining home-heating services, and the like) would emerge as a global leader and a green economy powerhouse. The nation that produces solar panels, space-based energy nodes, advanced insulation for homes, fully recyclable manufactured goods, environmental remediation technologies, battery storage devices, and countless other environmental products could replace the industrial powerhouses that rose, as Japan did, to global prominence on the basis of the production of automobiles, televisions, computers, and domestic appliances. By the middle of the 2010s, countries and businesses around the world had invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the pursuit of Green Growth. They contributed to basic scientific research, urged rapid commercialization, contemplated sustainability initiatives, and developed policies that prioritized environmental sustainability, while simultaneously promoting job growth and the expansion of business. Even China, routinely criticized for its skyrocketing C02 emissions, subsidized a globally competitive solar energy industry and encouraged business development and the implementation of new technologies in the broad field of environmental solutions. Japan, like other countries, is seeking a balance between economic growth and environmental sustainability. It is not a model – let alone the model – for Green Growth strategies and government-industry interaction. The country does well in certain areas (rapid transit, solar-heated homes) and poorly in others (heavy reliance on carbon-based fuels, particularly since Fukushima). Japan also has exceptional recycling

Introduction 9

strategies, but, after a strong start, has lagged in its embrace of renewable energy. Several cities, such as Kitakyushu and Yokohama, have internalized environmental business practices, both locally and globally, and clearly see green business as key to their economic futures; other major centres have done much less. Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, re-elected in December 2014, has not really highlighted Green Growth strategies in his electoral activities, focusing instead on bread-and-butter economic issues. He has, however, begun to push for the adoption of renewable energy and improved energy efficiency. Green Japan begins with an examination of the emergence of economic environmentalism and of the idea of Green Growth. In particular, the book explores the role of national innovation systems and government investment in scientific and technological innovation. This study of the policy elements and government investments associated with environmental technologies, products, services, and regulations is connected to the broader global debate about Green Growth, which suggests – with varying degrees of confidence – that a balance can be struck between ecological sustainability and economic development. In this largely conceptual and theoretical chapter, I also argue that the convergence of environmental and economic concerns has revitalized debate about the role of the state in national planning, a re-emergence that emphasizes the fact that many of the changes believed necessary for long-term sustainability can occur only with government leadership and large-scale government investment. In this manner, Green Growth also appears to be stimulating debate about the future of the state and national planning. Japan has long wrestled with the intersection of environmental sustainability and development, a theme I take up in Chapter 2. Focusing on the period of rapid industrialization in the 1950s and 1960s and the aftermath of the 1970s energy shocks, I explore the emergence of new government policies, the devastation caused by unchecked industrial growth, the emergence of post-industrial Japan, and the national shift to an emphasis on quality-of-life issues. That Japan would, through the Kyoto Protocol, emerge as a global figurehead for government regulation of the environment was no surprise, but the concern for global environmental sustainability emerged at a time of conspicuous consumption and unprecedented personal wealth in the country. Whether or not to continue to pursue nuclear energy has been a big part of environmental and energy debates around the world generally – and, since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, in Japan in particular. In the two

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Green Japan

decades prior to Fukushima, Japan had been increasing its plans for nuclear energy, aiming to have that source account for half of its energy supply and allowing the nation to limit its GHG emissions, meet its Kyoto targets, and keep its trade balance in a strong surplus (as oil and gas imports declined). As a result of this nuclear push (attributed also to a strong and well-connected nuclear lobby), attention to renewable energy, other than solar, was limited. After the tsunami-caused meltdowns of the Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants at Fukushima, however, many analysts and the Japanese public at large became convinced that the risks surrounding nuclear energy – particularly in an earthquake-prone country such as Japan – were simply too great. Most, and then all, of Japan’s fifty-four nuclear reactors were shut down after the disaster. Since then, after many safety checks and an overhaul of standards and protocols, two reactors have been restarted, but in the face of vigorous protests. The pro-nuclear lobby argues in response that restarting at least some of the reactors is an economic and environmental necessity. When it comes to nuclear power, even environmentalists are divided. Chapter 3 covers the Japanese government’s green strategies. I examine Japanese support for new energy and environmental technologies in the context of the country’s widespread commitment to national innovation. For thirty years Japan has believed that the commercialization of science and technology holds the key to long-term economic vitality. Moreover, the long history of collaboration between government and industry provided a foundation for expansive partnerships in the development and implementation of new industrial and manufacturing sectors targeted at the environment. I also explore other government initiatives, from the extensive use of procurement, government first-adopter practices for new technologies, regulatory and licensing systems, state promotion of eco-practices, and other policies and programs designed to address issues of energy and resource consumption and use. Overall, the chapter focuses on Japanese government efforts to promote nationally appropriate practices and environmental strategies, many undertaken in conjunction with the business community. The centrepiece of Green Growth is the idea that environmentally sound products and services can produce the foundation for economic growth and long-term prospects, the subject of Chapter 4. An examination of Japan’s efforts to develop major environmental industrial sectors reveals connections between green initiatives and the country’s international aid programs and global economic strategies. I look at

Introduction 11

the heretofore largely uncoordinated effort in Japan to transform green economic strategies and policies into a platform for an expanded global economic presence: basically, to do for environmental technologies what Toyota and Nissan did for automobiles and Sony and Panasonic produced for consumer electronics. The results, although uneven, hint at the emergence of a national commitment to global ecological and technological engagement that, given Japan’s track record in other sectors, cannot be readily dismissed. Likewise, in Chapter 5, I discuss major efforts by Japanese cities and regions to position themselves as eco-cities, betting heavily on environmental technologies as a means of creating new businesses, jobs, and sustainable incomes. Modern Japan has always harboured grand designs for economic and technological change, and this holds in the environmental field, a theme I examine in Chapter 6. Although much of the country’s efforts focus on contemporary and short-term transformations, some government agencies and corporations are looking well into the future, promoting visions of floating cities, space-based energy production, massive new energy initiatives, and other technological strategies that sit at the intersection of science fiction and contemporary technology. Some, like nuclear fusion, have attracted as much derision as support, inside Japan and globally. Others, such as hydrogen production and advanced geothermal systems, seem more achievable in the long term. That the government of Japan and the private sector continue to invest, and heavily, in futuristic strategies shows a determination to assert a national role at the leading edge of global sustainability and to dominate the business opportunities associated with emerging sectors. Chapter 7 reviews the experience of Japan’s Green Growth initiatives, programs, investments, and strategies. Although it is clear that Japan has some globally significant achievements in the areas of environmental technologies, products, and services, the country has stopped well short of adopting Green Growth as a formal policy or clear government strategy, let alone as a strongly articulated and widely shared national commitment. Green Growth strategies, in Japan and elsewhere, remain fragmented, unclear, and only partially realized. To date, the returns from major policy initiatives, while often substantial, have stopped short of producing real “game changers” that would set governments and nations on a new pathway to sustainability and economic development. In Japan, as in other nations, governments assign higher priority to protecting personal incomes and general economic development than they do to long-term environmental sustainability. Changing this

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Green Japan

approach – and building a consensus on the potential of environmental technologies, services, and products to create both economic opportunity and ecological sustainability – remains a work in progress. A great deal rests, for Japan and the world as a whole, on the success of Green Growth strategies. For peoples used to prolonged periods of personal and national prosperity, the prospect of diminished economic opportunity due to environmental imperatives is distressing, and is not yet being considered as a serious policy alternative. Just as some scientists and futurists argue that scientific intervention can address serious ecological damage and challenges, so some government officials and business leaders suggest that investments in and development of green businesses can address environmental challenges and sustain, if not enhance, prosperity. To date, as the evidence from Japan will show, commitment to the concept, while sincere, is less than complete. Results are promising – in some instances, transformative – but they are not sufficiently and consistently strong enough to convince political leaders, civil servants, the national business community, or the public at large to invest wholeheartedly in Green Growth. The idea of merging economic prosperity and environmental salvation, therefore, remains unachieved, but not, perhaps, unachievable. Appreciating the efforts made in Japan to foster Green Growth, an approach marked by achievements and disappointments in almost equal measure, will not point the way to a national, and certainly not a global, convergence of environmentalism, government policy, and economic development. Japan’s strategies, programs, and investments do, however, provide ample evidence of the possibilities of Green Growth and the challenges – particularly related to the mobilization of the public, business, academia, and government – inherent in recrafting the fundamental assumptions of twenty-first-century economic development and environmental sustainability. The study of Green Growth, in Japan and elsewhere, is yet another way to evaluate the impact and nature of national innovation systems, defined as the effort by government and business to capitalize on the commercial and practical use of science and technology. The traditional academic focus on innovation systems as a means of enhancing regional or national economic performance now needs to be adapted to meld commercial and societal aspirations. Indeed, the concept of Green Growth marries national innovation strategies, approaches, and investments with efforts to build ecologically resilient and sustainable societies, something akin to the “triple bottom line” (social, environmental,

Introduction 13

and financial) evaluation metrics that have become common. From an academic perspective, this investigation of Japan’s Green Growth initiatives provides, in part, a test of a nation’s ability to extend innovation strategies to meet broader societal objectives. The examination uses the country’s initiatives to shed light on the international effort to fight climate change while pursuing economic development. There is widespread concern, however, that combatting climate change will result in widespread job loss and economic decline; accordingly, countries the world over are looking for strategies that somehow bridge the gap between environmental and economic priorities. The global search for solutions to the challenge of environmental sustainability has generated renewed discussion about the role of government in economic development. The highly speculative investigation of science-based solutions requires government investment and engagement, just as the regulation of human behaviour needs state intervention. The decision to place environmental sustainability at the top of the agenda requires societal and political direction, something that is mediated by government. If climate change represents, as it clearly seems to do, an existential threat to humanity, the mobilization of the will of nations and all peoples requires more than good intentions. Some combination of behavioural modification and technological intervention – likely more of the latter than the former – is required to address serious and deeply imbedded ecological crises. This, it seems, is the ultimate test of political economy, or the capacity to coordinate national and international resources to address crucial human challenges. Japanese technology and Japanese government strategies do not have all the answers, for Japan or for the world. One hopes, of course, that, inside the strategies, programs, investments, and actions of the government of Japan can be found insights and ideas that could put humanity on an ecologically more sound and sustainable course.

Chapter One

Techno-environmentalism: Making Science and Technology Work for Society

One of the most important national and international challenges of the twenty-first century is the ability of governments to develop and sustain policies for economic innovation, international competitiveness, and environmental sustainability, in almost equal measure. From Kenya to South Korea, from Canada to Taiwan, national and subnational governments wrestle with the difficult problems associated with promoting commercial innovation and creating an environment for scientific and technological competitiveness. Governments uniformly accept the idea that a combination of research and commercialization is a key element of national prosperity. It remains problematic, however, for governments to determine which sectors to support and how to support them. National innovation systems (NIS) – the study of how to support innovation by looking at technology, information flows, and relationships among government, industry, and academia – is an attempt to learn more about the structures, systems, programs, and policies that work to support innovation effectively. The primary twenty-first-century twist to NIS has been the addition of the environmental imperative: how to create economic growth by producing technological solutions to climate change and environmental sustainability. Japan has been a key player in national innovation systems. In fact, Technology Policy and Economic Performance, the book that launched what would become a burgeoning academic and policy field, centres on Japan.1 Its author, Chris Freeman, is seen, along with Bengt-Åke Lundval, as a parent of NIS research. Freeman actually began pointing out the importance of an active role for government in promoting technological change in the early 1980s, when he was working for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group on

Techno-environmentalism

15

Science, Technology and Competitiveness, and introduced the concept of a national system of innovation in an unpublished 1982 paper that circulated widely among scholars and policy-makers.2 Science and technology and the way governments can best promote and support research and commercialization are the heart of NIS research. Japan, among others, was early to peg its economic future to science and technology, proclaiming itself to be a science and technology nation in the mid-1990s. Since then, the country has developed and implemented a series of five-year Science and Technology Basic Plans, and put in place a Council for Science and Technology Policy led by the prime minister, to select the sectors it plans to encourage as the basis for Japan’s twenty-first-century economy. The National Institute for Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) plays a key role in this science and technology planning. NISTEP employs back-casting techniques, a system of imagining the desired world – society, the economy, the environment – and then focusing on the technologies needed to achieve that outcome. Japan’s most recent Science and Technology Basic Plans and NISTEP’s vision of a better future centre on the development of renewable sources of energy and environmental technologies. The study of the policy elements and government investments associated with environmental technologies, products, services, and regulations is connected to broader global discussions of Green Growth, the concept that a balance can be struck between ecological sustainability and economic development. As the OECD notes, “Green growth means promoting economic growth while reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, minimizing waste and inefficient use of natural resources.”3 Green Growth, generally understood to mean achieving economic growth at minimal environmental cost, has emerged internationally as a potential solution to the planet’s economic and environmental needs. As Zysman and Huberty have written, “[i]f ‘green growth’ were possible, then the shift to a low-emissions economy could pay for itself by catalyzing a wave of investment, innovation and job creation.” They point out, however, that as late as the second decade of the twenty-first century, Green Growth remains “more religion than reality.”4 Still the change in mindset from the days of seeing environmental considerations in the business sector as a “brake on growth” is significant.5 Initially, much of the Green Growth discussion focused on the new technologies and job potential in the energy and environmental technologies sector, with good reason, as this sector has been growing

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Green Japan

exponentially. Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports that world investment in cleaner energy amounted to US$243 billion in 2010, double what it had been in 2005.6 New investment in clean energy in 2016 was close to $300 billion.7 The energy and environmental technologies sector encompasses a wide range of products and services, from various forms of renewable energy to air and water pollution-control systems, resource management, energy efficiency, and waste management, including recycling. The value of low-carbon environmental goods and services (LCEGS) has been growing dramatically, and is projected to continue to do so. Total sales of LCEGS in fiscal year 2011/12 were estimated at US$4.9 trillion. The largest subsectors were alternative fuels (16 per cent of the total), building technologies (13 per cent), wind (12 per cent), alternative fuel and vehicles (10 per cent), and water supply and waste water treatment (8 per cent).8 The concept of Green Growth has gradually changed, however, from “growing a green sector to mainstreaming the environmental dimension of economic growth.”9 There has been considerable discussion of this subject over the past decade, with researchers at the OECD, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank, as well as government officials and many academics having written on the concept.10 It is not clear, however, that everyone means the same thing when discussing Green Growth – for example, the amount of growth that can occur and still be environmentally sound. And although many of the steps involved in creating a green economy are likely to have a positive impact on both the economy and the environment, it is not completely obvious that greening the economy will be an engine of growth.11 A significant portion of the impetus for Green Growth is clearly concern over climate change and what that means for individual countries and for the world. Globally the impetus for environmental action is strong. Twenty years of international climate change meetings and negotiations have not resulted in significant progress; emissions continue to rise in both developed and developing countries. Some estimates suggest that, without policy and technological action, GHGs worldwide could increase by 70 per cent by 2050.12 Martin Jänicke states: “It must be emphasized that the OECD strategy of ‘Green Growth,’ the ‘Green Economy,’ and the Asian concept of ‘Green Transition’ are essentially instrumental strategies of crisis prevention. They should help to avoid raw material shortages, high energy costs, water shortages, declining crop yields, climate change or environmental damage and their costs. Green growth as crisis prevention is the economic growth that results

Techno-environmentalism

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from investment in the prevention of damage and shortages that undermine long-term living and production bases.”13 Certainly crisis prevention is propelling Japan forward on the Green Growth trajectory. Analysts agree, however, that the development of Green Growth, as part of an NIS strategy, requires careful investments and policy decisions by governments. This convergence of environmental and economic concerns has revitalized debate about the role of the state in national planning, a re-emergence which emphasizes that many of the changes believed necessary for long-term sustainability can occur only with government leadership and large-scale and sustained government investment. National innovation systems research bridges gaps in scholarship and public policy relating to scientific innovation and economic development. Governments are truly uncertain about how best to proceed in the twenty-first-century environment of Facebook and Rakuten, even when they understand that profound economic, employment, and commercial changes are underway. There is widespread interest in local, regional, and national success stories, and a realization that the conjunction of forces, resources, and circumstances that created Silicon Valley, the Shannon economic zone in Ireland, or the information technology cluster in Waterloo, Ontario, is not easily reproduced in other regions. Interestingly, although it can be argued that the challenges of today are unique – faster moving, bigger, and with more breathtaking scientific discoveries than ever before – the contemporary challenge of responding to scientific and technological developments is far from new. Academics and analysts have been writing about this topic since the beginning of the twentieth century and particularly after the 1950s, trying to explain national successes and failures, searching for the characteristics and policies that set one country or region ahead of others. The debate about the role of governments in promoting innovation touches on one of the central issues in the field of political economy: the role and effectiveness of governments in shaping national economic activity. For decades a professional and political emphasis on Keynesian economics supported the idea that governments could and should play an active, if not an activist, role in managing economic developments and priorities. The neoliberal revolution, represented intellectually by Milton Friedman and politically by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, challenged belief in the efficacy of national leadership and favoured reduced taxes, fewer regulations, limited trade barriers, and the removal of other areas of government interference in the economy.

18

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During the same period, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore were modelling themselves after the directly activist example of postwar Japan. Academic interest in state industrial policy came primarily from those interested in the growth of the East Asian economies – such as Chalmers Johnson (Japan), Robert Wade (Taiwan), Alice Amsden (South Korea), and Alexander Gerschenkron (late-comer nations) – and then from others who, in the 1980s, were concerned about Japan’s remarkable rise and its impact on the United States, including William Dietrich, Clyde Prestowitz, and James Fallows. Although the free market emphasis was credited with sparking a period of global economic prosperity, it also undercut the economic stability of many countries, and forced governments to reconsider their role in providing economic leadership and guidance. Today, governments in many countries now focus on scientific and technological innovation as the cornerstone of long-term economic success and as an appropriate locus for government engagement. Questions arise about the best means of mobilizing human and financial resources in the interests of national economic success and how to determine the drivers and actions needed to accelerate innovation. The literature on innovation, led by scholars such as Chris Freeman, Jeffrey Furman, and Richard Hayes, suggests that several factors are essential for success, including major policy statements by government; private sector support; sizable public research and development (R&D) funding, especially in basic sciences; improvement in educational systems, including the engagement and reorganization of the university system; industrial clusters; and the selection of key sectors for top-level support. Public and private sector spending on R&D is one of the comparative input indicators most studied by analysts, and patents or patent applications are one of the main output indicators. Neither is a perfect indicator of innovation success, but each has some merit; see Table 1.1. Although the nation generally has been the main unit of analysis, many commentators have challenged the centrality of nation-level comparisons, arguing that regional economies have superseded national systems as the key drivers of commercial transformation. Michael Porter’s work on industrial cluster development played a key role in changing the focus of the analysis of national economic innovation and its intersection with regional economic development (including in Japan). Governments, Porter and others argue, cannot complete an innovation strategy on their own. National innovation systems are designed to integrate government investments and policies with the

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Table 1.1. Research and Development Spending, Selected Economies, 2014 (or Latest) Economy

Public Sector Private Sector Investment Investment (% of gross domestic product)

Patent Applications, 2013 (per million people)

South Korea

0.80

3.45

238

Israel

0.50

3.60

235

Japan

0.65

2.85

328

Germany

0.85

1.90

213

United States

0.70

1.90

181

EU28

0.65

1.20

99

United Kingdom

0.50

1.15

98

Canada

0.75

0.85

91

Source: “More Particle than Wave,” Economist, 30 April 2016.

corporate system, and to encourage commercial success, job creation, and improved national economic performance. National innovation systems raise questions about the role of government in economic planning and development, the willingness of business to respond to government leadership at the regional or national level, the pressures associated with deindustrialization in many leading economies, and the related challenges associated with dealing with displaced workers, urban areas in decline, the search for renewed economic stability and the sectors of the future, and the appropriate role of the university system, given national innovation priorities and policies. Green Growth is in many ways an offshoot of NIS thinking. The Green Growth approach argues that focusing on environmental technologies and new energy sectors could be a basis for sustained economic growth, while limiting GHG emissions, cutting pollution, and eliminating waste. Over the past decade, numerous governments have announced national innovation plans or strategies outlining funding and steps to be taken to encourage the commercialization of science and technology, but few countries are specific about Green Growth. Japan is no exception. Although this book looks at the range of environmental policies and programs Japan has undertaken, the country does not have an actual Green Growth strategy. Rather, the Green Japan initiatives are nested within Japan’s broader innovation and science and technology policies, including its Science and Technology Basic Plans, New

20

Green Japan

Growth Strategies, and Japan Revitalization Strategies, representing, in this fashion, a subset of official national innovation strategies. At the same time, because of Japan’s preoccupation with environmental sustainability, many of the policies are also influenced by the public’s and government’s desire to reduce Japan’s environmental footprint. As such, Japan’s efforts represent a broad attempt to align economic considerations – investment, new business, jobs, exports – with socioenvironmental preoccupations. The OECD’s Green Growth Policies The OECD has written extensively about Green Growth, commencing in earnest in 2009, when the organization adopted the Declaration on Green Growth at the Meeting of the Council at Ministerial Level, signed by ministers from thirty-four countries (as of May 2017, forty-five had signed). The preamble to the Declaration states: CONSIDERING that: Economic recovery and environmentally and socially sustainable economic growth are key challenges that all countries are facing today. A number of well targeted policy instruments can be used to encourage green investment in order to simultaneously contribute to economic recovery in the short-term, and help to build the environmentally friendly infrastructure required for a green economy in the long-term, noting that public investment should be consistent with a long-term framework for generating sustainable growth. Green growth will be relevant going beyond the current crisis, addressing urgent challenges including the fight against climate change and environmental degradation, enhancement of energy security, and the creation of new engines for economic growth. The crisis should not be used as an excuse to postpone crucial decisions for the future of our planet.14

The Declaration goes on to commit the signatories to strengthen their “efforts to pursue green growth strategies as part of our response to the current crisis and beyond, acknowledging that ‘green’ and ‘growth’ can go hand-in-hand.”15 The signatory nations also committed to encourage green investment, sustainable natural resource management, and domestic policy reform to avoid policies that might hinder Green Growth, and to sustain initiatives that strengthen international cooperation.

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At the same time that its member nations adopted the Declaration, the OECD also committed to developing a “Green Growth Strategy.” To that end, in May 2011 the organization released Towards Green Growth, in which it outlined such a strategy, and offered “concrete recommendations and measurement tools, including indicators, to support countries’ efforts to achieve economic growth and development, while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which well-being relies. The strategy proposes a flexible policy framework that can be tailored to different country circumstances and stages of development.”16 As part of the background to the OECD Global Forum on Environment on Eco-Innovation, held in November 2009, the OECD stated that “most OECD countries consider eco-innovation as an important part of the response to contemporary challenges including climate change and energy security. In addition, many countries consider that eco-innovation could be a source of competitive advantages in the fast-growing energy and environmental goods and services sector.”17 US president Barack Obama clearly concurred in his 2009 remarks on the Clean Energy bill: “[T]here’s no longer a question about whether the jobs and the industries of the twenty-first century will be centered around clean, renewable energy. The only question is, which country will create these jobs and these industries? And I want that answer to be the United States of America.”18 In a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2011, UN climate representative Christina Figueres discussed China’s efforts to dominate the green technology field: “The Chinese, she said, ‘are not doing it just because they want to save the planet. They are doing it because it’s good for the economy.’”19 In 2009 UNEP proposed a “Global Green New Deal,” recommending actions to support green initiatives and stimulate economic recovery.20 The UNEP report suggested that 1 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), led primarily by the G20 countries, be spent on environmental initiatives. Although financing was key to the initiative, the report also emphasized the need for the spending to be accompanied by appropriate policies. The international response was positive, and some countries devoted economic stimulus money to green projects, but the G20 never reached the 1 per cent target. The discussions around Green Growth are, however, based on some controversial foundations. Martin Jänicke, the founding director of the Environment Policy Research Centre at the Freie Universität Berlin and a senior policy advisor, stated in a speech to a Symposium on Global

22

Green Japan

Energy and Climate Security: “The current economic growth debate is full of questionable assumptions. This primarily involves the belief that one can retain the resource-intensive model of growth of the past with only minor modifications. The successful model of the 20th century does not only fail today because we lack the necessary inexpensive raw materials, but it also fails due to the limited capacity the earth has for emissions and waste. Another questionable assumption is the idea that the state can purposefully achieve high levels of economic growth over the long term.”21 Proponents of the idea of zero growth or a “steady state society”22 agree, arguing that advanced industrial economies perhaps have moved beyond the stage where their focus should be on economic growth. Although it used to be believed that there is no alternative to growth, some analysts suggest this attitude must change. In fact, they argue that the idea that governments are expected to deliver economic growth was not always accepted, but can be traced back to the OECD’s founding in 1960. Now, as the world struggles with growing inequality within and among states, anthropogenic climate change, and environmental degradation, some commentators argue that the world should look to other markers of success. In fact, there might not be a choice. On 27 March 2015, Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve System, said that “some recent studies have raised the prospect that the economies of the United States and other countries will grow more slowly in the future as a result of both demographic factors and a slower pace of productivity gains from technological advances.”23 Peter Victor suggests there are many things that can improve in a zero-growth economy – that we can achieve full employment, decrease poverty, achieve a fiscal balance, reduce GHG emissions without economic growth.24 “The real issue,” says Larry Elliott, “is whether it is possible to challenge the ‘growth-at-any-cost model’ and come up with an alternative that is environmentally benign, economically robust and politically feasible.”25 Perhaps governments in the industrialized world will soon be aiming for more “green,” with a little less emphasis on “growth.” Academic Analysis of Green Growth Policies Many academics and policy analysts have examined Green Growth policies. In a piece on the growing relevance of environmental innovation in the socio-economic and policy contexts, Borghesi et al.

Techno-environmentalism

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discuss how “[e]nvironmental and innovation policies are increasingly jointly investigated in order to understand how to ensure the conditions for fostering economic development while protecting the environment.”26 Environmental and innovation scholars, they argue, need to better understand how these policies are developed and how to transfer them among sectors and between nations.27 Their introduction to an important collection of essays describes the active and diverse research field of eco-innovations: the conjunction of environmental and innovation policies. Philippe Aghion, David Hemous, and Reinhilde Veugelers of Bruegel – a Brussels-based economic think tank – in their contribution on innovation and Green Growth, argue that, to create green innovation, “both public intervention and private initiative are indispensable: governments must initially redirect market forces toward cleaner energy before market forces can take over.”28 They state that, “[t]echnologies to mitigate climate change are treated as given or as emerging spontaneously, ignoring the fact that the portfolio of technologies available tomorrow depends on what is done today.”29 Zysman and Huberty note that “both green growth and energy systems transformation will require a range of policy interventions that go well beyond conventional prescriptions for emissions pricing and R&D subsidies.”30 A complete transformation into a low-emissions energy system would require “both private investments in new technologies and business models, and public support for open, competitive, standards-based markets in which those investments could thrive.”31 There is much debate about the four main policy tools: carbon pricing, R&D support, regulatory policy to support new forms of energy, and investments in public infrastructure and industrial policy. Zysman and Huberty argue that, for an energy systems transformation, carbon pricing is insufficient. As far as the other tools go, governments need to find the best places in the energy system at which to intervene to have the most impact. Most significantly, they argue, Green Growth requires “a technological and economic transformation akin to those of the emergence of steam, rail or information technology.”32 They caution that this means avoiding a focus on an individual technology or on job creation, looking instead at a restructuring of the whole energy system and the role of policy in doing so. Simon Zadek, a senior fellow at the Green Growth Institute and the International Institute of Sustainable Development, argues that “Green growth is fundamentally a matter of political economy, and analysis

24

Green Japan

of how to move to this pathway requires therefore a focus on regulatory reforms and incentives to change the behavior of financial market actors and to move incumbents to one side, and institutional innovation to protect and catalyse more effective government.”33 Zadek points out three main constraints to moving towards Green Growth: the financial disincentives for long-term investments, the prominence of entrenched incumbent firms, and the lack of government drive to enact the kinds of policies needed to change the economy.34 John Reilly adds another constraint: “If the concept of green growth is to be anything more than a mere rebranding of the concept of sustainability, then it must elucidate the relationship between economic activity and pollution and provide a more detailed economic account of it.”35 Martin Jänicke has underscored the need for government leadership in the environmental sector: “The reality is that regulation drives this industry … Compliance with policy objectives and legal requirements set by EU and national authorities will be the main drivers of ecoindustry growth.”36 Policies should be designed based on ambitious but reliable targets and focused on “detailed dynamic regulation to exploit specific innovation potentials and to overcome specific obstacles [and] general price incentives … such as taxes, targeted subsidies.”37 He has also pointed out the importance of supporting policies such as labelling, green government spending, and the establishment of lead markets (markets that adopt an innovation before others) for climate-friendly innovations. Eco-innovation has emerged as something of a rival concept to Green Growth. The authors of a major European study called ECODRIVE define eco-innovation “as the combined improvement of economic and environmental performance of society. This performance is what counts, not good intentions or wishful thinking.”38 They state that “[e]co-innovation is a change in economic activities that improves both the economic performance and the environmental performance of society.”39 For them, economic performance means greater functionality for the same or lower cost. Most renewable and alternative energy sources are not economic, and are not yet eco-innovations; rather, they are environmental innovations with the potential to be eco-innovations if their economic performance improves. Eco-innovation emphasizes the innovation component. Tomoo Machiba points out the different levels of eco-innovation: incremental, redesign, functional, product alternatives, and systems design. He also describes the three dimensions from which eco-innovation can be analysed: the target (the product,

Techno-environmentalism

25

process, or marketing method), the mechanism (how does the change take place), and the impact.40 Paul Ekins, director of the University College London Institute for Sustainable Resources and professor of Energy and Environment Policy at the UCL Energy Institute, has written extensively on environmental and eco-innovation. He describes eco-innovation as a technological transition that “reduces both environmental impacts and the use of natural resources,” and states that “[t]he development of eco-industries is driven by public policies.” Ekins discusses the European Union’s Environmental Technologies Action Plan, which was designed “explicitly to achieve a reduction in resource use and pollution from economic activity while underpinning economic growth.”41 The Crucial Role of Government and Appropriate Policies The OECD and engaged academics and policy analysts clearly believe both that Green Growth is possible and that it must be led by governments through a series of public policy decisions and initiatives. As one observer has commented, “[t]his crucial role of government is very apparent when one considers the countries that have progressed furthest in green transformation, in terms of both commitment and practice. The governments of Denmark and Germany, for example, along with Japan and Korea, have played a crucial role in advancing their country’s low carbon trajectory.”42 An OECD report on Green Growth policies sums it up: “Given the widespread externalities and market failures characterizing environmental goods and services, government intervention to promote green growth is warranted and has been widely used in OECD countries.”43 The OECD study, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, states that “unleashing green innovation will therefore require government policy action, based on a sound overall framework for policies for innovation.”44 The study outlines a number of areas the OECD feels are crucial for government action, including investment in long-term and exploratory research, expanding international cooperation, policy actions to overcome market failure “linked to the dominance of existing technologies, systems andincumbent firms”45 – for example, support for private investment in innovation and support for new green technologies generally – and demand-side policies to change consumer behaviour in favour of green products and to expand and strengthen the market for environmental products generally. The

26

Green Japan

OECD policy recommendations and Japanese initiatives in these areas will be explored in subsequent chapters. Scholars have refined the approach advocated by groups such as the OECD. For example, in a book edited by Andrew Jordan, Rüdiger Wurzel, and Anthony Zito, contributors discuss a range of policy instruments in support of environmental innovation, including regulatory instruments, voluntary self-regulation agreements between producers and government, public education/awareness tools, and market incentives.46 Paul Ekins discusses the complexity of Green Growth policies as follows: “Normal innovation is driven by a desire for market success, which may have little to do with environmental impacts. In fact, normal innovation may increase or decrease environmental impacts. The environmental policy-makers’ task is to seek to harness normal innovation forces in order to achieve win-win outcomes, i.e. environmental improvements as well as improvements in products and processes from a market point of view.”47 Ekins argues that social desirability also has to be measured – for example, do the environmental benefits outweigh their economic cost? The appropriate policy response depends upon the kinds of environmental industry and the particular way environmental impact is being reduced. Ekins puts environmental industries in three main categories: pollution management (air, waste water, solid waste, soil and water cleanup, environmental monitoring), cleaner technologies and products (those “which improve, reduce or eliminate environmental impact of technologies, processes and products”),48 and resource management (resource efficiency and energy savings). Environmental impact can be reduced in different ways: dealing with pollution after it has been created, using process-integrated technology (new technologies that change processes or production methods leading to less pollution or better use of energy), and introducing product innovations (developing new products that use less energy or create less waste or do not create harmful substances).49 In a similar vein, Samuel Fankhauser discusses practical lessons for policy-makers who seek to decarbonize their economies. First, he argues, give reforms a legal platform so that they have credibility. Then, put a price on carbon and address investment and behavioural failures. Low carbon is likely to be highly electrified, so clean energy will be important. Since the transition to low carbon will require a revolution of production and consumption, both supply-side and demand-side adjustments in lifestyle and behaviour will be needed.50 Fankhauser’s main argument is that a low-carbon economy is economically

Techno-environmentalism

27

and technologically feasible, but “achieving it is a question of policy competence and having the political will to drive economic and social change.”51 He goes on to say that “low-carbon objectives must be translated into a credible roadmap of sector, technology and reform targets that can guide policy and determine whether the objectives are achievable.”52 Governments, he argues, should follow this road map and evaluate each sector, including energy, transport (“reducing carbon intensity of conventional cars through technological improvements and providing drivers with incentives to switch to more efficient cars”),53 residential buildings, industry, and agriculture. The effort to identify policy alternatives has been considerable. The OECD study “A Framework for Assessing Green Growth Policies” looks at market-based instruments (for example, taxes and subsidies) and non-market-based instruments (environmental regulations), support for technology policies (public investment in R&D), and “voluntary approaches” such as labelling and other consumer awareness programs.54 The authors discuss the cost effectiveness of different instruments and the adoption and compliance mechanisms of both marketand non-market-based policy tools, and they propose a framework that emphasizes the need for policies “that would ensure both economic efficiency and environmental integrity, … that would be coherent from both a national and international perspective … [and] that can boost income growth at the least cost in terms of quality of the environment (and vice-versa).”55 The authors conclude: While in principle many innovation externalities can be addressed by a combination of pricing mechanisms and general innovation policies (such as [intellectual property rights] protection and the funding of fundamental R&D), more direct public support to green technology development and diffusion could in some areas be justified by the presence of additional market failures such as learning-by-doing and market size effects. However, direct support for clean technologies raises a number of policy challenges, including decisions over the appropriate timing of support, as well as concerning the choice of appropriate policy tools and technology (or sector) that should receive support, with all the inherent risks that such decisions entail. In this regard, an approach aimed at supporting a broad portfolio of investments and that puts stronger emphasis on basic and long-term research in technology areas that are still too far from commercial viability to attract private investment may be the most appropriate to foster green technologies while minimising such risks.56

28

Green Japan

In their discussion of market-based policies, the authors point out that taxes on CO2 emissions are found in Norway and in the Aragon region of Spain. Sweden has a tax on nitrogen oxides, and taxes and charges on production processes causing environmental damage, mainly in transportation – for example, a fuel tax, as well as water usage taxes and taxes on pesticides and fertilizers. Other market-based policies include negative taxes or subsidies for an environmentally friendly activity – for example, to encourage a switch to a greener activity such as the use of biofuels, deposit refund systems, and pollution trading systems. Determining the success of a Green Growth policy, however, remains problematic. As the authors of the OECD report argue: The effectiveness of an environmental policy instrument in fostering green innovation can be assessed on the basis of a few criteria or properties … These include i) dynamic efficiency, i.e. whether it creates incentives for searching continuously for cheaper abatement options, ii) stability, i.e. whether the instrument creates a clear, credible and fairly predictable signal about the long-term policy objectives, iii) flexibility, i.e. to what extent the instrument gives leeway as regards the technology used to achieve environmental objectives, and iv) incidence, i.e. to what extent the instrument is directly targeted at the externality it seeks to address, as opposed to an input or output used as a proxy.57

Non-market instruments include bans, requirements for special permits, and command-and-control regulations – among them, technology standards such as requiring a minimum percentage low-carbon source in the fuel mix of cars, and performance standards such as limiting cars’ carbon emissions. The use of these kinds of instruments has expanded rapidly since the 1960s. Other green technology policies are intended to promote R&D funding and adoption incentives, including public investment in environment-related R&D, public incentives for private R&D, public procurement that fosters green activities, green certificates, rating and labelling programs, public investment in infrastructure, reducing the financial barriers households and small businesses face in acquiring green technology, and the use of so-called feed-in tariffs – whereby renewable energy producers are guaranteed long-term contracts at a set, generally higher, price (to reflect the higher cost of producing renewable energy) for all the energy they sell to the grid. Non-market instruments, however, are often not cost effective; such measures are “basically inefficient and best suited either in the

Techno-environmentalism

29

cases where market-based policies do not work or as complementary instruments.”58 Green Growth scholars quite consistently recognize the special and intensive role of government investment and policy innovation in the field. One report, for example, argues that “[g]overnment intervention is needed to turn on the private green innovation machine.”59 The report describes two key instruments of policy intervention – carbon pricing and R&D – as “shapeless,” and argues that “[t]he greatest benefits from green technologies are public rather than private (a reduction of the environmental externality). As a consequence, the private willingness to pay for green innovation will be low unless there is a clear and appropriate price put on the externality.”60 The authors continue: “For green technologies that have passed the prototype stage, there are still significant learning effects during the initial stage of marketing. Customers may want to wait to adopt the new technologies until they are at a later stage, when their costs are lower. In the absence of early lead-users, learning effects cannot materialize, preventing these technologies from reaching their most cost-efficient configurations. Once on the market, new green technologies face competition from existing dirtier technologies, which enjoy an initial installed-base advantage.”61 Therefore, the authors argue, “[s]ubsidies are particularly important in the early phases of development of new green technologies, for addressing the installed-base disadvantage of new technologies and the financing barriers faced by new innovators.”62 The Institute for Environmental Studies (IES) in the Netherlands issued a report in 2006 on the innovation dynamics it saw as integral to environmental policy. The report argues that “environmental technologies (or ‘eco-innovations’) have the potential to sidestep the classic dilemma between economic growth and environmental improvement, by offering cost-effective solutions to environmental problems and export opportunities.” Appropriate “environmental policies have the potential to exert a strong influence on both the speed and the direction of environmental innovation, next to other factors such as market demand, competition and costs.”63 To encourage innovation in the environmental sector, the report says, will require strong policies that clearly emphasize the need for significant change. If standards, regulations, or policies are weak – the report singles out car fuel economy standards in the United States and weak support for solar power in the United Kingdom – innovation simply will not occur.

30

Green Japan

The IES report also looks closely at different policy instruments, and discusses in detail three types: direct regulation (such as emissions standards, product standards), economic instruments (such as R&D support, public procurement, emissions charges and tradable permits, financial incentives to stimulate market demand), and information and communication strategies (such as eco-labelling and voluntary agreements).64 Direct regulation includes bans, product and performance standards, emissions limits, and permit conditions. The report argues that these initiatives can play a positive role in inducing environmental innovation if standards are tough and challenging and if firms believe the new, cleaner technology they develop could become the industry standard. Overall, however, the authors of the report believe that direct regulations provide few “incentives to look for ‘greener’ solutions once the standards or obligations are met.”65 The authors argue that economic instruments can provide a financial incentive to find greener solutions, and can be more effective than command-and-control instruments, although not if the pursuit of the greener course is not for financial reasons. Voluntary instruments, communicative instruments, agreements, environmental management systems, and information provision can also play a positive role, and should be designed to facilitate environmental actions, “rather than making them mandatory or financially attractive.”66 The authors note that it is “not only the choice of the instrument, but also its design and implementation that determines its influence on innovative activity.”67 Why Look at Japan? The comprehensive nature of Green Growth strategies and the international nature of experimentation and policy innovation have resulted in high-level policy discussions and numerous studies of individual initiatives. A national-level analysis provides an opportunity to see the breadth of policy experimentation and the interplay of multiple government strategies. Japan is only one of many countries that are either actively pursuing or contemplating Green Growth strategies. Germany, South Korea, China, and to some extent the United States are also aggressively pursuing innovation and technological dominance in environmental technologies and clean energy as a means of creating employment and modernizing the economy. Japan, however, has “a long history with energy efficiency and clean technologies. Japan has been at the top of global energy efficiency rankings for decades.”68

Techno-environmentalism

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Japanese government and business made “environmental protection a core feature of industrial policy” as early as the late 1980s.69 Although, as I discuss later, the Japanese government does not really refer to its pursuit of economic growth based on new energy and environmental technologies as “Green Growth,” the country has many incentives, and much public support, to get this balanced approach right. Japan is vulnerable on numerous fronts, some of which have both environmental and economic impacts. On the energy side, in 2013, a year in which Japan did not have any nuclear reactors in operation, imported fossil fuels made up 88 per cent of Japan’s energy mix. This is a higher level of energy dependence than the nation experienced after the 1970s oil shocks.70 Energy dependence combined with domestic anti-nuclear sentiment, earthquake concerns, and the geopolitics of the region and the world are powerful incentives for Japan to develop renewable energy. The country – particularly its major cities – is also heavily at risk of climate-change-induced natural disasters. On both the Munich Reinsurance and the Swiss Reinsurance Cities at Risk indices, Tokyo/Yokohama and Osaka/Kobe are in the top ten.71 Many natural disasters are likely to affect centralized power distribution, leaving millions of people without power and/or unable to return home. Renewable and distributed energy will be essential for emergency and other basic communication, lighting, and transportation services during a disaster.72 On the economic side, Japan needs a strong new economic sector to replace industries it has lost to lower-cost foreign competition. High levels of government debt combined with escalating social service costs due to an aging population means the country cannot sit back and hope for yet another economic miracle. It must create one. Japan’s business sector is supportive of the Green Growth effort. Many of Japan’s largest corporations are active in the cooperative new energy and environmental research projects run by the New Energy Development Organization (described in Chapter 3). The Japanese business federation, Nippon Keidanren, has voiced its support: Responding to climate change and overcoming environmental and resource restrictions are inescapable issues in achieving sustainable development for the global economy. Utilizing its world-leading environmental and energy technologies, Japan must contribute to create low-environmental impact societies both domestically and internationally, by means including lower CO2 emissions, recycling, and coexistence with nature. At the same time, it is hoped that stronger environmental initiatives will

32

Green Japan generate new demand, leading to economic development and employment opportunities in Japan.73

The Japanese public also supports Green Growth initiatives. As early as 1995, a public opinion survey on environmental issues showed “clearly that the general attitude of the Japanese is to emphasize environmental preservation over a rise in their standard of living.”74 In answer to questions about the relationship between environmental preservation and economic development, over one-quarter of respondents stated that the priority should be environmental preservation even if the economy suffers slightly, while another 27 per cent thought that both should be pursued in tandem; under 4 per cent thought that the economy alone should be the priority. The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, as a member of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), implemented the Japanese version of the ISSP 2010 survey on attitudes towards environmental issues. Two-thirds of Japanese respondents indicated very high or high levels of concern about the environment. When respondents were asked if they were willing to make an economic sacrifice to protect the environment (such as pay higher taxes, pay higher prices, accept a cut in standard of living), 20 to 40 per cent said they were fairly willing.75 Support for the green part of Green Growth is buoyed by the Japanese traditional view of themselves as having a close relationship with and appreciation of nature. They point to seasonal activities (such as cherry-blossom and moon-viewing parties), poetry, gardens, food, and art that celebrate nature’s beauty.76 In a number of areas, the Japanese public has also been well trained to support environmental initiatives and to live in an environmentally friendly fashion. Citizens were expected to separate garbage into burnable and non-burnable decades before North America followed suit. From the 1960s through the 1980s residents would put out their newspapers for recycling and receive rolls of toilet paper in return. Urban Japanese use public transport, rather than private cars – 56 per cent of Japanese commute by public transit, compared with 5 per cent of Americans.77 As David Engler points out, “Japan’s public transport systems rank among the world’s best for widespread diffusion, low cost and reliability. This is true not only of Tokyo, Osaka and other major cities, but also of its national high speed rail network.”78 And citizens young and old are educated through school and municipal programs in how to reduce their environmental impact – many municipalities have environmental departments.

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Through national campaigns such as Team Minus 6% (see Chapter 4), citizens are encouraged to help reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions. So, although neither the Japanese public nor the corporate sector has pushed the government in the Green Growth direction per se, each is on board. It also helps that the Japanese are relatively comfortable with the idea of governments leading the Green Growth strategy. Japan offers a valuable case study for a variety of reasons. The country’s experience illustrates that major and rapid Green Growth is possible, but not without its share of failures and setbacks. Just as there is no easy path to environmental sustainability, there is no simple formula for global economic success based on the commercialization of environmental technologies. The scale of what Japan is doing in the Green Growth and green innovation areas is important. Yet its efforts are largely overlooked even though Japan’s R&D investment in environmental technology dwarfs that of all countries but the United States and, more recently, China. (In the United States, moreover, much of R&D investment is in military-related fields.) Japan is one of a handful of countries at the leading edge of research in most of the environmental fields that could revolutionize life in the twenty-first century, collecting more than a third of all environmental patents granted between 2001 and 2005.79 The transformation taking place in Japan is being led by government, but it is emerging in close cooperation with business. Japan’s approach to science and technology policy, in addition to the “backcasting” discussed earlier, includes a Delphi survey by NISTEP every five years whereby a panel of experts is asked about the potential of certain technologies and when those technologies might be realized. According to Japanese reports, 70 per cent of past Delphi survey topics have been fully or partially realized.80 Japan has also had decades of experience in energy conservation. The oil shocks of the 1970s hit Japan hard due to its extreme dependence on Middle Eastern oil. The country responded quickly to the first shock, searching for alternative sources of oil, gas, and coal, investing in renewable energy, and implementing strict energy conservation goals. Concerns about climate change and the environment grew in Japan in the 1990s. As Okano-Heijmans explains, In contrast with some other countries that tended to see environmental protection as harmful to business, Japan in general and METI [Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry] in particular saw opportunities in making environmental protection an important feature of industrial policy … New

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Green Japan energy and environmental technologies have been a key part of Japan’s science and technology basic plans since 1995 and particularly after the start of the 21st century. The “Okuda Vision,” introduced in 2003 by Japan business federation Nippon Keidanren, underscored the commitment of the business sector. It called upon the government to make the worldwide spread of environmental and energy-saving technology of Japanese business a pillar of its diplomacy and commerce policy. METI soon thereafter introduced its “Declaration of Commitment to Development of an EcoOriented Nation.”81

The commitment to Green Growth survived the country’s prolonged economic slowdown. The 2008/09 fiscal stimulus program had a considerable environmental focus, including “tax reductions for fuel-efficient and cleaner vehicles, … [an] ‘eco-point’ system to reward purchases of energy-saving home facilities, … [and] tax incentives for R&D, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.”82 Japan’s New Growth Strategy, first approved in December 2009 and revised in June 2010, identifies the environmental and health sectors as key drivers of future growth and job creation. Japan’s goals are to become a leader in environmental technologies and new energy through “green innovation” and to generate market value of over ¥50 trillion and 1.4 million jobs in environment-related sectors while also reducing GHG emissions. Priority areas include renewable energy, innovative environmental technologies, and zero-emission residential and commercial buildings. The strategy includes a comprehensive policy package to achieve a lowcarbon society using regulations and tax policy. As Ivana Capozza of the OECD Environment Directorate points out, the New Growth Strategy identifies “the environment, and in particular innovation aimed at addressing environmental concerns, as a course of economic recovery and long-term growth … The Japanese experience can represent a contribution to the ongoing debate on how to put in practice the ‘green growth’ concept, the instruments that could be used, and the obstacles that are likely to emerge.”83 She also notes: Japan’s response to the economic crisis and new growth strategy have taken up this challenge by identifying the environment, and in particular innovation aimed at addressing environmental concerns, as a course of economic recovery and long-term growth. This is in line with the work underway in the OECD to develop a Green Growth Strategy. The Japanese experience can represent a contribution to the ongoing debate on how to

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put in practice the “green growth” concept, the instruments that could be used, and the obstacles that are likely to emerge.84

As I explore later, Japan has attempted to address many of the recommendations of the OECD and other environmental policy commentators, ignored a few areas, and, in some cases, taken steps beyond what the OECD and other advocates had in mind. A review of Japan’s attempts to link commerce and environmental sustainability provides an opportunity to examine the political economy of Green Growth in Japan, focusing on the intersection of the “new triple helix” of environmentally inspired politics, export-oriented commerce, and ecologically centred scientific innovation. For Japan, and for other nations, this is the new national innovation strategy, charged with sustaining economic well-being, promoting economic activity, and contributing to a more sustainable world. Much depends on the outcome of this Green Growth effort. As Miranda Schreurs has commented, “[t]o the extent that governments and industrial actors can be persuaded that their long-term international competitiveness will be tied to the development of clean energy and environmental technologies, there may still be some hope that the global rise in GHG emissions can be curbed. There is good reason to believe that the future economic competitiveness of countries will be tied to some degree to their ability to be energy and resource efficient and to be players in the environmental technology sectors.”85 Japanese policies on the environmental front have internalized these assumptions, with the national government and the country as a whole clearly hoping that Green Growth strategies will produce both environmental sustainability and country-wide prosperity. International Dimensions National innovation systems and Green Growth initiatives typically are seen as domestic efforts, seeking to connect government, business, and the research community in a nation-serving strategy for economic expansion. Green Growth, however, is inherently international, if not global, in scope. CO2 emissions and other environmental challenges are global; their solution rests with multinational collaboration. Applications of environment-saving strategies in one country have limited global significance; the same innovations marketed and implemented internationally can have much broader impact.

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Furthermore, industrial nations have used a strategy of ecological displacement – shifting heavy polluting industries (such as steel-making) to developing nations. This approach improves local environmental conditions, as happened in Japan from the 1970s through to 2000 with the relocation of thousands of Japanese manufacturing and production plants to China, Southeast Asia, and other areas more eager for jobs and general economic activity than ecological well-being. This occurred at a time when the focus – in Japan, the United States, western Europe, and elsewhere – was more clearly on domestic pollution than on the global implications of climate change. By the 1990s and 2000s, however, the international debate about global warning had shifted the focus. Exported pollution increasingly was seen as inappropriate, demanding attention from the consuming nations, which were becoming increasingly aware of their complicity. Although the focus on international connectivity could be viewed as a constraint on national innovation, it has served in exactly the opposite manner. Businesses in countries such as Japan recognize that the environmental products and services being developed for domestic use have sizable and growing international markets. Governments, led by those of the United States, Japan, and Germany, realize that retargeting foreign development towards environmental matters could address their ecological obligations while providing enhanced and governmentsubsidized markets for domestic industry. The international nature of environmental challenges, far from interfering with Green Growth, has encouraged its expansion. For Japan, as for other wealthy nations, the apparatus of international aid is connected to the desire to create economic growth. Developing nations provide markets for new products, while receiving support for their efforts to ameliorate environmental challenges and address climate change. Donor countries secure kudos for reducing pollution in the developing world, while also generating business for national producers, creating a virtuous circle that fits nicely within the value system of Green Growth. In Japan’s case, this effort has proceeded alongside a comparable effort to promote national innovation, with the country making substantial foreign aid investments in information and communications technologies, Internet connectivity, and various kinds of advanced training. In summary, Green Growth strategies can, if the government and business communities collaborate, combine domestic NIS strategies and international engagement to address both environmental and economic objectives.

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Japan’s Green Growth Policy Ecosystem Government strategies, Green Growth or otherwise, operate within specific administrative and structural environments. The challenge of operationalizing policies and priorities articulated by politicians rests with civil servants, who in turn work within specific institutional structures, budgets, and procedures. In most instances, government policies are assigned to a particular administrative unit or department, with the central government expecting the unit to implement the plan within its budget, personnel allocation, and administrative procedures. With a political priority such as Green Growth, which crosses departmental and administrative boundaries and which lacks political or legislative clarity and formality, the logistical and operational challenges become even more pronounced. In this case, as with other broad governmental priority areas – such as respecting human rights, promoting international engagement, and responding to the needs of the elderly – responsibility lies with the administrative collective (in whole or in part), adding to the complexity of government action and accountability for the priority area. This complexity applies to the effort to promote Green Growth. Japan’s strategy is not an all-encompassing, full-government approach to combining economic development and the promotion of new energy and environmental technologies. It is, rather, a complex web of national policies, moral injunctions, private sector engagement, and societal commitment. Understanding the Green Growth ecosystem – the combination of policies, regulations, suggestions, investments, priorities, and movements – within Japan’s political and governmental structure is an important precondition to appreciating the environment from which the country’s environmental technologies have emerged. The focus here is on the internal dynamics of government, rather than on the broader social and organizational efforts of Japan’s extensive environmental movement, whose important work has sparked public interest in environmental sustainability and the use of collective measures and new technologies to address climate change. The Japanese government, including both the long-serving Liberal Democratic Party and the one-term (2009–12) Democratic Party of Japan, has used a variety of policy instruments, regulations, and investments to support a largely unheralded Green Growth agenda. The impetus for such an approach came from within the country, largely through the work of the environmental movement, and from international forces

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calling for greater attention to ecological sustainability. In general, the Green Growth effort has sought to improve the quality of life, sustain (or even expand) economic activity through investments in environmental technologies, and engender a shift to greater energy efficiency, resource sustainability, new business models, and the adoption of environmental technologies that sustain quality of life while reducing the nation’s environmental footprint. This effort, of necessity, calls for governmental measures to discourage fossil fuel production and use and to shift the nation to a more ecologically sustainable plan. In Japan the idea of “green innovation” found policy voice in December 2009 with the release of the government’s New Growth Strategy, outlining, as part of a much broader commitment to innovation-led growth, a specific effort to become a world leader in the commercialization of environmental and energy technologies. More specifically, and as I describe later in this book, the government committed substantial resources to new developments in energy, the efficient use of energy, transportation, agriculture, forestry, and industrial development, and the promotion of Green Growth at the urban level. Recognizing that such initiatives required sustained investment, the government set aside substantial funds to underwrite the cost of the Green Growth effort. Although Green Growth has required the creation of new policies, additional regulations, and substantial investments, it has also relied on a greater effort to harmonize government operations. In previous years, core areas such as environmental policy and industrial measures were separated administratively and politically. Similarly, science and innovation policies focused on their primary stakeholders – universities, research institutes, and corporate research offices – not on opportunities to connect with other areas of government. This approach, more than anything, saw environmental concerns and actions hived off from the core enterprises of government – treated as a separate issue, rather than as an integral part of the national administrative system. It would be a considerable overreach to argue that environmental concerns moved to the centre of government thinking or to suggest that Japan’s evolving commitment to Green Growth became the centrepiece of government planning. Instead, the Japanese government has sought to harmonize interdepartmental planning and collaboration, giving environmental concerns a significantly higher place in national strategies. Industrial policy, for example, takes environmental concerns into account, while still encouraging job and wealth creation. Scientific and

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innovation investments, importantly, have been reconfigured to make a better, stronger, and more concerted contribution to environmental outcomes. In numerous departments and programs, the harmonization of activities with the government’s commitment to growth through the commercialization of environmental technologies became a significantly higher priority through the first half of the 2010s.86 In a political sense, this system has called for the national leadership to create the vision of a “Green Japan,” to develop the political will to push the country in an important new direction, and to transform the vision into an appropriate series of Green Growth measures, policies, and funding allocations, with the delivery of programs and services delegated to line departments, municipalities, and other agencies. In a practical sense, an effective Green Growth strategy has required the prime minister and cabinet to set the agenda. Planning occurs through the central economic agencies, which consult with external agencies and organizations from the environmental movement as well as private sector representatives. Actual implementation rests with a range of government departments, including the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), METI, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, often in partnership with municipalities, universities, and other state organizations. The subsequent chapters will add substance to this skeletal description of Japan’s Green Growth policy environment. The Japanese government’s Green Growth strategies, not surprisingly, have been affected by changing circumstances. Most significant of these was the 3/11 triple disaster. On 11 March 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake shook northeastern Japan, causing a tsunami with thirtyfoot waves that destroyed the electric power facilities and backup generators of the Fukushima nuclear plant. As a result, the plant’s cooling systems were badly damaged, causing the cores of three reactors to melt and release radioactive material. The Fukushima disaster and its aftermath, understandably, created a strong aversion to nuclear power among the general public. Nuclear, an emissions-free source of energy, had been a large and increasing piece of Japan’s energy supply and a significant contributor to Japan’s efforts to reach its Kyoto Protocol emissions-reduction target. However, the legacy of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings had left most Japanese ambivalent at best about nuclear power. Until Fukushima, Japanese citizens mainly turned a blind eye towards the country’s growing dependence

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on nuclear energy; after the triple disaster, the Japanese public became vocally opposed to any use of nuclear power in the country. Soon after 3/11, Japan took its entire nuclear energy capacity offline, altering the country’s scientific and technological priorities. Green Growth initiatives before 3/11 represented a balance of science and technology, energy efficiency, and industrial development. After Fukushima, the country greatly increased its policy emphasis on finding new energy sources and on energy security, realizing that solving the postnuclear energy challenge was fundamental to economic growth in general, not just to the priorities associated with Green Growth specifically. As a result of the earthquake and tsunami, the need for energy security and alternative energy sources took on truly national significance, simultaneously giving a major boost to the government’s commitment to science and technology innovation and narrowing the scope of green energy initiatives significantly. The shifting focus showed up in the management of Japan’s science and technology strategies, building off the policy and program foundation defined in the 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan of 2011. As the Japanese cabinet adapted its policy implementation to post-Fukushima realities, it introduced a Japan Revitalization strategy that included a Comprehensive Strategy of Science, Technology, and Innovation (June 2013) and a New Low-Carbon Technology Plan (September 2013), before shifting to a stronger focus on alternate energy sources with the Strategic Energy Plan (April 2014). Under this arrangement, the MOE manages an Eco-Points Program to encourage the purchase of environmentally friendly products (discussed in Chapter 3) and was responsible for planning a carbon tax and a new feed-in tariff regime. METI was charged with spearheading the reform of the country’s electricity system and promoting the continuous improvement in energy efficiency of electric appliances (discussed in Chapter 3). The MOF organized a Green Stimulus Package. Importantly, these policy changes demonstrate that, by the early 2010s, science and technology innovation, Green Growth, and investments in environmental technologies had become Japanese policy and program tools. By 2013 Green Growth strategies had been integrated into a broad package of government policies. Further, the leading government agencies supported Green Growth developments through the development of national standards for new and emerging technologies and energy distribution systems. Several well-funded research and analytical agencies – including the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation and the Agency

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for Natural Resources and Energy – connect the ministries to external advisory agencies such as the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry; the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization; the Japan Science and Technology Agency; the National Institute for Environmental Studies; and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, which provide the evidentiary foundation for various aspects of the Green Growth plans. The arm’s-length (or quasi-arm’slength) think tanks and research groups generate informed national debate about Green Growth (and other technology and innovation fields) and national policy. Agencies such as the Japan Patent Office play a key role in expediting the commercialization of Japanese technological and scientific innovation. Government policy, on its own, can do little to shape and direct the national economy, even in a country with such strong governmentindustry connections as Japan. Green Growth can work only if there is sustained consumer demand and producer capacity. To ensure an alignment of consumer needs, productive capacity, and government priorities requires considerable coordination and extended conversation and planning. Nippon Keidanren, the Japanese business federation, has long played this intermediary economic role. The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan had obvious interests at stake and the expertise to contribute to the national debate. Similarly, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has brought its impressive scientific and technological expertise and connections to bear on government-led planning and implementation of Green Growth strategies. Although the think tanks have worked at translating government policies and priorities into practical and applied strategies, the business agencies have brought commercial values, capacities, and experience into the Japanese dialogue. The Japanese government supports their commitment to commercial innovation and Green Growth exports through the Japan External Trade Organization. The representative business organizations and those promoting domestic and international business development connect the country’s leading innovators – major companies such as Toshiba, Panasonic, Toyota NEC, Nissan, TEPCO, SB Clean Energy, Kyocera, and Sanyo, and emerging small and medium-sized enterprises – using their commercial power and business connections and their engagement with government and quasi-government agencies to convert business ideas into productive companies and significant contributions to the national economy.

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Japan’s Green Growth network is wide ranging, and includes many key commercial, economic, and policy organizations. The structure is not rigid or formal, but works through a complex and informal convergence of interests. The system connects policy-makers and think tanks, business organizations, and large and emerging companies, ensuring considerable cross-fertilization and a shared understanding of priorities, opportunities, and barriers. The network works in both directions, allowing for government policies and priorities to circulate in the national conversation and to reach the nation’s businesses, and to ensure that market intelligence and consumer priorities and constraints get into the hands of national politicians and senior administrators. Finally, Japan’s Green Growth system is supported by key foundational systems of standards, regulations, intellectual property rights, official and market intelligence, direct business supports (including assistance with export development), and financial systems. An effective national innovation system requires shared information, up-and-down conversations, and co-production of policy and priorities. The Green Growth variant owes a great deal to the long-standing “Japan Inc.” collaboration systems that fuelled the country’s economic miracle in the 1960s and 1970s. Conclusion The government of Japan has put in place the elements of a Green Growth strategy even without a strong recasting of administrative processes. As the rest of this book will document, a variety of initiatives, policies, and investments under the Green Growth umbrella indicate ongoing support for the commercialization of environmental technologies as a means of promoting both economic development and environmental sustainability. Among the government’s commitments are the following: • developing a “green parts” industry, by supporting R&D and encouraging collaborative technological development among materials producers, fabricators, and assembly companies; • promoting “third-generation” vehicles, by focusing on auto batteries and charging facilities, expanding government use of “green” vehicles, and developing specialized cars for the elderly; • expanding the use of storage batteries, by encouraging the commercial use of storage capacity in buildings and by using

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emergency preparedness investments as a means of promoting the sector; • encouraging off-source energy sources, particularly through the promotion of floating wind turbines, natural gas, and bio-fuels produced by algae; and • leading the development of energy management systems, by becoming a world leader in “smart cities,” and by encouraging the implementation of control systems and energy-efficient buildings.87 Underscoring these Green Growth commitments are substantial targets to be achieved by 2020. These are important indicators of how and where the government feels it can fuel economic development through the promotion of green technologies: • have half of all cars sold in Japan be third-generation cars and trucks; • install two million chargers for electric vehicles, with five thousand rapid chargers in place: • control at least half the global market for storage batteries; • promote net-zero housing and commercial buildings across Japan; • upgrade existing buildings to high environmental standards, leading to a national goal of 10 million square metres of environmentally retrofitted buildings; and • require complete compliance with energy-saving technologies on new homes.88 Japan clearly has a Green Growth strategy of substantial complexity and reach, but it has not restructured its administrative system to place environmental concerns at the centre of politics and government. Green Growth, in short, is a national priority, but not yet a countrywide preoccupation. The government has opted not to create new high-level departments, but to encourage administrative coordination and to expand the mandate and funding of key ministries. Just as the government has often resorted to public signalling to promote different individual and community-level behaviour, so has it sent a clear message to the bureaucracy that interagency cooperation on promoting a Green Growth agenda for the country is expected. In formulating this strategy, Japan has followed a national innovation system approach, mobilizing government, industry, and the academy to pursue the goal of international competitiveness in the new economy. The comprehensive nature of Japan’s Green Growth initiatives, held together by

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considerable coordination and interagency cooperation, demonstrates that the Japanese government takes the development and promotion of environmental technologies and green solutions seriously, just as it has continued to ascribe to the belief that Japan should, in this emerging sector, as in earlier industrial fields, aspire to global leadership and product innovation. As Japan pushes an aggressive NIS agenda, the country has found the race for national enviro-tech supremacy to be crowded and highly competitive. Although Japan’s approach to Green Growth is adapted to specific Japanese circumstances, most of the core elements are at play in other nations. The United States, during the Obama administration, prioritized sustainability measures, Germany has made massive investments in green energy, and South Korean firms are exporting their solar technologies, even in the face of intense competition from China for environmental technology markets. Japan is not alone in promoting the use of electric vehicles, net-zero houses, or major efforts at environmental remediation. The Green Growth enterprise, of course, carries an additional benefit that sets it aside from standard economic competitiveness: successfully done, Green Growth contributes to environmental sustainability and a reduction in climate change well outside national boundaries. The world, clearly, is not waiting breathlessly for Japanese innovations, but it is ready to capitalize on new environmental products if they are competitive and functional. Success in the Green Growth economy is possible, but not assured.

Chapter Two

Environmental Sacrifice: Japan’s Economic-Environmental History

Japan has often been far from a bastion of environmental innovation and responsiveness. Like that of other industrial nations, Japan’s economic growth was based on extensive energy consumption, a disregard for environmental sustainability, and a serious legacy of ecological despoliation. The country’s environmental ills originated not in Japanese culture or history as much as in the broader history of capitalism, economic globalization, and technological change. These global forces converged in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. Japan responded with alacrity, and quickly separated itself economically from other East Asian areas. But doing so carried substantial risks and consequences, marked by rapid environmental degradation. Japan’s complex set of twenty-first-century environmental and economic priorities, such as they are, have not developed in a linear or planned fashion. Rather, Japan’s interest in Green Growth emerged out of a series of events and circumstances. These included industry-caused environmental disasters, the oil shocks of the 1970s, the hollowing out of the country’s manufacturing industries, the rapidly evolving climate change situation, and the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Indeed, the country’s economic-environmental history demonstrates the complicated interaction between economic growth and ecological change and the difficult choices the Japanese government has faced in moving between these historically competitive forces in national life. At the end of the post–Second World War US occupation, Japan focused on strengthening its economy and building its industrial base. As in most of the world, few in Japan paid much attention to environmental issues. From 1955 until 1985, Japan experienced sustained economic growth and large-scale industrial expansion, which, in turn,

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produced a sharp increase in the financial material well-being of the Japanese people. The average annual growth rate through the 1950s and 1960s was over 10 per cent, as Japan re-emerged quickly from the economic devastation of the war. Throughout these decades, the nation, its corporations, and citizens almost single-mindedly focused on high economic growth, with little appreciation for the immediate or downstream costs. And there were costs, one of the most serious being environmental pollution from industrial activities. Japan’s Environmental History Japan’s post-war growth was rooted in a rapid increase in exports and a shift in Japan’s industrial structure towards heavy and chemical industries. The economy grew without concern for either the urban or rural environment. Conrad Totman, in his detailed study of Japan’s environmental history, explains: “Three major factors made industry’s impact during these postwar decades so much greater than it had been before World War II. One … was the vast increase in scale of production. The other two factors were proliferation of new chemical products and diffusion of manufacturing ever more widely about the countryside. The industrial development was bringing more and more land into industrial use, destroying numerous ecosystems and poisoning their human, animal and plant inhabitants.”1 By the late 1950s, rapid industrial growth had caused high-profile problems for both urban and rural Japan. Many larger cities struggled with pollution problems. Major bodies of water, including the Sumida River in Tokyo, Suga Bay near Mt Fuji, and Lake Kasumigaura northeast of Tokyo, were severely contaminated. Osaka was known as the “Smoke Capital” for its air-pollution-producing factories. Kitakyushu’s Dokai Bay was nicknamed the “Sea of Death” due to its deadly water quality. Simon Avenell describes it thus: That Japan from the late 1950s to early 1970s was a hazardously “toxic archipelago” is beyond doubt: children playing outdoors collapsed from photochemical smog inhalation, fishing communities were devastated by methylmercury poisoning, residents breathing noxious oxides from petrochemical plants coughed themselves to death, and babies were born with deformed genitalia after their mothers consumed oil laced with endocrine-disrupting polychlorinated biphenyls … Pollution, indeed, was

Environmental Sacrifice 47 a merciless and capricious phenomenon – the fallen angel of Japan’s postwar economic miracle.2

During the 1950s and 1960s, Japan experienced four major pollutioncaused disease outbreaks related to the improper disposal of industrial waste: air pollution in Yokkaichi (Mie Prefecture), cadmium poisoning in Toyama Prefecture, and methyl mercury poisoning in Minamata and Niigata. These later became known as the Big Four Pollution Court Cases. To a significant degree, the Big Four were a catalyst for environmental activism throughout the 1960s.3 In the Yokkaichi case, soon after a huge industrial complex of oil refineries, electrical plants, and petrochemical factories opened there in 1955, people began to complain of respiratory problems. Between 1960 and 1969, about six hundred people developed respiratory diseases, including so-called Yokkaichi asthma, the cause of which is generally assumed to have been sulphur dioxide from the area’s petrochemical refineries. As well, fishers found that their catches smelled so bad that they could not be sold.4 It took years of protests and petitions before the government responded. In the meantime, approximately half of Yokkaichi’s children suffered from breathing difficulties. Despite the complaints, industrial expansion continued, with a second complex opening in 1963. The previous year, the government had passed the Smoke and Soot Control Law, which, although a step forward in controlling the emissions of some pollutants, contained loopholes that rendered it largely ineffective in limiting sulphur oxide pollutants. The law, however, established an air-quality monitoring system that allowed citizens to become better informed about the quality of the air they were breathing.5 The Yokkaichi asthma victims and their families eventually turned to the courts for compensation, garnering nationwide attention for their plight. As Miranda Schreurs comments: “The [Yokkaichi] association became a rallying cry for other citizens’ initiatives that used ‘no more Yokkaichi’ as a slogan to win support for their anti-development positions. The case was to have profound impacts on environmental policy developments.”6 Cadmium poisoning produced the second of Japan’s major industrial pollution cases. Mitsui Mining and Smelting’s Kamioka mine and refinery on the Jinzu River and Toho Zinc Corporation’s mines on Tsushima Island and in northwestern Kanto released cadmium pollutants into nearby rivers.7 Most zinc ores contain small amounts of cadmium, which is released during mining. The cadmium ended up in rice (which

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had been irrigated with riverwater) and drinking water, disrupting bone calcium and causing itai-itai (meaning “it hurts, it hurts”) disease. The first victims of the disease appeared in 1912. Mitsui expanded its mining in the runup to the Second World War and the amount of cadmium settling in the river also increased. More people fell ill. By the early 1950s the public was paying attention to itai-itai disease. In 1955 researchers determined that the cause was cadmium poisoning. Subsequently the source of the cadmium was traced to the Mitsui mine. Even the Ministry of Health and Welfare supported this position, in itself a significant development. This was the first time the Japanese government publicly admitted that pollution was hazardous to health. Equally significant was the successful lawsuit filed by the victims, their families, and neighbours against Mitsui Mining and Smelting. The victims’ group won a first trial in 1971 – the first successful pollution-caused sickness lawsuit in Japan – and prevailed at a second trial in 1972, at which there were 506 plaintiffs.8 The cadmium pollution case changed how the Japanese government and the public approached both corporate responsibility and industrial pollution. The third environmental controversy attracted global attention. Minamata is on the western coast of the island of Kyushu. It has been home to the Chisso Corporation (reorganized as the New Japan Chisso Corporation in 2012) since 1907. In 1932 Chisso began to manufacture acetaldehyde, used to produce plastics. As part of its industrial waste water, the company released methylmercury into the nearby bay. Although no one realized it initially, the methylmercury accumulated in the local fish and shellfish consumed by Minamata residents. In the early 1950s production of acetaldehyde soared. Signs that something was not right began appearing with regularity. Dead fish floated in the bay, cats acted bizarrely, and people fell ill.9 By late 1956 there was evidence that the cause of the problems lay with mercury poisoning from contaminated fish and shellfish from Minamata Bay. Mercury poisoning causes terrible suffering. Symptoms include muscle weakness and numbness, nervous system dysfunction so that sufferers cannot control their motor skills, and damage to vision, hearing, and speech. A couple of years later, researchers demonstrated that the cause was the mercury from Chisso’s industrial effluent. This was not made public for another decade, however. Chisso made some efforts to curb emissions, and gave compensatory payments to some victims, but people continued to get sick and babies were born with deformities. For years neither the company nor the government did

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much to stop the pollution. Methylmercury was released into Minamata Bay until 1968. In 1970 a district court ordered Chisso to make payments to the victims. It took decades, lawsuits, and much campaigning on the part of the victims for the extent of the disaster to be acknowledged in full. By 2004 Chisso had paid US$86 million in compensation to over ten thousand people. The company was also ordered to clean up the contaminated effluent. News of the Minamata tragedy spread far and wide, both in Japan and internationally. Even today the name Minamata is synonymous not just with the disease, but as a symbol of the costs of a growth-atall-costs mentality. It was a turning point in how the Japanese viewed progress. In surveys after the pollution trials of the 1970s, especially those about Minamata disease, the general public began consistently to rate environmental protection as a higher priority than economic growth.10 Andrew Jenks points out that Minamata both awakened many Japanese to the potential of grassroots activism and changed “the way many Japanese defined progress. It was a commonplace in all modernizing societies that pollution is the price of progress. In response to Minamata, however, many Japanese adjusted their formula for the future by making a clean environment a precondition of progress. Progress, in other words, required protecting the environment rather than destroying it.”11 A second outbreak of mercury poisoning occurred in Niigata prefecture in 1965. The methylmercury was discovered to originate from the industrial waste flowing into the Agano River from Showa Denko’s acetaldehyde plant. Showa Denko denied responsibility, much as Chisso had done. The first lawsuit was filed in 1968, occurring much more quickly than had the Minamata lawsuits. In 1971 Showa Denko was found guilty of negligence. In March 2015 the Niigata District court ruled that neither the prefectural nor the national government was responsible for the mercury poisoning. (Both levels of government had been held partially responsible for the Minamata tragedy.)12 (Interestingly, the Diplomatic Conference for the Minamata Convention on Mercury was held in Kumamoto and Minamata on 7–11 October 2013, chaired by Japan. At the conference, the European Union and eighty-six countries signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury, an international treaty to address anthropogenic global mercury pollution, which had taken three years to draft. Japan pledged US$2 billion in assistance to developing countries for anti-mercury pollution initiatives.)13

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Historian Simon Avenell describes the environmental activism these industrial pollution cases sparked in Japan during the long environmental sixties (1959–73) as occurring in three waves: “the wave of pollution and activism, the wave of public opinion, and the wave of regulation and environmental policymaking.”14 The first wave saw local protests emerge against industrial air and water pollution and waste disposal, damage to coastlines and riverbanks, and proposed factory construction. Jūmin undō (local residents’ movements) began to fight for environmental causes and lodge complaints with governments. The citizens’ movements that grew out of the four major pollution-related disease tragedies, in particular, eventually forced all levels of government to begin to deal with industrial pollution. This was not, however, an easy or quick process. Small citizens groups protested and petitioned for years, typically with limited results. Companies denied responsibility and governments refused to take action. Protesters were painted as radicals and opponents of economic progress. Many protestors, as a result, also suffered from social discrimination and family collapse.15 In such a non-litigious country as Japan, it is a clear indication of their desperation that the victims and their supporters in the four major industrial pollution cases eventually turned to the courts to seek redress.16 The anti-pollution movements, as Avenell states, “played a crucial role in fueling a popular environmental awakening and forcing regulatory change with legacies through to the present.”17 Significantly, the environmental movement became the impetus for later social activism in Japan.18 By the late 1960s the second wave of environmental activism, the wave of public opinion, was underway. High school and university students were being taught about pollution. Pollution control started to become a public and political issue. In 1964 plans for a petrochemical plant in Shizuoka Prefecture were stopped by a well-organized grassroots opposition movement.19 Labour unions, which had opposed environmental measures for fear of job losses, began to change their minds. The first time unions made pollution prevention a rallying cry was at a May Day rally in 1967 in Okayama. They protested pollution near Mizushima, where factory effluent had been poisoning fields and streams and going into the sea. In 1970 there was a workers’ strike against pollution at Chisso Corp’s chemical plant at Minamata Bay.20 Members of the media and a number of scholar activists reported extensively on pollution and gradually on the environment.21 They contributed to shaping discussion and debate on environmental

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issues, increasing public awareness and sending an urgent and insistent message to government.22 Although, as Michael Reich wrote, “environmental problems [had] developed faster than environmental policies,”23 this began to change. Public pressure eventually forced governments to act, first at the municipal level, as these governments were the closest to the pollution problems. Gradually local and prefectural governments instituted pollution-control regulations. In 1964 Yokohama signed a groundbreaking pollution prevention agreement with local industry. In 1969 Tokyo enacted the Tokyo Metropolitan Environmental Pollution Control Ordinance, which set stricter emissions standards than were in place nationally. Although local authorities were not actually permitted to enforce tighter standards, public support rallied behind the city and, after lawsuits and protests, the ordinance was allowed to stand. The next year it became the minimum standard for the national law.24 By 1972 all of Japan’s forty-seven prefectures had pollution-prevention regulations.25 It took a while, however, to get the national government involved. Totman explains that governmental reluctance to intervene only shifted with the release of a 1970 study by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) showing that the volume of industrial waste likely would increase from 58.5 million tons per year to 120 million tons per year over the next five years. Only a third of the waste was being treated – much of it was being dumped into the ocean or rivers. The enormity of the problem struck home, and the government began to put regulations in place to deal with industrial pollution.26 The first attempts to pass a pollution-control law began with the Ministry of Health and Welfare in the 1950s. These measures met a lot of opposition from business and other sections of the government. The overwhelming national focus remained squarely on economic growth. The first major piece of environmental legislation was the Basic Law for Environmental Pollution Control, passed in 1967. The development of the law, Miranda Schreurs argues, exposed strong differences of opinion between MITI and the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MoHW). The latter prioritized human health, and pushed for strong anti-pollution legislation, while MITI was concerned that pollution control would have negative economic consequences: As the traditionally stronger of the two ministries, MITI succeeded in eliminating the MoHW’s proposals for strict liability for polluting industries. Pollution control obligations for industry were also purposely left vague.

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Green Japan A “harmony clause” asserted that pollution control should be harmonized with the need for a sound, healthy economy. This clause called for the “preservation of the living environment in harmony with the healthy development of the economy” giving polluting industries an escape route from the environmental intentions of the law.27

Nonetheless, as Schreurs points out, this was still an important law, as it outlined for the first time the broad principles around responsibility for environmental pollution control and responsibility. It established environmental standards for air quality and emissions and introduced pollution-monitoring policies. The Basic Law was followed by the 1968 Air Pollution Control Law and the 1969 Pollution Related Health Damage Compensation Law. The Pollution Control Law set emissions standards, but was undermined by the existence of numerous loopholes and exemptions – for example, companies were permitted to reduce their local pollution by building higher smokestacks, which simply diluted the pollution by spreading it over a larger area.28 The 1969 law was designed to compensate the victims of “pollution-related health damage.” It designated sections of Yokkaichi, Osaka, Kawasaki, and other cities as polluted areas, and began paying their residents’ medical care benefits.29 As a Japan International Cooperation Agency report on Japan’s experience with industrial pollution points out, this legislation was particularly significant because “many civil compensation cases for pollution damages had foundered due to the difficulty of proving a causative relationship between negligence on the part of the perpetrator and the damages suffered by the victim. Such legislation enabled victims to claim medical expenses and treatment and nursing care allowances from the public and private sector.”30 Public concern over pollution escalated dramatically in the 1960s. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw numerous protests about the construction of a Japan National Railways freight line in Yokohama and the Narita airport in Chiba. (The Narita protests were partly due to frustration and unhappiness with rapid industrialization generally and partly because of the forced eviction of farmers.) The number and influence of antipollution groups grew. By the early 1970s there were more than three thousand Japanese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focused on environmental issues. The activists were encouraged by court decisions in favour of the victims of the four big industrial pollution cases discussed earlier. Michael Reich argues that, “[i]n Japan, the antipollution movement developed into the major social movement of the late

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1960s and early 1970s … the movement included local, victim-centered protest organizations, linked together by various national networks that combined environmental and political concerns.”31 Advocacy by pollution victims and their supporters, Reich argues, eventually forced the government to create environmental laws and institutions.32 In 1970 the government finally felt compelled to act. In the 64th Extraordinary Diet session (November–December 1970) – since been known as the Pollution Diet – the parliament passed fourteen major anti-pollution bills. Some of the more significant aspects of these bills included the implementation of a broader definition of pollution, the removal of the economic harmonization element, an expansion of the Air Pollution Control Law, and strategies for the prosecution of pollution crimes.33 In 1971 all environmental administration was moved into a single National Environment Agency, organized into four bureaus (air quality, water quality, nature conservation, and planning and coordination), advisory bodies (including the Central Council for Environmental Pollution Control), research institutes, and certifying bodies.34 In 1972 the Absolute Liability Law was enacted, under which people who caused pollution, whether intentionally or accidentally, could not avoid responsibility for their actions. Significantly, the decisions in all of the Big Four Pollution Court Cases were rendered between 1971 and 1973; they had an enormous impact on environmental policy going forward. Once government stepped in, it did so completely. Avenell notes that “the turnaround was so complete that by the mid-1970s environmental policymaking was largely in the hands of the state, and the civil society which had fought so hard to create this sphere of policy was now enmeshed in a gelatinous Green Leviathan and arguably largely bereft of its earlier political punch.”35 As a result, public action waned from the mid-1970s to the mid1980s as industrial and consumer pollution was brought under control. This was also, in significant measure, because many of the polluting industrial plants were relocated overseas. Concerns about pollution remained, but citizens’ groups focused largely on assisting the victims of pollution. As Robert Mason explains, “no overarching environmental movement emerged.”36 Simply put, the groups did not work together. What was missing, he says, was an “extragovernmental ‘civic infrastructure’ that might have institutionalized and sustained the public concern of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Japan’s environmental watchdogs have been few in number – limited primarily to a cast of minority party politicians, news media that pursue certain issues

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aggressively, and a small assemblage of NGOs.”37 Simon Avenell concurs: “A significant legacy of the pollution and activism wave is what it failed to accomplish. Despite the astounding increase in protest movements by the early 1970s, these groups did not crystallize into a powerful national environmental movement or party similar to the Greens … in Germany.”38 Nonetheless, the long environmental sixties had had an enormous impact: “By 1973, Japan had a robust model for environmental protest, a cadre of public environmentalists, a greater public awareness and concern for pollution and environmental degradation, and a sophisticated legal framework and administrative structure for the environment.”39 Companies were forced to install pollutioncontrol technology, and this investment paid off: air and water quality improved dramatically by the 1980s. The 1970s oil shocks were the next catalyst galvanizing the country into environmental action. At that time Japan was overwhelmingly dependent on Middle East oil. When the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quadrupled the price of oil, Japan panicked, and immediately began searching the world for other sources of energy. The national government also began encouraging renewable energy production. In 1974 Japan introduced the Sunshine Project to promote the research and development (R&D) of solar power and other energy options. The oil crisis also precipitated a search for energy savings and improvements in energy efficiency. It triggered the passage in 1978 of the Law Concerning the Rational Use of Energy, now known as the Energy Conservation Law, which provided the legal backdrop for energy conservation programs and policies. It set out specific energy conservation guidelines for factories, buildings, and machinery and equipment. The law was then amended in 1983 to include a compliance system, and since then it has been amended and strengthened five additional times. Also in 1978 the Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ) was established, and remains the core organization for the promotion of energy conservation in Japan. In 1983 the ECCJ was designated as the organization in charge of compliance with the Energy Conservation Law. It works as a bridge between the industrial sector and the government on both promoting and implementing energy conservation by providing information, support, training, and policy recommendations. (As of 2015 the ECCJ had 2,861 companies as supporting members.)40 The launch of the Moonlight Project, which focused on energy conservation, came in 1978. Two years later the Moonlight Project came under the

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responsibility of the newly established New Energy and Development Organization (NEDO, changed in 1988 to the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, discussed in more detail in Chapter 3).41 As a result, Japanese corporations, particularly those in energyintensive manufacturing sectors, made considerable improvements in energy efficiency. Japanese companies developed highly energy-efficient methods for producing cement and steel, for example, while the auto sector focused on the production of small, fuel-efficient cars. These energy-efficiency improvements also helped Japanese firms build market share overseas, and Japan was able to achieve an economic growth rate of between 2.8 and 6.8 per cent in the 1980s while reducing its fossil fuel imports.42 Throughout most of the post-war era, Japan’s economy soared. The country had average growth rates of 10 per cent in the 1960s, 5 per cent in the 1970s – Japan became the world’s second-largest economy in 1978 – and 4 per cent in the 1980s. This was a heady time in Japan. Companies and individuals had money and did not hesitate to spend it. Environmentally, however, Japan was a mass of contradictions. The days of pollution were gone, and the skies and waterways were clear – or at least clearer. The country had built one of the world’s best public transportation systems. Most urban Japanese commuted by subway, bus, or train. Many people lived in small apartments with a commensurate small environmental footprint. The 1980s, however, was also a time of excess. This was the infamous “bubble economy,” during which skyrocketing real estate and stock prices created astonishing amounts of wealth and fuelled an overheated economy. Along with overseas real estate, expensive art, and precious gems, the Japanese bought up vast quantities of consumer goods, often wrapped in multiple layers of beautiful paper and placed in elaborate bags. Appliances, cars, and clothes were discarded as soon as a newer model showed up. (Foreigners living in Japan were known to furnish their apartments by scooping up as “good as new” items left curbside on “Big Garbage” day.) There was little in the way of an environmental movement. Environmental efforts were “politically marginalized, more underfunded than most, and almost unrecognized by the general public,” as Robert Mason described it.43 Moreover, Japan had dealt with its more egregious environmental problems by exporting much of the pollution and the manufacturing plants to the developing world, an approach that solved some of Japan’s challenges but added to the

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global ecological footprint by shifting the polluting industries to countries with less rigorous environmental standards. In the early 1990s the bubble burst and Japan’s “economic miracle” came to an end. As the government attempted to use the public sector to encourage innovation, it launched the “New Sunshine Project,” consolidated its sustainable energy projects, and introduced subsidy programs to encourage the installation of solar and other renewable energy technologies.44 NEDO-funded research programs and subsidies paid off in the photovoltaics sector, in particular, which Japanese companies soon came to dominate. Since the late 1980s Japan has played a prominent role in the various environment-related global meetings. The early 1990s saw increased interest within both the bureaucracy and segments of the political elite in increasing Japan’s role in worldwide environmental cooperation. In 1993 the country passed its Basic Environmental Law, followed by the adoption of a Basic Environmental Plan at the end of 1994. The plan focused on how to develop Japan’s environmental conservation plans, and devoted a chapter to the promotion of international activities. (There have been three subsequent editions of the Basic Environmental Plan.) Japan has had a less-than-forceful regional presence on the environmental front, however, due to lingering concerns left over from the Second World War, and highlighted by significant tensions with China and South Korea. Indeed, Japan exerts more authority with developing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, by way of its international aid contributions. Importantly, Japan’s influence appears to be stronger on the commercial side than on the government policy front, with the country’s Green Growth initiative being led through business connections. Other Japanese initiatives during the 1990s included the establishment in 1990 of the Center for Global Environmental Research; the hosting of a major meeting on financial issues surrounding global environmental protection; the sponsoring of Eco Asia 91, an AsiaPacific conference on environmental cooperation; the announcement of an overseas development assistance (ODA) allocation of almost ¥1 trillion to be focused on the environmental field; and the sending of the largest delegation to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development.45 As a result, Japan began “courting and receiving international attention for its new role as a global environmental leader.”46 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, politicians, bureaucrats, the national media, and even non-Japanese academics praised Japan’s improved

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sense of environmental responsibility and pointed to its success in lowering the production and consumption of chlorofluorocarbons and GHG emissions, its energy efficiency, and its willingness to sign international environmental treaties.47 In 1997 Japan hosted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) 3 in Kyoto. This meeting produced the Kyoto Protocol, which since that time has been synonymous with the world’s failed attempt to limit GHG emissions. As Jeff Graham argues, Japan played such an important role for many domestic and international reasons: “Motivating factors include pressure on Japan to perform diplomatic roles commensurate with its economic status, international reactions to the ecological impact of Japan’s private and government-related economic activities (including international trade, foreign direct investment and foreign aid), and the commercial opportunities of environment-related technology transfer. In addition, Japan has been driven by the lessons of its own domestic pollution control experiences and the leadership opportunities in relation to protection the global environment.”48 At the regional level, in particular, Japan made significant environmental cooperation efforts, especially bilateral and later trilateral discussions and agreements with South Korea and China and through ODA. Japan’s approach to ODA has changed quite dramatically over the decades. For the first twelve years after the end of the war, Japan was an aid recipient. In 1957 it began to give aid itself, but until the mid-1980s most was linked to a desire to achieve certain foreign policy goals or tied to the purchase of Japanese products.49 In response to criticism of the heavy industry nature of Japanese aid, in the late 1980s the country began to focus on assisting developing countries with air pollution and other environmental problems.50 The 1990s saw Japan use its ODA to promote environmental improvements and to offer technological solutions to pollution and other industrial problems. MITI’s Green Aid Plan of 1991 targeted seven Asian countries – Thailand and China since 1992, Indonesia since 1993, the Philippines and Malaysia since 1994, India since 1995, and Vietnam since 2000 – as recipients of Japan’s environmental assistance. The program facilitated public and private sector cooperation in terms of project development and implementation. It was a low-profile, practically oriented effort: “The main activities included the dispatch of environmental protection survey teams and environmental specialists and low-interest funding for the introduction of appropriate technology especially that associated with energy

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efficiency, clean energy sources, and the prevention of air and water pollution.”51 In the 1980s Japan gave about US$3 billion in environmental aid; this skyrocketed to US$15 billion in the 1990s, making the nation the most generous donor of environmental aid at the time.52 Even as a percentage of a country’s total aid portfolio devoted to environmental assistance, which was on average about 12 per cent, Japan was near the top of the list, after Denmark, Germany, and Finland.53 This left, however, a substantial portion of aid (Japanese and non-Japanese) that was at best neutral or at worst dirty aid, devoted to the development of environmentally harmful projects. Although some of the aid classified as dirty included dams, roads, and power plants, all of which could have been desperately needed by the countries receiving the aid, it is clear that, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many Japanese economic activities, including its ODA, were contributing to environmental degradation, especially in East and Southeast Asia.54 Japanese aid tended to emphasize largescale economic development projects, and often required the purchase of Japanese technology. Environmentally damaging Japanese ODA projects, according to experts, ranged from “fishery development, and dam and power-plant construction in the Philippines; to dam building in India, Indonesia, Burma, Malaysia, and other countries; refineries in Indonesia; afforestation projects in Burma and Papua New Guinea, and the donation of dangerous pesticides and fertilizers to nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America.”55 In their book, Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance, Hicks et al. argue that huge economic infrastructure projects remained a significant part of Japan’s aid philosophy and portfolio for much longer than was the case for other donors, although Japan did send environmental experts to oversee the impact of the projects and to look for ways to reduce their negative impacts.56 Japanese foreign direct investment during this period has also been criticized. Japanese companies invested heavily in resource extraction (mining, oil and gas, forestry, and fishing), especially in Southeast Asia. As well, as noted, Japan also began moving manufacturing plants offshore from the mid-1980s on; as it did so, much of the country’s pollution went with them. Although the impetus for factory relocations was primarily financial – the strengthening yen and rising labour costs had made domestic production prohibitively expensive – one of the benefits was a decline in emissions and pollution at home. Environmental

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regulations – around pollution and waste disposal, for example – were much less stringent in most of Southeast Asia, and Japanese firms were accused of using that to their advantage. Critics pointed out that Japan pursued clean growth at home while creating dirty growth abroad. Throughout this time, the role of Japanese environmental NGOs nationally remained fairly minimal. Most continued to focus on local issues, and few had much access to policy-makers, significant funding, or legal strength. This overall weakness was not unique to environmental NGOs, but was the case for NGOs in Japan more broadly.57 Domestic environmental problems also persisted throughout the 1990s due to the dominance of the “construction state.” Japan’s “bubble economy” and its associated excesses had been followed by a prolonged recession, and the government sought to stabilize the national economy by investing heavily in infrastructure and public works, expanding highways and rail lines, building major public facilities, and otherwise priming the economic pump. This behaviour, however, was not always consistent with the values of an ecologically sensitive nation. Although Japan was seen as environmental leader in energy efficiency, recycling, and the use of public transportation, in other areas its environmental pedigree was less than stellar. These included “Japan’s involvement in the international trade in tropical timber, endangered animal species and products deriving from them, and its approach to other issues such as whaling, large-scale fishing, the ocean dumping of wastes and wetland protection. There has also been much controversy in relation to Japan’s policies concerning environmental impact assessment procedures, especially in regard to ODA projects.”58 Ironically, given its significant efforts in some fields, Japan was actually an environmental pariah state in several key areas, making the nation the focus for sustained global criticism and environmental condemnation. Through the 2000s, after the launch of the Kyoto Protocol, Japan attempted at times to provide international environmental leadership. The most significant of these efforts was Cool Earth 50, proposed in May 2007 by Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, which began as a national campaign to achieve Japan’s Kyoto targets. The prime minister pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, and proposed a long-term strategy calling on the Japanese people to reduce their environmental footprint. Abe then called on the rest of the world to join Japan, proposing a Cool Earth Promotion Program under which the world would aim to reduce GHG emissions by half by 2050

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through improving energy efficiency and offering assistance to developing countries in their efforts to reduce emissions. The Cool Earth proposal included the Cool Earth-Innovative Technology Program, which focused on promoting and supporting the development of twenty-one technologies that could contribute substantially to the reduction of CO2 emissions, including carbon capture and storage, cleaner coal power generation, high-efficiency heat pumps, housing and building technology, and fuel cell and electric vehicles. The Cool Earth proposal, unfortunately, has not had a lot of international take-up, but perhaps it will be revisited in the wake of the 2015 COP 21 commitments in Paris to serious climate change efforts. Japan’s Post-war Industrial History The industrial history of post-war Japan and the subsequent environmental interventions by the government in the 1970s speak to one of the central themes in modern Japan’s political economy: the prominent role played by the national government in charting Japan’s economic course. Scholars continue to debate the historical role of key government agencies, particularly MITI – since 2001, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). They also have different opinions about the effectiveness of what became known as Japan Inc. and about the collaborative efforts of government and business, particularly through the economic interventions of Nippon Keidanren, the powerful organization representing companies, industry associations, and regional economy development agencies. In the late twentieth century, Japan’s emergence as a global economic superpower created something of a mythology around MITI, in particular, and global awe at the collaborative abilities of the country’s public and private sectors. Starting with the attempt to recover from the utter devastation at the end of the war, government and business sought to cooperate on the development of an effective strategy for national economic growth. Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda’s daring “income-doubling plan” captured the attention of the Japanese public with its audacious optimism and determination, and the admiration of the world for its dramatic success. Through a combination of export-led expansion, major public and private investments in Japanese infrastructure, and concerted, long-term commitments from the leading Japanese firms and conglomerates (called keiretsu), Japan regained its financial footing. By the 1970s

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the country had rejoined the ranks of the world’s leading industrial nations. The dramatic economic improvements – significantly, a creation of government policy and government-business cooperation, the leading prototype for the Asian development state model of economic development – clearly carried substantial costs, particularly on the environmental front. The collaborative Japanese model had been used again in the 1970s and 1980s, both in the effort to offset industrial excess and in the search for a different economic future. Japan Inc.’s efforts were not uniformly successful. The country’s attempt to create a supercomputer industry fell short, for example, but the flow-on impact on the consumer electronic sector made Japan a world leader in the new field. As the era of massive industrialization, cheap labour, and heavy manufacturing gave way to a high-wage, post-industrial economy, Japan’s political and business leaders continued to look for economic models, strategies, and policies that would allow the country to maintain its global standing and national well-being while reinventing it in line with a rapidly shifting global economy. Through the 1970s and 1980s, these collaborations focused on innovations in manufacturing, the consumer electronics sector, and the maintenance of high-quality standards through industrial processes. Japan, in a generation, shifted from an emerging industrial powerhouse to a globally competitive nation. Its leaders now focused their efforts on adapting to the new realities and opportunities of the age of high technology. In time, but not before the start of the twenty-first century, the twin influences of national economic planning and the promotion of scientific innovation would come together to form the cornerstone of what is best understood as an implicit “Green Growth” strategy. Until then, as Japan sought to recreate the economic magic of the 1960s and 1970s, it turned its attention to becoming a scientifically and technological advanced nation. Government and business leaders hoped to establish Japan as a global leader in the commercialization of emerging technologies and the exploitation of the fastest expansion of scientific knowledge in world history. Since the bursting of the “bubble economy,” commentators and politicians inside and outside Japan had wrestled with the question of how best to launch and sustain a national economic renaissance. Moreover, concerns about hollowing out – the movement of manufacturing capacity overseas to low-wage and less-regulated nations – forced the government to consider what Japan’s future economy would look like

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without some major shifts. In the 1990s Japan proclaimed itself a science and technology nation in the mid-1990s, and launched the first of its Science and Technology Basic Plans. The country had decided to stake its economic future on the commercialization of scientific and technological innovation. Through the first years of the twenty-first century, the search for technological solutions to the development of new sources of energy and improved environmental sustainability emerged as a significant priority. At the same time the government realized that these same technologies, designed and tested in Japan but marketed and distributed globally, could address the country’s need for sustained and long-term economic prosperity. “Green Growth” was not only deemed possible; it potentially held the key to responding to Japan’s two greatest challenges: sustained economic prosperity and global environmental sustainability. In intensifying its commitment to technological development, Japan built on an accelerated program of scientific and technological innovation that had been in place for more than forty years. The high profile Computers Inc. initiative of the 1960s and 1970s sought to make the country a world leader in commercial computing, and laid the foundations for a truly impressive consumer electronics industry, dominated by such international brands as Sony, Panasonic, and Toshiba. Since the 1980s Japan has encouraged the commercialization of scientific and technological discoveries, and has increasingly emphasized the importance of the environmental technology sector. The introduction of the 1st Science and Technology Basic Plan, covering fiscal years (FY) 1996–2000, began a period of broad and dramatic reforms designed to modernize and revitalize the management and research structure of universities and to encourage greater governmentindustry-university collaboration. The 1st Plan was designed to construct a new R&D system. Total government expenditures exceeded ¥17 trillion (US$140 billion). Competitive research funds were dramatically increased, including support for ten thousand PhD students and post-doctoral fellows. The promotion of industry-academia-government collaboration began in earnest. In 2001 the 2nd Plan, covering FY2001–05, with total spending of some US$160 billion, was launched; its key policy objective was to promote and prioritize basic research. Competitive research funding was doubled, and Japan announced its aim of having thirty Nobel laureates within the next fifty years. The 1st and 2nd Basic Plans were designed to solidify the foundation of science and technology in Japan. Public opinion polls, surveys of researchers

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(with a particular focus on female and younger scientists), and international comparisons of R&D funding and academic results (such as the national share of science and technology articles) were all undertaken to determine what Japan needed to do to be an advanced science-andtechnology-oriented nation. As a key part of this national strategy, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) was established in 2001; it became an independent administrative institution in 2005. AIST “focuses on the creation and practical realization of technologies useful to Japanese industry and society, and on ‘bridging’ the gap between innovative technological seeds and commercialization.”59 It is designed as an innovation hub to bring together the academy and industry and help take ideas for new technology to commercialization. AIST supports “full research” from basic research (discovery and invention) to product realization/industrialization. AIST has five main departments, one of which is Energy and Environment. In 2004 at the G8 Summit, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed an Action Plan to Promote Global Zero-Waste Societies (also named the 3R Initiative). The Action Plan outlined Japan’s desire to “create a sound material-cycle society in which there is a simultaneous pursuit of both environmental preservation and economic development.”60 The following April in Tokyo the Ministerial Conference on the 3R Initiative formally launched the project, whereby Japan outlined its aim to realize a zero-waste society and its desire to support developing countries in their efforts to do the same. Japan would disseminate its knowledge and its technology to the developing world, and build capacity through the Asian Productivity Organization, which promotes the development of a sustainable supply chain in the Asia-Pacific; the Green Aid Plan, which implements environmental training programs; the UN’s Kitakyushu Initiative for a Clean Environment; and other conservation and recycling organizations and initiatives.61 In March 2006 Japan launched the 3rd Science and Technology Basic Plan (covering FY 2006–10), in which US$30 billion was to be invested annually for five years; the total science and technology investment was ¥25 trillion. This 3rd Plan had two basic goals: to return the investment in R&D to society (to enhance the quality of life, for example), and to develop human resources through public education and increased interactions among industry, academia, and government, and thereby improve competitiveness.

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The next year, the Abe government announced its long-term strategy for “the creation of innovation leading to growth.”62 Innovation 25 outlined immediate and long-term policies to help Japan become an innovation-driven nation by 2025. The focus was on increasing innovation in three areas, one of which was to establish “Global Environmental Issues as a Driver for Economic Growth and International Contribution.”63 As the policy document stated: Clean energy, green technology, nanotechnology and biotechnology developed in Japan should serve as the main drivers for economic growth. This will provide Japan with an ideal opportunity to contribute to the resolution of these global issues … [Specific actions included promotion of] technological collaboration and research and verification programs for global environmental issues … foster world class leaders in the global environmental area, accelerate international expansion of environmental technology including international standardization, implement effective policies to promote environment-related businesses, promote environment-based diplomacy.64

In the 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan (covering FY 2011–15), the government identified environmental issues and technological solutions to these problems – so-called Green Innovation – as being one of the two major areas of innovation that would be Japan’s pillars of growth (“Life Innovation” is the other pillar.) Japan’s national initiatives and corporate responses in the environmental technology sector demonstrate the extent and impact of the government’s commitments to ameliorating environmental degradation while maintaining and expanding the country’s international trade and economic wellbeing. Within the Green Innovation pillar, the primary sectors are stable energy, lower carbon energy sources, improved energy efficiency, and smart grids. Importantly, the 4th Basic Plan states: The government will promote Green Innovation with particular focus, with the aim to solve the climate change issues facing Japan and the world, which should be addressed urgently, and realize the world’s most advanced low-carbon society by identifying trends in de-fossil [sic] fuel that many countries are developing competitively as a key to future growth. Such promotion is expected to facilitate further innovation of environmental/energy technologies, in which Japan has strengths, and promote the reform of social systems and institutions. With such prevalence and

Environmental Sacrifice 65 development of Green Innovation at home and abroad, Japan will achieve sustainable growth. Also, through such efforts, the government will aim to realize a country leading the world in advanced environment/energy technologies, and achieve a sustainable recycling society that exists in harmony with nature, and bring [affluence to] people’s lives.65

Japan launched a New Growth Strategy in June 2010. In keeping with the 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan, the focus was on Green Innovation and Life Innovation (in addition to Asian regional integration and tourism and regional development.) Green Innovation would look specifically at achieving a rapid increase in renewable energy by introducing a feed-in tariff system for domestic energy production, the implementation of a future cities initiative, and a forestry revitalization plan. The government plan also promoted the use of information and communication technologies and the enhancement of R&D investment.66 An OECD paper summarizes the Green Growth and Innovation section of the 2010 New Growth Strategy thusly: The Strategy targets the creation of 50 trillion yen of new demand and 1.4 million new jobs through the development and diffusion of green technologies, as well as to meet Japan’s objective to reduce greenhouse gas … emissions by 25% by 2020 relative to 1990. The objective is premised on the establishment of a fair and effective international framework that includes ambitious targets for all major countries. More specifically, the Strategy aims to: i) promote the spread of renewable energy through feed-in tariffs and investment in smart grids; ii) encourage green buildings and public transport; and iii) revitalise forestry … In December 2010, the Ministerial Committee on the Global Warming Issue announced a package that includes the development of a feed-in tariff system, a CO2 tax and an emissions trading system, and a “Green Innovation Strategy” to develop environmental and energy technologies. Achieving a substantial reduction in emissions requires shifting the economic structure towards lowercarbon activities, thereby creating new opportunities for investment and employment – so-called “green growth.”67

In response to the development of the New Growth Strategy, Nippon Keidanren formulated its own green innovation proposals. Unsurprisingly the proposals underscore a desire to keep Japanese industry competitive and a warning that “taking the wrong direction for global warming countermeasures will have serious impacts on the economy

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and employment.” The report stresses the development and dissemination of new technologies “to achieve a balance between environmental and economic needs.” It recommends stimulating initial demand through tax breaks, eco-points, and green government purchasing; increasing environmental education; deregulating recycling and lowenvironmental-impact urban development; promoting the implementation of environmental model projects; developing overseas markets; and creating strategic initiatives to create, foster, and commercialize green innovation. The report concludes by stating Nippon Keidanren’s hope that industry, academia, and government can work together to develop a shared vision: “Nippon Keidanren’s Commitment to a Low Carbon Society published in December 2009 stated the Japanese business community’s aim of harnessing its technological prowess and assuming an instrumental role in the drive to halve global GHG emissions by the year 2050. We hope that organically interlinking this plan with the government’s New Growth Strategy will enable Japan to lead the world in green innovation.”68 The Center of Innovation (COI) Program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) is one of the main funding programs under the Center of Innovation Science and Technology-based Radical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program. Launched in 2013 by MEXT and operated by the ministry and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the program’s motto is “We want to create a new future,” and it asks, “How should we change society and people by the end of the next decade? The COI Program promotes challenging and high-risk R&D to realize our visions for our ideal society.”69 The program brings university and corporate researchers together to visualize an ideal society and then plan the R&D needed to achieve that vision. There are three main visions to the COI Program, the third of which is to “establish a sustainable society with vitality.”70 One of the main projects under this vision is research on the construction of a next-generation infrastructure system using innovative composite materials such as high-performance thermoplastic resins, biofuels, new manufacturing processes that are low cost and low energy, improved recycling technology, and the improvement of infrastructure to reduce maintenance costs and to enable both urban and marine infrastructure developments that are currently not possible. The main characteristic of the COI Program is its backcasting approach: “visualizing an ideal society at the starting point and subsequently setting R&D plans towards realization of the society, rather than the ‘forecasting

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approach,’ which relies on existing researches or technologies aiming at their commercialization.”71 Nuclear energy had long been a central element in Japan’s energy and carbon reduction strategy. Support for the nuclear industry was entrenched, and included the manufacturers of nuclear plants or their components (for example, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries), the nuclear fuel industries, regional electricity providers, public and private financial institutions that backed the construction of these plants, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the Japan Atomic Power Company, and various nuclear research and professional organizations.72 The nuclear energy market was worth about ¥16 trillion, not including the additional value of the contracts to construct the nuclear plants themselves. Critics pointed out, however, that the economic benefits of the nuclear industry were shared among a relatively small number of players while the public paid the costs.73 Andrew DeWit and Tetsunari Iida describe the evolution of support for nuclear power in Japan: “Japan’s post-oil shock policies included massive support for nuclear power, and it has grown into a powerful vested interest at the core of the country’s 10 regional electrical monopolies. As a result, the pre-[Democratic Party of Japan] energy and environmental policy elite were betting heavily on expanding nuclear power as the answer to the problem of power supply as well as GHG emissions cuts. As concerns about climate and conventional energy costs mounted in the early 2000s, nuclear power emerged as the favourite alternative.”74 The nuclear industry had the support of the most politicians and bureaucrats, as well as that of Nippon Keidanren. Thus nuclear power was targeted to fill a growing percentage of Japan’s energy needs. In June 2010 the government released its 3rd Basic Energy Plan, with the goal of having nuclear power supply half of the country’s electricity by 2030, and which called for the construction of fourteen new reactors within the next two decades. The Japanese bureaucracy also began to push for nuclear power to be a key export industry.75 The result of this nuclear push and the power of the nuclear industry meant that, for decades, the government did not see renewables and smart grids as particular priorities. The focus on nuclear power by METI and much of the political and bureaucratic elite, driven by the powerful nuclear lobby, meant that METI had little interest in overtly supporting the development of renewables. For example, in 2009, METI launched a feed-in tariff plan, presumably in support of renewables, but which turned out to be only for excess solar power (feed-in tariffs

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usually apply to all the power produced, not only surplus power), and was not intended to promote the development of wind, geothermal, or any other form of renewable energy.76 (The feed-in tariff is covered in more detail in Chapter 4.) The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, however, changed the public’s attitudes towards nuclear energy almost overnight, and created real challenges for the country’s nuclear power industry. It was not so much the accident itself that upset people as the way it was handled and what it revealed about the nuclear industry. Despite knowing for many years of the likelihood that a large earthquake and subsequent tsunami could hit the area, neither the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO, the plant operator) nor the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency took steps to mitigate the risk by improving tsunami countermeasures (such as increasing the height of the wave wall) or moving backup generators to higher ground.77 In both the short- and long-term aftermath of the disaster, the government was criticized for not being forthright about the seriousness of the nuclear disaster and the radiation risk. Described variously as inept, helpless, unprepared, and arrogant, TEPCO was lambasted for its poor handling of the crisis. Radioactive water continued to leak from industrial storage tanks five years after the meltdown. Criticism has focused especially on the cozy relationship that existed within the nuclear industry and most particularly among the electricity companies that operated the plants, the regulators, and the government, which resulted in inadequate oversight. An independent 2012 review panel report found that the possibility of a large tsunami had been ignored, that little attention had been paid to advances in knowledge in the nuclear industry field, and that information about the radiation risk after the disaster had been poorly explained and disseminated to residents. Most significant, however, was the report’s conclusion that the disaster was “man-made” and the direct result of “collusion” between TEPCO and the nuclear industry regulators: “Together, the report reads, ‘they effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents.’”78 It is no wonder that the Japanese public’s faith in the nuclear industry was severely shaken. Prior to March 2011 the Japanese government envisioned nuclear power as key to achieving its Kyoto commitments and as the foundation of its energy policy going forward. Thirty per cent of Japan’s energy mix was nuclear; this was forecast to grow to about 50 per cent by 2030. The 2010 Basic Energy plan had called for the rapid expansion of the country’s nuclear capacity within the next two decades. Although many Japanese

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were at least somewhat ambivalent about nuclear power prior to March 2011, the public had reluctantly accepted the argument that nuclear power was cheap, environmentally friendly, and a way for Japan to be energy self-sufficient. After Fukushima, this acceptance was completely destroyed, and the Japanese public became strongly anti-nuclear. Most Japanese now believe that nuclear energy has no place in such an earthquake-prone country. When polled over the ensuing years, the majority of Japanese have favoured an end to nuclear power in Japan. A complete end to nuclear power in Japan, however, has proven unlikely. Indeed, although Japan was completely without nuclear power for almost two years, in August 2015 one of the Sendai (Kyushu) reactors was restarted, and a second reopened in October that year. Nonetheless it is clear that nuclear power will not resume its protected place at the centre of Japanese energy policy. Renewable energy advocates have seized this opportunity to put renewable energy “squarely and credibly on the public agenda,”79 as urged by Masayoshi Son, chief executive officer of Softbank, by pushing for a workable feed-in tariff system and promoting policies to increase investment in solar and in long-neglected wind, geothermal, tidal power, and biomass. Son himself established the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation to bring together international experts on renewable energy and public policy. The Fukushima triple disaster brought the tensions between the established nuclear sector and the emerging renewable energy advocates to the fore. The 2011 crisis, while forcing the country to rethink its reliance on nuclear power, also kick-started the government’s actions on renewable energy. In the first years of the twenty-first century, Japan had fallen behind other nations in its support for renewable energy. In 2003 it implemented a Renewable Portfolio Standard, but this obliged utility companies to generate only 1.35 per cent (increased in 2007 to 1.63 per cent by 2014) of their electricity from renewables.80 The country had made significant inroads in solar energy before losing international leadership to Germany and, later, China. At the same time the Japanese had paid little attention to wind power generation. Critics blamed the dominance and conservatism of Japan’s electric companies – which fell out of public favour over their perceived mismanagement of the Fukushima disaster – for delays in exploring alternative energy sources. The government, in particular, had been slow to respond to growing global interest in wind power. As David Engler argues, “The case of wind in Japan is instructive, as it shows how renewable energy can

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stumble without proper government intervention. It’s especially significant given that Japan previously had been a green policy leader. Japan invented the solar incentives used as a model for similar programs in Germany and in other countries, and its strength in the solar industry often is cited as an example of a key policy success.”81 The government has taken different approaches to solar and wind because solar power is in favour with the vested interests in the energy policy-making structure while wind is not. (This structure includes the various government ministries, the Liberal Democratic Party, the electric utilities, and other business interests. These are some of the same forces that support the nuclear industry.) Solar power has received government support since the 1970s, and many of Japan’s traditional manufacturers have been involved in the sector. Espen Moe argues that “solar has challenged the existing vested interest structure to a far lesser extent than wind, and has suffered far less opposition from utilities.”82 (I discuss government support for the solar power sector in Chapter 3.) Japan’s current renewable energy target, decided on by METI in July 2015, is 22–24 per cent by 2030. In FY2014, renewables made up 12 per cent of Japan’s energy mix: 9 per cent was hydroelectricity and 2 per cent solar power.83 So, although the 2030 goal is a sizable increase from current levels, it does not put Japan near the front of the pack. The countries of the European Union, in contrast, have committed themselves to achieving 20 per cent of final energy consumption to come from renewables by 2020; some countries, including Sweden and Denmark, have already surpassed these levels and are aiming significantly higher.84 Japan’s Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP), founded in 2000 by Tetsunari Iida, former nuclear engineer turned advocate for renewable energy, has been frustrated with the national government’s limited promotion of renewable energy. ISEP has chosen, therefore, to work with municipalities.85 “Local government like the Fukushima prefecture or the Tokyo metropolitan government are much more active, more progressive compared to the national government, which is occupied by the industry people.”86 ISEP supports both small and large municipalities with the development and financing of community sustainable energy projects. These locally owned and situated energy projects are designed around a renewable energy source (solar, wind, biomass) suitable for the community’s location and environment. To facilitate the expansion of these projects, ISEP has been a strong proponent of deregulating the national energy grid by taking away the monopoly over energy distribution held by the nation’s ten regional

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utilities. In April 2016 ISEP got its wish, as Japan deregulated its $70 billion electricity market, both electricity generation and retail sales. Japan’s 85 million consumers of electricity may now select among 266 companies licensed to supply the market.87 Consumers can choose their provider based on their energy mix (so that they can support the use of renewables), price, and other business models that bundle electricity costs with those for cell phones and the Internet, for example. Proponents of the deregulation believe that the increased competition will improve efficiency, bring down prices, and, it is hoped, increase the percentage of renewable energy in the grid.88 Conclusion Japan’s post-2011 emphasis on renewable energy has been crisis-based, tied more to the Fukushima nuclear disaster than to growing global concerns about climate change and even less to the prospects for Green Growth. In May 2016 this became even clearer when it was revealed that Japan has committed to building more than forty new coal-fired power stations over the next twelve years.89 Domestic and international reaction has been one of disbelief. How could Japan turn towards coal when everywhere else has been trying to phase it out? The likely answer is Japan’s need to ensure its economic future and to meet domestic energy demand, and a lack of confidence that renewables will be able to deliver enough reliable energy soon enough. Fukushima, however, refocused government attention on alternative energy and, as such, has given greater support to environmentalists and other activists who encourage Japan’s weaning from non-renewable energy and nuclear power. Japanese citizens, too, have been more strongly supportive of environmental protection and conservation measures, which might well prove to be key to government efforts to mobilize the nation to move towards a Green Growth strategy. In Japan, as in all nations, the environment and economic development are intricately linked. Unchecked development can lead, and has led, to environmental damage and significant harm to both human beings and the ecosystem. Growth in environmental awareness can, as after 2011 in Japan, convince governments and consumers to make decisions that have significant economic implications. The struggle to find a balance between economic development (which held pride of place in the 1950s and 1960s) and environmental sustainability (which has become more central in the twenty-first century) has emerged as a

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centrepiece of national and international politics and global political economy. Japan has lived on both sides of the economy-versus-environment divide, and remains acutely aware of the dangers of economic and industrial excess, the trauma of unexpected changes in the availability of resources, and the possibility of recrafting an economic future around new ecological realities. The country, as a leading exponent of the Asian development state model of economic planning, has extensive experience in building collaborative approaches between the state and the private sector, and has been effective in drawing Japanese consumers into the environment-economy nexus. Through the 1990s and 2000s the government of Japan has also been increasingly supportive of innovation-driven economic development and export growth, concluding as well that appropriate scientific and technological discoveries can also carry major quality-of-life benefits for Japanese and global society. Japan did not have a “Green Growth” strategy through the 1950s to 1990s, and although elements of such a strategy are emerging, no comprehensive plan is currently in place. What Japan does have is crucial, however: growing environmental awareness and concern about ecological sustainability, a commitment to innovation-based growth that has served the country well in the past, the need for a new economicindustrial strategy to relaunch Japan’s prosperity and world economic leadership, and still-significant confidence in the ability of the national government to direct economic change and ensure national well-being. There is no straight or linear path for Japan’s transition towards a Green Growth economy, and no single leader, party, organization, or policy has pulled the country, logically and inexorably, in such a direction. As is often the case with national economic development and policy-making, Japan has had a long series of initiatives and collaborative efforts, some extremely successful and others of minimal impact, that have slowly steered the nation towards an integration of environmental concerns and economic priorities. Moreover, as a leading industrial nation with an impressive track record of government, business, and consumer-driven innovation, and with a strong commitment to looking globally for markets and economic opportunity, Japan has several of the key elements for environmentally defined economic development in place. Importantly, as the next chapter demonstrates, Japan has moved beyond high-level consideration of environment-economy interaction, and has implemented a series of significant policies designed to explore and exploit the needs and opportunities for Green Growth.

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In making the transition to an environment-centric economy, Japan is far from alone. Furthermore, success is far from assured. Politically and socially, the expectation that governments will prioritize economic opportunity and prosperity has ultimately trumped the priority assigned to environmental sustainability. Even as governments, including that of Japan, understand the importance of addressing climate change, they also know that maintaining employment and commercial viability remains a political imperative. No country, including Japan, has yet to cross the environment-economy divide, even as it shows increased commitment to addressing ecological disasters and legacies. Japan’s commitment to scientific and technological innovation, with a strong environmental component, was further demonstrated with the release of the 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan (FY2016−21) in April 2016. It highlighted Japan’s determination to be a global frontrunner in technological change, transforming Japan into a “super smart society,” which the government saw as representing the next stage in human evolution. The Plan defined Society 5.0 as “a new society created by transformations led by scientific and technological innovation, following the stages of hunter-gatherer society, agricultural society, industrial society, and information society.” Specifically: The 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan defines a super smart society as “a society that is capable of providing the necessary goods and services to those who need them at the required time and in just the right amount; a society that is able to respond precisely to a wide variety of social needs; a society in which all kinds of people can readily obtain high-quality services, overcome differences of age, gender, region and language, and live active and comfortable lives.” In Japan, a super smart society is partly taking tangible form, not only in manufacturing, but also in energy and food production, medical care, local communities, infrastructure, disaster prevention and mitigation, and climate change adaptation strategies.90

Elements of Green Growth run through the Plan, particularly in long-term commitments to new energy systems, environmental sustainability, and the efficient use of available resources. The Plan ties these scientific and technological innovations to Japan’s economic wellbeing. Japanese initiatives, from space-based solar energy to the export of smart city technologies, are intended to reinforce Japan’s status as a leading innovator, continuing to build environmental innovations into the foundations of the national economy.

Chapter Three

Green Growth Policies: The Japanese Government’s Environmental Strategies

Green Growth is about more than business development. Government signalling is critical in setting national priorities and changing public attitudes towards the environment. For the past two generations, national governments have pointed to international accords and processes, using the absence of a global consensus and the unwillingness of the United States, China, and India to sign on to postpone major domestic commitments. The 2015 COP 21 Paris accord might change national priority setting, but it will be several years before the impact of the global agreement takes firm hold. Before a lasting, enforceable, and effective international strategy is firmly in place, it falls to individual national governments to develop policies, regulations, and structures to underpin a Green Growth agenda. It is in this area that Japan has developed a significant comparative advantage, particularly on the commercialization front. With the onset of the twenty-first century scientific and technological revolution, the Japanese government and various prefectural administrations across the country have come to believe that invention, innovation, and transformation might be the most effective ways of both curbing CO2 emissions and mitigating their environmental impact. There is a growing sense, drawing on the earlier experience of technology-based economic growth, that environmental innovations might also be the base for the creation of new companies and jobs and a resurgence of global exports. Linking the imperatives of the age of environmentalism with the promise of science-and-technology-driven change has become a centrepiece of Japan’s new economy and sustainability initiatives. Although scientific and technological innovation has long been a central component of economic development, the past few decades have

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seen increased focus on how to convert scientific discoveries into commercial products. Governments around the world struggle with how to select which sectors to support and how best to support them. The issues encompass debates about role of basic science, the best means of bringing ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace, and effective ways to build consumer interest in new products. Since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, Japan has made the development of technological solutions to climate change and environmental problems a high priority. The government has set up an elaborate legislative and regulatory framework to advance the development of environmental technologies – both to respond to environmental challenges and to develop internationally competitive businesses. This includes environmental laws (on, for example, pollution prevention), the Science and Technology Basic Laws, legislation promoting recycling and energy efficiency, and major investments in basic science. Underlying the framework is a variety of policy instruments usually negotiated and developed in concert with industry. For much of the past fifteen years, the government has demonstrated growing faith in environmental technologies to address ecological challenges and maintain Japan’s material well-being. The 2005 Aichi World’s Fair, for example, focused on environmental technologies and highlighted Japan’s determination to be a world leader in the development of environment-saving devices and services. Aichi is the most environmentally conscious exposition held to date, with elements including its futuristic Intelligent Multimode Transit System and its extensive onsite recycling system. As one journalist put it: “It was a green expo, the greenest ever. It protected open spaces and natural areas with endangered plants and animals. It had nature trails. Its theme was ‘Nature’s Wisdom.’ Its exhibits taught lessons in ecology. The expo’s fabric was a product of its 3R motto: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. After the expo the land would become a park. The steel-framed pavilions would be dismantled and reused. The pathways were paved with industrial detritus. Restaurant eating utensils were made of recyclable plastic.”1 The expanding interest in the commercialization of science and technology is showing up in Japan’s presentations to the world – as in the Aichi expo – and its internal operations. Drawing on Michael Porter’s strategy for cluster development as inspiration, the government of Japan launched an extensive program of regional development based around carefully developed and widely supported commercial clusters. Even before global interest shifted in earnest to environmental technologies –

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a phenomenon that has grown dramatically in the 2010s – the national government found commercial, local government, and academic partners willing to invest in the sector. Four of the seventeen regional clusters – projects in Kyushu, Chugoku, Kansai, and Okinawa – developed as part of the national cluster development program of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), launched in 2001 and updated in 2006, focus on environmental technologies.2 In moving in this direction, the government was following a classic approach to the commercialization of science and technology. Within national innovation systems, the emphasis is typically on financial support and encouragement of new technologies and processes, but there are other forms of assistance. The standard techniques of national innovation systems – funding for research and development (R&D), the creation of scientific labs, and the encouragement of connections among government, industry, and academia – are all in evidence in Japan’s efforts to develop its environmental technologies sector. Other kinds of initiatives designed to promote technological solutions to environmental challenges are also in place, however, and the depth and breadth of these initiatives are particularly striking. Not all will necessarily be successful; nor is each program or policy unique to Japan – indeed, many have been borrowed or copied either by or from Japan. The cumulative impact, however, of these initiatives, programs, and policies, as well as long-range planning and the demonstrated level of commitment makes Japan’s efforts to develop the environmental technologies sector worthy of study. There is a useful policy/academic context in which to evaluate Japan’s enviro-innovation efforts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in its Fostering innovation for Green Growth study states: “unleashing green innovation will therefore require government policy action, based on a sound overall framework for policies for innovation.”3 The study outlines a number of areas it feels are crucial for government action. These include investment in long-term and exploratory research, expanding international cooperation, policy actions to overcome market failure “linked to the dominance of existing technologies, systems and key incumbent firms,”4 support for private investment in innovation and new green technologies, and demand-side policies to change consumer behaviour in favour of green products and to expand and strengthen the market for environmental products generally. Scholars have refined the approach advocated by the OECD. For example, Andrew Jordan, Rüdiger Wurzel, and Anthony Zito discuss

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a range of policy instruments in support of environmental innovation, including regulatory instruments, voluntary self-regulation agreements between producers and government, public education/awareness tools, and market incentives.5 Ivana Capozza, in discussing the strengths and weaknesses of some of Japan’s green policy initiatives, looks at market incentives such as the use of taxes and subsidies to influence corporate and household behaviour in conjunction with eco-innovation promotion, R&D, government procurement, and performance targets that support this promotion.6 As mentioned in Chapter 1, an OECDsupported study on Green Growth policies looks at both marketbased instruments (such as taxes and subsidies) and non-market based instruments (such as environmental regulations and public investment in R&D), as well as labelling and other consumer awareness programs.7 Although there are numerous recommended policy approaches in the OECD and general policy literature, this chapter, following the recommendations of the OECD’s Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, focuses on four main categories of initiatives: public investment in long-term and risky new technologies, support for private sector investment in green innovation, policies to foster consumer demand for green products, and the use of regulations and standards to encourage environmentally sensitive behaviour. I briefly review the OECD recommendations and contrast these with Japan’s approach, which allows an assessment of the challenges Japan and other governments face when pursuing this kind of policy implementation. Investment in Research and Development Public investment in R&D is a key governmental role in the promotion and development of all forms of science and technology innovation. Governments face a challenge, however, in determining how much and where to invest. The innovation literature and OECD analysts emphasize the need for risky and long-term research that is unlikely to be undertaken by the private sector. Investment should be, as the OECD describes it, in “areas in which social returns and spill-over effects are potentially the greatest. Exploratory research focused on potentially radical innovations – characterized by high risk and uncertainty – should be included in the funding mix.”8 Governments, in this formulation, need to prioritize certain sectors or desired technologies and promote commercialization.

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The main Japanese body charged with targeting R&D on energy and global environmental challenges, while simultaneously enhancing Japan’s industrial competitiveness, is the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), an Incorporated Administrative Agency under METI. NEDO, now Japan’s largest public R&D management organization, prioritizes and promotes development projects on industrial, energy, and environmental technologies. NEDO gets its ¥120 billion budget from METI (only 6.5 per cent goes to administration), and gives grants to universities and subsidies to private companies; it also manages R&D collaboration among universities, industry, and public research labs. The R&D projects NEDO funds are commercially focused with “a clear purpose and expected outcome (e.g. technology targets to be achieved, new products to be developed).”9 Even the basic research that NEDO funds through its Grant for Industrial Technology Research (financial support to young researchers) Program is chosen based on government priority areas and “not on a researcher’s organization, background or past achievements.”10 The bulk of NEDO’s budget goes to the funding of national five-year projects, of which there are about seventy at any one time; currently close to fifty projects focus on energy and environmental technologies. Each project receives about ¥1–2 billion a year. NEDO carefully targets the projects it funds. It often selects a technology or field, and then designs a project in which that technology can be showcased. Examples of projects in 2012 include initiatives on smart grids, electricity storage technology for next-generation vehicles, fuel cells and hydrogen, next-generation low-pollution vehicles, and water-saving recycling systems. A number of factors define NEDO’s mandate and shape its effectiveness. One is its ability to coordinate industry, academia, and government to work on national projects. NEDO cultivates its relationships with industry and universities, and maintains a watching brief of researchers’ activities. Another factor is NEDO’s focus on the “development, demonstration and introduction of promising technologies that private sector enterprises cannot transfer to the practical application stage by themselves due to the high risk and long development period required.”11 NEDO evaluates projects in the third year of their term, which can result in modification or termination of the project; it also follows up on projects one and five years after completion. These extensive evaluations look at political positioning (including the societal validity of

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objectives), R&D management, R&D achievements, and prospects for practical application and commercialization.12 NEDO interviews both companies that were successful and those that were not to determine the factors that contributed to their success or failure. Between fiscal years (FY) 2001 and 2008, 1,550 companies participated in NEDO-funded projects. Of these, three-quarters continued with their commercialization/ practical application efforts upon completion of the research phase. Five years after completion, 61 per cent of these companies remained actively engaged in the same R&D, commercialization, and practical application efforts. Company surveys also reveal that NEDO projects “contributed not only to the acceleration of practical application but also to the performance quality improvement of development products. However, the cost reduction effect was comparatively low.”13 Japan does not, however, mobilize all of its enviro-tech efforts through NEDO. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) is Japan’s other major public research organization. AIST “focuses on the creation and practical realization of technologies useful to Japanese industry and society, and on ‘bridging’ between innovative technological seeds and commercialization.”14 AIST’s two thousand researchers work in five departments and two centres, and focus on green technology and life technology. The main green innovation department is the Department of Energy and Environment, which contains the Research Institute of Energy Frontier, the Research Institute of Electrochemical Energy (which replaced the Research Institute for Ubiquitous Energy Devices in 2015), the Research Institute for Energy Conservation, the Environmental Management Research Institute, the Research Institute for Energy Conservation, the Research Center for Photovoltaics, the Renewable Energy Research Center (which opened in 2014), and the Advanced Power Electronics Research Center. Kazumi Tanimoto, director of the Research Institute of Electrochemical Energy, describes the Institute’s direction as follows: It’s necessary to reduce the amount of energy consumed at the demand side like vehicles and household appliances in order to make the transition to a low-carbon economy. Energy conservation in daily life must be achieved with safety and environmental acceptability – namely, through “green innovation” that promotes the economic growth and environmental protection together. To attain the [purpose], our Research Institute of Electrochemical Energy … aims to develop highly efficient power sources

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Green Japan for the transportable and stationary use, notably advanced rechargeable batteries (secondary batteries) and fuel cells.15

Japan, through NEDO and AIST and numerous other academic and industrial programs, has made a financial commitment to environmental innovation, believing that basic research and various acceleration measures are required to identify promising avenues for development. Private Investment in Green Innovation To unleash green innovation in the private sector requires a broad and reliable foundation for transformative economic development. This includes the usual framework conditions of the rule of law, strong macroeconomic policy, a fair and transparent tax system, and openness to trade and investment. Beyond this framework, however, there is also the need for other support to encourage green innovation within firms. The main areas in which governments can offer support include access to financing, particularly for high-risk and capital-intensive technologies, and more direct assistance, such as supplying information, networking opportunities, and tax incentives.16 The Japanese government clearly believes that mobilization of the private sector is the key to long-term growth and sustainability. Much of its efforts to support the private sector’s green innovation efforts have been undertaken through NEDO. For example, NEDO began funding research into photovoltaics in 1974, fuel cells in 1986, and high-performance furnaces in 1991, well before the current preoccupation with Green Growth. In other words, the elements of Green Growth in Japan predated the emergence of more formal Green Growth philosophies and political strategies, and reflect the country’s long-term focus on nextgeneration business development. Several examples illustrate the nature and effectiveness of Japan’s private sector mobilization efforts.

Inorganic light-emitting diodes In 1998 METI asked NEDO to launch a new research project entitled “The Light for the 21st Century” to develop low-energy lighting systems. The project focused on the light-emitting diode (LED), “a semiconductor device that emits light when a voltage is applied to it. The colour of an LED depends on the combination of elements used as its semiconductor materials such as gallium, phosphorus and indium.”17

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The project’s goal was to create LEDs that last significantly longer and are smaller, lighter, and more energy efficient than conventional fluorescent lights. Japanese companies were soon working on LED lighting applications for everything from signboards (Nippon Paint) and streetlights (Iwasaki Electric) to traffic lights (Nippon Signal and others), automotive instrument panels (Stanley Electric), mobile phone handset lights, televisions, and other uses.18 Japanese companies, however, quickly faced competition in these fields from South Korean and Taiwanese firms. Additional support for the sector came at the end of 2009 when the government added LED lamps to the list of products for which EcoPoints (described in more detail later in the chapter) could be redeemed. As Phil Jessup, head of international lighting for the Climate Group notes, “[t]he impact of the program on LED lighting products was profound. According to Gfk Marketing Services, Inc., by June 2010 consumer sales of LED lamps had surged to 19% of total light-bulb sales by volume, and 60% by total value … [T]he average cost of LED lamps fell by about 25%, the result of increasing economies of scale and intense competition among Japanese manufacturers.”19 The LED component of the Eco-Points Program, Jessup comments, “demonstrated that significant energy savings and rapid market transformation for home-grown technologies could be achieved by significantly lowering the initial cost of products in a way that appealed to the public’s values. In sum, in a remarkably short period, Japan’s Eco-point Program quickly built market share for LED lamps, while stimulating the economy and boosting Japan’s LED manufacturing sector.”20 The importance of LEDs for energy conservation is highlighted by a 2011 study by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, which reports that 14 per cent of home electricity consumption and 24 per cent of office electricity consumption comes from lighting.21 NEDO continued its focus on lighting through its five-year 2009–14 project supporting the development of next-generation high-efficiency, high-quality LED and OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology. The project also focused on both supporting the design of international standards, measurements, and terms, and finding new LED and OLED applications. Four different research groups, composed of university academics and industrial scientists, tackled different technological challenges.22 The results were impressive: “Japan’s post 3-11 diffusion of LEDs boomed, becoming 11% of a global market of just over USD 90 billion by 2013. Japan’s diffusion rate of 54.1% LEDs in the 2013 domestic lighting

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market was nearly double the global average of 27.6%. Estimates project Japan’s diffusion rate will rise to 70.8% in 2015 and 80.9% in 2018. By contrast, the US Department of Energy forecasts LED diffusion in America to reach just 36% of sales in 2020 and 74% by 2030.”23

Fuel cell technologies Worldwide efforts to develop fuel cells that can be used in vehicles or for residential and commercial use have been ongoing since the early 1990s. Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen and convert them into electricity. The use of fuel cells to replace fossil fuels or to increase combustion efficiency is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Japanese companies have been working on polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs); however, as NEDO’s fuel cell research publication summarizes, “there are high hurdles that must be overcome in order to commercialize PEFCs; costs will have to be sharply reduced, and product quality and durability will have to be dramatically improved. This will require major technological breakthroughs. For example, fuel cell vehicles, like existing gasoline-powered vehicles, will need to have a service life of more than 100,000 kilometers and residential stationary fuel cells will need to be as durable as household appliances. Also costs need to be reduced to less than one-tenth the current level.”24 The Japanese government supported a national strategy to support the commercialization of fuel cells. The strategy aimed to have 5 million fuel cell vehicles and to be generating 10 gigawatts of electricity from fuel cells by 2020. In early 2008, as part of Japan’s Cool Earth-Innovative Energy Technology Program, stationary fuel cells, fuel cell vehicles, and hydrogen production delivery and storage were identified as among the twenty-one innovative technologies that could help Japan achieve its goal to halve emissions of GHGs by 2050.25 Japan believes it could become the world’s first mass market for fuel cell technologies. In 2005, NEDO also launched a five-year national fuel cell development project. Industry/academic research consortiums worked on a variety of research themes related to basic fuel cell issues and elemental technologies with an overall goal of breaking “through the barriers that impede the full commercialization of fuel cells.”26 A demonstration project of 3,300 systems ran from 2005 to 2009. The research project resulted in lower-cost, more durable, longer-lasting, and higher-efficiency fuel cells. In May 2009 Japanese manufacturers launched ENE-FARM, the world’s first residential fuel cell system. ENE-FARM runs on natural gas (or propane

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for some versions), can provide 60 per cent of the electricity needed for a household of four, and saves US$500–600 a year on energy costs. Several manufacturers and major energy companies market it jointly. As with fuel cells generally, the market has grown exponentially. By early 2012 there were more than twenty thousand systems in place in Japan.27 Government subsidies – up to ¥1.05 million in early 2011, declining to ¥800,000 in 2012, out of a total cost of ¥2.7 million – for the capital cost of an ENE-FARM system have been available, as are smaller subsidies from municipal governments. Gradually the subsidy is being reduced, but it remained at about one-third of the cost in 2012.28 By September 2015 one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese households were using residential fuel cell systems.29 Although popular, high costs are keeping ENE-FARM from wider use. As one US analyst has stated, “[t]he ability of companies like Toshiba and Panasonic to continue to reduce costs will be critical for commercial success and to meet aggressive targets set for mid-decade.”30 Fuel cells currently use energy from conventional sources to derive the hydrogen needed to create electricity by generating a reaction with oxygen. (ENE-FARM systems are connected to the electrical grid, although they can also be connected only to a separate battery.) Some companies are experimenting with using micro-organisms that generate hydrogen: Sapporo Breweries uses the waste from food-processing plants; Kajima’s fuel cell electrodes are coated with micro-organisms that release hydrogen.31 NEDO also established a demonstration project of two hundred solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) for residential use. This project ran from FY2007 through FY2010, with significant research findings. As a result of this work, the first commercial SOFC system for household use was launched in November 2011. The new SOFC systems are smaller and more energy efficient than PEFCs.32 To expand the market for ENE-FARM and to develop fuel cells for vehicles by 2015, NEDO launched another national fuel cell research project that ran between FY2010 and FY2014).33 This project focused on a range of PEFC technologies, which will be needed if fuel cells are to achieve widespread commercialization. The NEDO research looked at base technologies – for example, nanomaterials and high-performance electrolyte membranes to ensure long-term durability and low cost, and carbon alloy and non-precious metal oxide cathode catalysts – basic production technologies, and the development of next-generation technologies.34 In 2015 thirteen Japanese companies, including car manufacturers and hydrogen fuel suppliers, announced they were launching

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mass-produced fuel cell vehicles into the Japanese market, targeting four major cities: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka.35 Hydrogen fuel suppliers constructed about one hundred fueling stations, initially along major expressways. This phase of the NEDO-funded Japan Hydrogen Fuel Cell Demonstration Project (FY2011–15) focused on the development of hydrogen production, delivery, and storage, and data for the optimal development of regulations. It included demonstrations of cars and infrastructure and a variety of feasibility studies.36 NEDO is also collecting evaluation data and testing evaluation methods for both fuel cell and hydrogen technologies as part of its goal of developing international standards and ensuring Japan’s international competitiveness. (I discuss Japan’s efforts to create a hydrogen society in Chapter 6.)

Lithium-ion batteries Lithium-ion batteries can store 50–100 per cent more electric charge than do conventional batteries and thus can be made smaller, making them suitable for everything from cell phones and notebook computers to power tools and industrial machinery. METI is encouraging Japanese makers to improve their lithium-ion batteries so that, by 2030, they can hold seven times as large a charge and cost one-fortieth what they cost today, which is needed if electric vehicles are to be brought into wider use. This is an area of intense international competition and commercial interest.37 The aim is to create a lithium-ion battery that can power a vehicle for up to five hundred kilometres without recharging. Japanese companies (Sanyo and Sony primarily) dominated the market until approximately 2013, accounting for slightly less than half of the global market for lithium-ion batteries and over three-quarters of the market share for battery materials. Competition from Chinese and South Korean companies, in particular, however, has been heating up.38 Sanyo Electric is developing large storage batteries that are made by connecting many of the small lithium-ion batteries that are used in notebook personal computers. Home energy storage systems using lithium-ion batteries are another important area in which Japanese companies are active. Such a system stores power during periods of low demand so that the energy can be used during periods of high demand. This also allows the system to link with a solar power generating system. These storage systems would also be valuable during natural disasters or any time there is a power outage. NEC Corporation’s future plans are to create a very large

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power storage system that could be used to set up a recyclable power network in towns and cities.39 NEDO has launched two lithium battery energy storage R&D projects. One focuses on the creation of a high-performance battery for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The project’s goal is to develop, by 2020, significantly improved energy and power densities in the battery pack. Hitachi’s work in this field has already allowed it to double the driving range of an electric vehicle.40 The other project focuses on the development of large-scale energy storage systems that are safe and inexpensive. It aims to develop a load frequency control system and a surplus power storage system. Both should have a twenty-year lifespan and 80 per cent efficiency.41

Photovoltaics Under the April 2014 Basic Energy Plan, renewable energy – at approximately 11.5 per cent of Japan’s total electricity production in the mid2010s, 9 per cent of which is hydroelectric – is to increase to 22–24 per cent by 2030.42 The Fukushima nuclear meltdown and the resulting aversion to nuclear power have made the need for viable renewable energy even more urgent if Japan is avoid skyrocketing GHG emissions and intense national debates about the expanding use of nuclear energy. It is hoped that solar energy will play a major role in mitigating both, and this has led to growing interest in the possibilities of photovoltaics (PVs). A solar or photovoltaic cell is a device that captures energy from a photon of light and converts it into electricity. The light hits the semiconducting material in the cell and excites the electrons, which are then converted into an electric current. Since light comes in varying wavelengths and energy levels, different semiconducting materials are needed to absorb the various kinds of photons. Hybrid or multijunction cells are created that use a variety of semiconducting materials to deal with this challenge.43 Japan has been funding research into PVs and non-fossil fuel sources of energy – collectively called the Sunshine Program – since shortly after the first oil crisis. Solar has been a significant part of this initiative.44 In the 1980s and 1990s research into manufacturing technologies for PV cells, residential systems, and grid connection equipment technologies attracted substantial government support. Various companies were involved in the research projects, including Sharp, Matsushita,

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Hitachi, Toshiba, and, later on, Kyocera and Sanyo. Interestingly, Hitachi and Toshiba withdrew in the late 1980s because they did not believe that the solar panel market would ever get that big (Toshiba re-entered the market in 2013).45 Sharp, Sanyo, and Kyocera stayed with solar panels, however, and formed the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association. Developing more efficient and less expensive solar panel technology was their key focus. The government encouraged utility companies to buy up surplus PV power as early as 1992, and started a subsidy program in 1994.46 By the mid-1990s METI and NEDO had been investing in solar research for almost two decades, and yet the technology had not been brought to market to any significant extent. In an attempt to make the launch of solar panels successful, the government implemented a number of policies to try to create a solar market, as Osamu Kimura and Tatsujiro Suzuki describe: “In the early 1990’s, four kinds of marketcreation policies for PVs were established by the government and the electric power companies: 1) the simplified procedures for residential PV installation, 2) the technical guidelines for grid-connection, 3) netmetering system by electric power companies, and 4) the investment subsidy program for residential PV systems. They are widely recognized as the critical institutional arrangements that supported the PV market expansion in the mid 1990’s.”47 As noted, the government first attempted to simplify regulations for solar panel installation (Kimura and Suzuki explain that, initially, the rules required an electrical chief engineer to install a rooftop solar panel). Then, the electric companies were concerned about connecting solar power to the grid due to the instability of its supply. In response NEDO set up a five-year demonstration project in the late 1980s to demonstrate that grid stability and reliability could be maintained with PVs connected to the grid. The electric companies were initially reluctant to buy electricity from residential photovoltaic systems; however, as the government made clear its plans for solar, the electric companies voluntarily began a net-metering program, buying solar power at a favourable rate.48 The most significant policy move was the decision to subsidize the cost of residential solar panel installations. In 1993 the government launched the New Sunshine Project, a series of national and local subsidies. In 1994 the program covered 50 per cent of the $20,000 installation cost, but the subsidy declined gradually over the next decade. The New Sunshine Project provided incentives to three hundred thousand

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homeowners who were willing to use PV electricity. Although the subsidies were important, equally significant was the government’s commitment to the sector, which reassured companies that there would be a future market and was therefore worth the investment. NEDO set annual cost-reduction and energy-efficiency targets, which companies generally achieved.49 By the early twenty-first century Japan was recognized as an international leader in the field of domestic PV systems, and had convinced thousands of consumers and, importantly, many of the leading residential construction companies in the country to use them. In the early 2000s Japanese firms had about half the global solar panel market; Sharp accounted for almost one-quarter of the world’s production, and the next three largest Japanese firms, Kyocera, Panasonic, and Mitsubishi Electric, produced another 24 per cent. Tokuyama also dominated an important part of this sector, producing 20 per cent of the total supply of the silicon needed for the panels. In 2005, however, Japan eliminated its consumer subsidy for PVs entirely. This was partly because the subsidy was supposed to continue only until the industry was self-sufficient, and partly because Prime Minister Koizumi believed more in market-based policies.50 The trajectory of commercial solar power installations then changed dramatically. Although the subsidy was quite small (the equivalent of US$250) by 2005, the effect of its removal was immediate; in 2006, while Germany installed 750 megawatts of new solar installations, Japan installed only 300 megawatts.51 The end of Japan’s domestic subsidy program, difficulties procuring adequate supplies of silicon,52 and increased competition, particularly from German and later Chinese and Taiwanese companies, resulted in rapidly declining market share for Japanese solar panel makers.53 By 2009 Japan’s share of solar panel production had fallen to 14 per cent.54 This did not stop government-led PV commercialization efforts. In the thirty years after the beginning of the Sunshine Policy, numerous photovoltaic R&D projects had developed the technology far enough that the initial goal of achieving a PV systems market had been achieved. By 2004 Japan was the world leader in the production of PVs and their installation. That year the government launched its photovoltaic road map, called PV2030, designed to determine the next steps in the technological development of the sector.55 An expert panel met and, over the course of six discussions, set out targets to achieve the mass introduction of PV systems. The main objective was to have photovoltaic

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power supply 10 per cent of total electricity consumed in Japan by 2030. The road map also set out specific technical targets for bringing down the price, improving conversion efficiency (to 30 per cent by 2030), improving the durability of system components, and developing stand-alone systems (that is, separate from the grid).56 To achieve this, NEDO’s photovoltaic R&D projects focused on searching for technological breakthroughs by funding high-risk R&D in all aspects of PV power generation, aiming to establish an integrated solar panel industry in Japan from component development through to the marketing of complete systems. The initial plan was laid out through to 2030, but in 2009 the national strategy was changed to PV2030+, with accelerated plans for rapid technological development.57 NEDO is currently funding a research program called Next Generation High-Performance Technology for Photovoltaic Power Generation Systems, which looks at various kinds of solar cells (wafer-based, thin-film, and organic). NEDO has also funded a series of demonstration projects around the country to test new technologies, including a test in Ota City on grid interconnection and an initiative in Wakkanai on grid stabilization.58 In January 2009 the government relaunched the national subsidy program for residential solar power. The subsidy funds installation costs, but it has declined over the years of the program as an incentive to manufacturers to decrease their installation costs. Firms also received a 7 per cent tax deduction for investment in solar panels until 2011. At the beginning of 2012, the subsidy was ¥30,000 per kilowatt for installation costs under ¥550,000, and ¥35,000 per kilowatt for installation costs under ¥475,000.59 Almost nine hundred local governments and municipalities put their own subsidy programs in place, and expanded targets for installed solar capacity were also set (at 53 gigawatts by 2030).60 Towards the end of 2009, the government established a feed-in-tariff program that made it mandatory for utilities to purchase excess solar power sent to the grid from businesses and homes, and required them to pay twice the normal rate for that power. The feed-in-tariff rate – the rate at which PV installations can sell to utilities – was set at ¥48 per kilowatt hour for ten years. This was twice the price of electricity, costing domestic and industrial consumers about ¥80 billion per year, but was set to decline over time. These initiatives, later combined with the impact of the Fukushima disaster, have had a positive impact on the domestic solar market. As of 2014 Japan had the third-most-installed solar energy capacity in the world, after Germany and China.61 Installed solar power jumped from 3,618 megawatts in 2010 to 23,300 megawatts

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in 2014. That year solar generated about 2.5 per cent of Japan’s domestic energy needs, a major increase jump from 0.3 per cent four years earlier, but still a long way from the goal of 10 per cent. In 2011 Showa Shell Sekiyu’s Solar Frontier Company, a participant in NEDO’s solar battery research projects since 1993, built what it described as the largest solar cell plant in the world.62 The feed-intariff program has also inspired Sumitomo Corporation and Sumitomo Finance and Leasing Company to develop plans for a large-scale solar power generation project. The City of Osaka donated reclaimed land for the construction of Yumeshima Megasolar, which would produce 10 megawatts, or enough power for about three thousand homes.63 In June 2015 Kyocera opened two giant floating solar power stations in Kato City, and began construction on another one east of Tokyo in 2016. The two Kato City stations have about nine thousand panels and will generate 3,300 megawatts of electricity. The 2016 plant will be even larger. Floating plants deal with Japan’s shortage of the wide-open spaces needed for regular large solar installations. The ocean water also has the added benefit of cooling down the system. Whether these will be more expensive to operate and maintain has yet to be seen.64 Solar power remains expensive in Japan, with one report noting that “[i]t is close to twice the cost of electricity faced by households and over five times the cost of electricity paid by large business.”65 Moreover, solar power tends to benefit the already well-off. As one analyst has summarized, “without adequate subsidies for lower income households to install solar power, Japan’s promotion of solar power will be economically repressive as mainly businesses and wealthier households will be able to afford to install solar power and to sell the surplus energy back to the grid, while any increased cost of electricity caused by the uptake of renewable energy will be distributed by among consumers.”66 Other analysts argue that Japan’s solar panel manufacturers are making money off generous government subsidies.67 Although Japanese solar panel companies remain dependent on the domestic market, many are also strong competitors on the international stage. In 2016, Sharp and Kyocera had the largest global market shares among Japanese companies, with 2 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively.68 Japanese solar cells are more expensive than Chinese products, but they are also more efficient at converting solar energy into electricity, and thereby producing more energy from the same-sized panel. Although Chinese cells have conversion rates around 10 per cent,

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Japanese companies are producing cells with 15–20 per cent efficiency, and even managing to top Elon Musk’s SolarCity 2015 announcement of 22.04 per cent efficiency for a rooftop solar panel by launching panels with almost 22.5 per cent efficiency.69 Along with their advances in efficiency, Japanese companies are working on thinner and more flexible panels, paints that serve as thermal barriers for buildings and roadways, coatings that help improve the performance of solar cells by having the cells collect and use sunlight, solar glass, and other products for solar-powered smart homes. The companies involved in NEDO’s PV project have recently achieved some significant breakthroughs. In 2012 Sharp developed a dye-sensitized PV cell with the highest conversion efficiency in the world. The following year the company achieved the world’s highest conversion efficiency of 44.4 per cent for its triple compound PV cell; in 2014 it announced the development of a heterojunction back contact silicon solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 25.1 per cent, close to the world’s highest efficiency rate of 25.6 per cent for such cells achieved by Panasonic. In 2014 Solar Frontier achieved the world’s highest conversion efficiency of 20.9 per cent for a thin film PV cell, and Toshiba did the same, with a conversion efficiency of 9.9 per cent, for its PV submodule, an organic thin film cell.70 NEDO has launched a research project to look at the industry going forward. Although feed-in tariffs in Japan and elsewhere could lead to a widespread increase in PV installations and thus be positive for the industry, the enhanced market penetration could also create new challenges. The NEDO project looks at price reduction, enhanced reliability, and the establishment of a recycling system, among other issues.71

High-efficiency non-fluorinated refrigerants In 2003, in anticipation of regulations limiting the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), NEDO began sponsoring research projects into potential replacements.72 A number of Japanese companies that participated in these projects have now successfully developed various refrigerating and air-conditioning systems and equipment using different refrigerants, including carbon dioxide, air, and ammonia (see Table 3.1). Regulations on conventional HFCs went into effect in Europe and Japan in 2015. A global climate deal to cut the use of HFCs was reached in October 2016; replacement systems will soon be in high demand.

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Table 3.1. Development of Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Systems Using Natural Refrigerants Sector

Refrigerant

R&D Theme

Company

Residential

CO2

Development of a residential variable refrigerant volume system

Daikin Industries

Commercial

NH3/CO2

Non-fluorinated energy-efficient refrigeration and air-conditioning system for convenience stores

Sanden

HC/CO2

Non-fluorinated refrigerator using mixed refrigerants of CO2 and HC

Mac

Propane/carbon dioxide cascade system for freezing refrigeration and cold air conditioning

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Air Conditioning & Thermal Systems, etc.

Development of an air conditioner using supercritical C02 as a secondary refrigerant

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

Development of a hydrocarbonbased refrigerant air conditioner for commercial use

Mayekawa Manufacturing

Development of a high-efficiency heat pump chiller with a hydrocarbon refrigerant

Zeneral HeatPump

Air-conditioner system capable of simultaneous heating and cooling operation

Mitsubishi Electric

Development of high-efficiency technology for a CO2 refrigeration cycle

Panasonic

Air

Development of an air cycle for mobile air conditioners and a desiccant system

Earthship

CO2

Development of a waste heat recycling mobile air conditioning system with a CO2 refrigerant

Honda R&D

HC

CO2

Transportation

Source: S. Kakuno, “NEDO’s Efforts in Research and Development of Low GWP Alternative Technology” (Powerpoint presentation at ATMOsphere Asia 2014 – Technology and Innovation, Tokyo, 3–5 February 2014).

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Policies to Increase Consumer Demand for Green Products Along with policies to encourage the creation of new environmental technologies, Green Growth also needs policies to encourage, as the OECD puts it, “the diffusion and take-up of green innovations in the market place.”73 Many of these policies centre on consumer behaviour. Pricing the use of resources – for example, through gasoline taxes, expensive parking, and luxury taxes on energy-inefficient equipment – are one way governments attempt to influence such behaviour. Recently, more focus has been placed on making consumers aware of the environmental impact of their purchasing decisions, encouraging green purchases, and creating a green market through government purchasing.

Consumer awareness One way to make consumers more aware is through labelling systems. As Geoff Kelly explains, “[l]abelling systems are used for three distinct purposes – to indicate compliance with a set minimum performance standard, to provide comparative performance data with the objective of encouraging purchasers to favour more energy efficient models, or to indicate a product of superior performance.”74 OECD research shows that, to be most useful, labelling systems need to be easy to understand and their claims substantiated and comparable.75 Japan currently has three different environmental labelling programs: Eco Mark, EcoLeaf, and the Carbon Footprint of Products system. Eco Mark was started in 1989 by the Japan Environment Association, an organization started and primarily funded by the national government. Eco Mark focuses on food and household goods and calculates their impact.76 EcoLeaf started in 2002 and is led by the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI), an organization founded in 1963 and financially supported by METI when air and water pollution were major problems for Japan.77 METI eventually stopped funding day-to-day operations, and the role was assumed by the eleven hundred member companies, although METI continues to fund specific national projects. EcoLeaf’s main target is consumer electronics. Analysts look at products through their life cycle stages and estimate potential environmental effects. A label gives a number, and consumers can go online to look up information about a product. EcoLeaf’s objective is to help consumers better visualize the environmental impact of their

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purchasing decisions. To do this accurately, EcoLeaf has put a great deal of effort into its life cycle assessment software. In August 2008 the government announced its plan to persuade companies to add carbon footprint labels to their consumer products under the Carbon Footprint of Products (CFP) system. The labels now appear on everything from detergent to electrical appliances to food and drink. Designed to inspire consumers to cut down their CO2 emissions, the labels provide details of each product’s carbon footprint according to a uniform method of calculation that takes into account the manufacture, distribution, and disposal of each product. Although the program is voluntary at the moment, companies appear to be eager to join so as to gain an edge in a widening market for environmentally friendly products.78 Companies and industry groups are also developing product category rules (PCRs) and calculating their products’ footprints relative to the approved PCR. They then receive third-party verification of the results. After the verification, companies may use the CFP label. The CFP system began as a three-year (FY2009–11) pilot program run by JEMAI and METI; it has now become an ongoing program run by JEMAI. The CFP system differs from Eco Mark and EcoLeaf as its focus is on the impact of global warming only. Carbon footprint data show the amount of greenhouse gases emitted throughout the life cycle of the product. During the pilot project, 73 PCRs were certified and 460 products were allowed to indicate the CFP mark based on these PCRs.79 Daily-use product companies (including those associated with rice, canola oil, and laundry detergent) have shown particular interest in the CFP mark (big electric companies already have EcoLeaf). JEMAI helps companies participate in the program by adding their products to its database and training company staff to understand the program. eco-points Eco-points programs are another kind of initiative designed to develop consumer environmental awareness and to reward desired “ecofriendly” behaviour. On the national level, Japan ran an approximately US$11 billion Eco-Points Program from April 2009 to March 2011 to encourage consumers to buy more environmentally friendly appliances and to stimulate the economy. A consumer who purchased an energyefficient television, air conditioner, or fridge, received Eco-Points (worth ¥1 each) for between 5 and 10 per cent of the value of the purchase. These Eco-Points could then be redeemed for a variety of “green” items or for gift certificates. The program was very popular, and over US$7

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billion was spent in redeemable Eco-Points. It is not clear, however, how much energy the program actually saved, as “82% of consumer purchases were for energy-hogging flat screen TVs. Energy-efficient air conditioners and refrigerators accounted for only 19% of eligible purchases.”80 Many municipalities have also launched their own ecopoints programs. Yokohama, for example, has conducted a number of such programs. The first, launched with Tokyu Railway Corporation, allowed users of prepaid travel cards to collect “Yokohama Eco-Points” for using public transportation and for participating in environmental seminars and other activities. Points could be redeemed for the municipal subway or admission to the city’s museums or zoo.81 In 2009, another program gave points to citizens who brought in their utility bills for a designated period to show their monthly energy consumption or for children who participated in energy-saving educational programs. Points could be exchanged for items from participating stores.82 The government also established a Green Vehicle Purchasing Promotion Program in 2009, providing subsidies for those purchasing new fuel-efficient cars to replace those more than twelve years old. The program ran for one year, with an expected cost of ¥370 billion and an anticipated impact of some 690,000 vehicles. The program, in this instance, although it had eco-friendly elements, had more economic implications than environmental ones, as the government hoped it would stimulate the economy during the recession. It is unclear if these kinds of incentive schemes are actually a good idea. An OECD report argues that “rewarding the purchase of energyefficient goods is not a cost-efficient way to reduce environmental impacts. These incentives encourage the use of subsidized products. The Japanese experience shows that despite the improved energy efficiency of electric appliances, overall electricity consumption in the residential sector has increased.”83

Government eco-purchasing Public sector procurement of new technologies creates a local market and gives companies time to build commercial economies of scale. Governments are major buyers. Central governments usually account for the largest share – one-third – of public procurement; municipal, state/provincial, and regional governments account for the remaining two-thirds. As an OECD report notes, “[b]y encouraging the development, commercialization and diffusion of less environmentally-damaging products and services, government procurement can play an important role in

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encouraging the private sector to improve the environmental characteristics of their own procurement strategies.”84 Questions remain about how to measure how green a product is and how to determine which incentives are effective. Prices for green products rise with increasing public demand, which can lead the private sector and consumers to switch to “brown” or less environmentally friendly products.85 the green purchasing law Japan’s Law on Promoting Green Purchasing86 took effect in 2002. Its goal is to promote environmentally friendly products and services by encouraging green purchasing by public organizations and by increasing awareness of environmentally friendly goods and services among the general public. The law was passed to create a market for eco-friendly products so that governments would purchase such goods first, thus ensuring demand and creating more opportunities for consumers to purchase them. Under the law, the national government designates a number of items as green products (after they meet certain criteria), and then encourages their purchase. To date over 245 categories of products have been so designated. More than 90 per cent of office paper and 95 per cent of office equipment now meet the green standard. The government is working not only on shifting to eco-friendly products, but also on re-evaluating the necessity of its purchasing decisions. The law also requires municipal governments to make efforts to purchase environmentally friendly products. In 2007 green purchasing was expanded to include services; the next year the government passed the 2008 Basic Policy for the Procurement of Eco-Friendly Goods and Services. In 2011 the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) began revising its green procurement criteria and expanding its inclusion of, and standards for, electronic goods and public works construction.87 Under green public procurement, all government institutions are legally required to develop green procurement policies, define annual targets for the purchase of selected eco-products, and report to the MOE. Regulations and Standards

Recycling laws Governments use regulations to tell firms and the general public how it expects them to behave. Although regulations are sometimes criticized for limiting the entry of new firms into a market by adding unnecessary

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bureaucracy, well-designed regulations are a powerful tool for changing the way a society operates. The implementation of pollution-control measures in Japan in the 1960s significantly constrained firm behaviour, but the result contributed to the betterment of society and the environment. A lack of landfill capacity and a densely populated urban environment, combined with a desire to reach its Kyoto targets, spurred the Japanese government – primarily the MOE and METI – to enact laws to promote recycling and resource conservation. Beginning with the Basic Law for Establishing the Recycling-Based Society, which went into effect in 2000, the government established a framework for both recycling generally (source reduction or waste prevention, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, appropriate disposal) and extended producer responsibility (EPR) for the recycling of the products and services they produce. The general idea of EPR is to shift responsibility for recycling, physically and/or economically, from municipalities to the producers. In contrast to the polluter-pays principle, EPR is particularly suitable when the product itself is in need of recycling after a number of years of use.88 the home appliance recycling law The Home Appliance Recycling Law was enacted in 1998 and went into effect in April 2001. Japan’s forty-four million households disposed of one hundred million appliances annually at the time, and landfills were running out of room. Before the law was passed, approximately 70 per cent of scrapped home appliances were waste, with the remainder exported or resold. Under the new law, manufacturers and retailers of home appliances, specifically air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, and washing machines, are obligated to take back and recycle them. The manufacturers are responsible for financing the recycling of their own products, but consumers who dispose of used home appliances are charged a fee to offset those costs. Electrical retailers are required to take back used appliances from consumers – either with a proof of purchase receipt or when a new appliance is purchased. The goals are to create a “closed loop” economy, where used materials become new products, and to divert waste from landfills. the end of life vehicle recycling law The End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Recycling Law was passed in July 2002. At that time, approximately five million vehicles were discarded annually in Japan. About one million of those were exported for reuse in other countries, but the rest needed to be recycled in Japan. The ELV

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law replaced an earlier initiative that had not been particularly effective, both because it did not define who was to pay the recycling fee and for what service and because there were no punishments for noncompliance. Many vehicles were illegally abandoned. The ELV law was designed to remedy these failures and to extend the EPR model to the automotive recycling area. Japan is one of five countries – the others are China, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States, as well as the European Union – that have implemented an ELV recycling system. Except for that in the United States, all the other systems are mandated by law.89 Vehicles are composed of more than 70 per cent iron, which generally is easy to sell and not in need of regulation. ELV laws thus primarily focus on automobile shredder residue,90 fluorocarbons, and airbags, which are the most difficult to recycle and the most hazardous and environmentally impactful. The rest of the parts that make up a car (liquids, plastics, mechanical parts, the outer frame) can be handled by existing recycling systems. In Japan, targets were set for the recycling of automobile shredder residue, fluorocarbons, and airbags, along with standards for how they were to be recycled. As the treatment of automobile shredder residue is a significant challenge, the government put the automakers and importers into two groups and had them compete to find the best treatment method. Japan, China, South Korea, and the European Union have all set targets, increasing over the years to 95 per cent, for overall ELV recycling – in Japan the rate of recycling of automobile shredder residue and airbags was 85 per cent and 80 per cent, respectively, in 2015.91 To reach 95 per cent ELV recycling, however, better recovery of automobile shredder residue and airbags is needed.92 In the United States, where ELV recycling is left up to market forces and environmental laws, automobile shredder residue is considered non-hazardous and is put in landfills in many states. Concern about the environmental impact of automobile shredder residue, however, is growing.93 Japan’s ELV law requires automobile purchasers to pay an upfront recycling fee. Responsibility for managing the fees and ensuring that the vehicle recycling takes place rest with the company. As Kenichi Togawa explains: Japan’s automobile recycling law defines the “delegated corporation” to be responsible for the management of deposited recycling fees. In addition to the management of deposited recycling fees, the law stipulates that the delegated corporation must have a safety network function and an information management function, all for ensuring the proper treatment

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Green Japan of ELVs. Included in the scope of the safety network function is the emergency or exceptional treatment of ELVs entrusted by a small overseas car maker, or in the event of an automaker’s bankruptcy, or on behalf of remote islands and other faraway communities where no ELV collectors or recyclers exist. The information management function is aimed to ensure the proper movement of ELVs from automobile users through various players in the recycling channel and to encourage the proper treatment of ELVs by each player utilizing a scheme of electronic manifests. The nationwide management of ELVs by an electronic manifest scheme is probably unprecedented anywhere in the world, and is a notable marriage of information technology and the recycling business. While the existing recycling rules have lacked penalties against disregard of manifests, the automobile recycling law penalizes the players who fail to input ELV-related data into electronic manifests. Thus, the amount of information on the handling of ELVs by players is expected to increase substantially in the new recycling system … The automobile recycling law earmarks the deposited recycling fees exclusively for the three items to be handled by automakers and importers. The law fails to provide any economic guarantee for the proper treatment of other items. Even if the existing business operators recycle engine oils, batteries, tires, and other items, they will receive no payment from the recycling fee deposit. The only earnings they can expect from the deposit are the reward for recovering and delivering fluorocarbons and airbags to automakers and importers and for recording the recovery/delivery data into the electronic manifests.94

The legislative model attempts to make sure that the difficult and uneconomical ELV parts – the components that are ignored under a market-based system – are recycled. The changing design of automobiles, including increased computerization, and the increasing sale of electric and hybrid cars mean changes in their component parts, with increased use of plastics, rare metals, and certain hazardous substances.95 This will necessitate changes to ELV recycling legislation and operations. the small consumer electronics recycling law The Small Consumer Electronics Recycling Law, which came into effect in April 2013, calls on municipalities to send their e-waste to governmentauthorized electronics recyclers. The legislation covers more than two hundred items, including mobile phones, computers, and microwave

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ovens. Municipalities are not compelled to comply, but are encouraged to do so. Small electronics contain only small amounts of useful metals, so volume is essential to make the recycling efforts worthwhile. According to Nikkei Weekly, “the central government aims to be collecting 140,000 tons of e-waste per year by fiscal 2015 equivalent to a collection rate of 20%. The ministry’s office for recycling promotion faces an uphill battle. ‘In order to meet our target,’ an official said, ‘we need the involvement of at least 60–70% of the country’s municipalities.’ ”96 However, a survey in advance of the program’s launch found that only 34 per cent of the country’s 575 cities, towns, and villages were planning to participate in the program. (Some prefectures had already implemented their own small electronics recycling programs, with varying degrees of success.)97

Tokyo’s cap-and-trade and green building programs In 2010 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) launched an urban cap-and-trade program targeting thirteen hundred facilities (a thousand office buildings and three hundred industrial factories). The program requires them to reduce their GHG emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 compared with a 2000 baseline. The obligation to reduce emissions is divided into two reporting periods: 2010–14 (6–8 per cent reduction target) and 2015–19 (an additional 15–17 per cent reduction).98 Owners of buildings who exceed their compliance targets can engage in emissions trading. Facility owners are required to report on their previous year’s emissions to the TMG. Fines for non-compliance are levied, and the names of violators published. Owners are installing LED lights, building energy management systems, and introducing energy consumption visualization and various other technologies and measures designed to reduce emissions. In early 2016 the TMG announced that the program had already achieved its 25 per cent emissions-reduction target, and 76 per cent of the facilities had exceeded their second reporting period obligations. The TMG is now aiming for a 30 per cent reduction, from the same year 2000 base, by 2030.99 Although the cap-and-trade program applies to existing buildings, Tokyo’s Green Building Program targets new construction. In place since 2002, the Green Building Program requires all developers planning to construct buildings of over 5,000 square metres of total floor area, or to expand an existing building to this size, to prepare environmental plans

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based on TMG guidelines on energy use, appropriate use of resources, preservation of the natural environment, and the reduction of heat accumulation. Within those four categories, the building design is rated on twelve specific areas, and the ratings are made public on the TMG website. The regulations, in this case, compel reporting and disclosure to encourage building owners voluntarily to create high-quality, environmentally sound buildings.100 An Environmental Performance Labelling for Condominiums Program was also set up using the same categories and specific items as the Green Building Program. Condominiums are given a star rating, making it easy for prospective buyers to know the environmental impact of each building.101

The Top Runner Program Standardization can be a key factor in improving innovation and economic outcomes. It allows for interoperability across systems, thereby facilitating a critical mass of users and decreases risks for both producers and consumers. As the OECD states, “[w]ith regard to green innovation, the standardization of technical specifications for multidisciplinary and converging technologies is the key to accelerate their successful deployment. Because some business models on green innovation are still emerging, government engagement in the standardization process can be a catalyst for involvement of relevant stakeholders into the standardization process.”102 Standards can also be used to inspire or coerce firms into improving their products. Minimum standards of energy efficiency, safety, and quality are quite common across a variety of products. Energy efficiency and conservation could well be key factors in the fight against climate change. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ) was established in 1978, and soon after was put in charge of monitoring energy conservation compliance by factories and buildings and in machinery and equipment that was required by the Energy Conservation Law. Initially, on the machinery and equipment front, only fridges, air conditioners, and cars were covered. In 1998, after signing the Kyoto Protocol, Japan revised the Energy Conservation Law to strengthen the legality of its energy conservation measures.103 The Top Runner Program, launched by the ECCJ in 1999, is designed to encourage the development of the most energy-efficient electrical appliances. Instead of setting minimum efficiency standards for electrical appliances, the program looks for the most efficient model

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commercially available, then makes that the standard that should be achieved within a specified period. The goal is to raise the performance bar continually. Energy efficiency targets are revised every three to ten years. The program covered eleven product categories when launched, but by 2013 had increased to thirty-one, ranging from passenger cars and microwave ovens to electric toilet seats and vending machines to construction materials. Top Runner standards are set by committees composed of representatives from industry, universities, labour, and consumer organizations. There are well-defined procedures and variations for products depending on size, power, and weight. Each product is actually divided into several groups, and energy efficiency targets are decided upon for each group to ensure that consumers still have enough selection in the products they buy. In contrast to energy consumption efficiency standards in countries such as the United States and Australia and in the European Union, Japanese regulations require that manufacturers must make the weighted average of the efficiency of all their products of that particular type equal to the Top Runner model by the target year. This means that manufacturers can still sell appliances that do not meet the standard, but their other appliances in that category would then have to be of a much higher standard. The general objective of the program is to lead the market to improving energy efficiency of all products as a whole, yet retain product diversification. Although the government is limited in its ability to enforce these standards, the real strength of the Top Runner Program is its public profile. Underperforming companies are publicized, so a company’s corporate brand will be badly damaged if it does not achieve Top Runner status or never even tries to do so. Manufacturers are also obligated to label their products, indicating “energy saving standard achievement ratio, energy consumption efficiency, and the target fiscal year.”104 Most companies have done well in achieving the targets: as Table 3.2 shows, after sixteen years of the program, manufacturers have met or exceeded their efficiency targets in every product category. According to Geoff Kelly, regulation is the most important measure (with some caveats) for encouraging the purchase and use of more energy-efficient appliances. He notes that, “where regulation is used, it should be regulation of a dynamic nature to provide the ongoing incentive for improvement,”105 and points to the Top Runner Program as the best example: “The nearest such measure in current practice is the Japanese Top Runner approach, premised on two major bases – the adoption of current best performance as the criterion for the future,

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Table 3.2. Japan’s Top Runner Program Product category

Energy efficiency improvement (result) (percentage improvement over fiscal year period)

Energy efficiency improvement (initial expectation) (percentage improvement)

Passenger vehicles

48.8 (1995–2010)

22.8

Freight vehicles

13.2 (1995–2010)

13.2

Air conditioners – Non-ducted/ wall-mounted AC units, 4 kilowatts or less

16.3 (2005–10)

22.4

Air conditioners – Non-ducted/ wall-mounted AC united, over 4 kilowatts

15.6 (2006–10)

17.8

Air conditioners – Other than non-ducted/ wall-mounted AC units

15.9 (2001–12)

13.6

Electric refrigerators (for residential use)

43.0 (2005–10)

21.0

Electric freezers (for residential use)

24.9 (2005–10)

12.7

Microwave ovens

10.5 (2004–08)

8.5

Electric rice cookers

16.7 (2003–08)

11.1

Lighting equipment for fluorescent lamp(s)

14.5 (2006–12)

7.7

Self-ballasted fluorescent lamp(s)

6.6 (2006–12)

3.2

Electric toilet seats

18.8 (2006–12)

9.7

TV sets (liquid crystal/plasma)

60.6 (2008–12)

37.0

Videocassette recorders

73.6 (1997–2003)

58.7

Computers

85.0 (2007–11)

77.9

Magnetic disk units

75.9 (2007–11)

75.8

Copying machines

72.5 (1997–2006)

30.9

Green Growth Policies Product category

Energy efficiency improvement (result) (percentage improvement over fiscal year period)

Space heaters (oil)

5.3 (2000–06)

3.8

Gas cooking appliances (oven area)

25.8 (2002–08)

20.3

Gas water heaters

7.9 (2002–08)

1.1

Oil water heaters

4.0 (2000–06)

3.5

Vending machines

48.8 (2005–12)

33.9

DVD recorders (terrestrial digital broadcasting compatible)

45.2 (2006–10)

20.5

Routers

40.9 (2006–10)

16.3

Switching units

53.8 (2006–11)

37.7

Transformers

13.1 (1999–2006/07)

30.3

103

Energy efficiency improvement (initial expectation) (percentage improvement)

Source: Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, “Top Runner Program: Developing the World’s Best Energy-Efficient Appliance and More” (Tokyo, March 2015), 9–10.

and a visible and predictable process of standard raising over time. In addition, its use of a class average approach to compliance allows the retention of lower efficiency appliances providing their performance is compensated by other products. That in turn minimizes disadvantage to those consumers for whom higher efficiency devices cannot be justified – for example, those intended for extremely intermittent use.”106 The Top Runner Program’s success is at least partly because producers are involved in setting the targets for their products. This ensures that the targets are realistic and that producers are committed to achieving them. In addition, energy efficiency is appealing to customers, and the program helps force firms to create this comparative advantage. As it is public knowledge when firms do not reach the stipulated targets, this is another incentive for companies to make every effort to ensure they do.107

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Conclusion For more than three decades, the Japanese government has made significant investments and regulatory adjustments to ensure that the country reduces its ecological footprint. The country has programs and investments in almost every category outlined by the OECD, and remained alert to the twin elements of environmental and technological innovation: ecological improvements and national economic development. Solar power illustrates some of the challenges and how quickly things can change in the environmental field. Japan had three of the top ten PV module manufacturers in the world in 2006; it did not have any in the top ten by 2012. And although Japanese production of PV cells has increased dramatically, China’s production has increased much more. It is clear in retrospect that the decision to cut the subsidy was an industrial and innovation mistake, a statement that underestimates the difficulty of knowing when to cut or to expand such programs. As Christopher Dent argues, all is not lost. The lead lost on solar power installations can be re-established: Japan has spent decades nurturing a “national innovation system” for solar PV sector development, yet it has lost its one dominant position in the industry. The country’s dense network of R&D centres working this sector remains strong, and Japanese companies such as Sharp remain among the technology leaders in the field. At the macro-strategic plan level, solar PV was a key industry in both the New Growth Strategy and the Cool Earth 2050 plan for achieving national low carbon development. Hence, the government appears committed to the continued expansion and general development of the PV sub-sector, especially as part of its new developmentalism. Yet, as this is an emerging strategic industry for many of Japan’s main economic rivals, competition will intensify.108

The OECD, which continues to promote the commercialization of environmental technologies, understands Japan’s efforts: The promotion of eco-innovation is a key feature of Japan’s environmental policy and the main link between economic, industrial and environmental policies … The key features of Japan’s approach to eco-innovation are close co-operation with the private sector and active involvement of consumers to promote lifestyle changes. The manufacturing sector has

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heavily invested in eco-innovation and has been supported in doing so through NEDO’s funding and collaborative research projects. At the same time, the government has put in place a number of measures to stimulate demand for environmental technologies and products such as tax incentives for cleaner vehicles, the Eco-Point Programme and the green public procurement policy.109

Before the intensification of ecological awareness and environmental urgency in the 2010s, Japan had developed both a substantial ecoinnovation system based on government-industry-academic collaboration and a regulatory-promotional infrastructure designed to encourage eco-friendly consumer and corporate behaviour. Although the Japanese government had not issued an official or comprehensive Green Growth strategy, it had put in place significant and sustained elements of a program designed to protect the environment and promote general economic development. As researchers in the national innovation space have shown repeatedly, having the standard and expected policies, investment strategies, and regulatory measures is no assurance of sustainable and transformational adaptation based on the commercialization of science and technology, but without these steps little progress is likely to occur. Japan has, in an episodic manner, developed a supportive policy and administrative environment for Green Growth, and has demonstrated, in the post-Fukushima era, one of the world’s most assertive and broad-based government programs for sustainability and the development of environmental technologies. Given the importance of combining economic prosperity and ecological sustainability for the long-term health of the planet, it is to be hoped that the Japanese example finds more imitators around the world.

Chapter Four

Green Infrastructure: The Foundations of Green Growth in Japan

The modern industrial world is built to manufacture, ship, and consume large quantities of material and resources. The leading economic powers developed superb infrastructure for the twentieth-century economy: roads, railways, harbours, airfields, electrical generation and distribution, sewage and treatment facilities, and the complex financial and administrative system used to manage and maintain these systems. The massive global investment in the old order is, however, a major drag on efforts to shift to a green economy, if only because of the relative political and economic power of oil and gas firms, hydro-generation companies, and all the manufacturers and services providers whose prosperity is tied to an environmentally unsustainable economic order. Countries wishing to move in a new, ecologically sustainable economic manner face the serious challenge of sustaining a backward-looking infrastructure while building the infrastructure needed for Green Growth. To use an obvious example, countries supportive of electric vehicles have to pay, publicly or privately, for an expensive network of charging stations while maintaining a massive system of gasoline stations. In the same way that university libraries continue to buy physical copies of books and journals while also paying for online versions, countries moving towards Green Growth face the challenge of building the underpinnings of a new order while sustaining the old system. Building a Green Growth economy is a complicated enterprise, with no road map, no clear or obvious policy suite, and little in the way of national experience to underpin a country’s experimentation. Contrast this with national innovation: the development of an economy based on the commercialization of science and technology. In this instance, the policy elements are widely shared: expand advanced education, fund

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basic research, and support commercialization initiatives. Countries vary in the application of these areas – Germany invests more heavily in technical education, the United States more in general studies, Japan in science and mathematics – but the core pieces are widely understood. The basic equation does not mean that creating an innovation economy is easy, for there have been many stumbles and wrong steps along the path towards innovation-based prosperity. For Green-Growth-based innovation, efforts follow the standard pattern, but creating an economy and society committed to environmental sustainability and economic prosperity remains uncharted territory. The economic elements have to be implemented, but these need to be balanced by changes in consumer behaviour, shifts in lifestyle, substantial regulation, and the acceptance of national responsibility for global climate change. In the case of Green Growth, the end game is easily described: an environmentally sustainable society that is aware of the global ecological challenge and capitalizes on technological improvements to build a globally engaged economy that provides a high level of material well-being for the citizenry. Knowing the destination, however, does not immediately generate a strategy or plan for reaching the end. As I showed in Chapter 3, Japan’s efforts to combined environmental sustainability with economic growth include a complex web of investments, regulations, and development plans. But those initiatives represent only part of the overall effort. Japan, like other countries seeking to marry environmental awareness and business development, requires a substantial commitment to national infrastructure. Japan has a second set of Green Growth initiatives, even if they are not assembled into a single, coordinated policy framework, that fall under what could broadly be termed infrastructure – the basic physical and organizational structures and underpinnings of a society. These policies and the national infrastructure they are designed to create and support are the second set of building blocks. They come on top of what the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) refers to as “core ‘framework conditions’ – sound macroeconomic policy, competition, openness to international trade and investment, adequate and effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, efficient tax and financial systems.”1 These conditions allow innovation, including green innovation, the potential to grow and thrive. Getting the broader infrastructure right – which involves experimenting to determine the right measures – is the next step for Green

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Growth. Infrastructure in this case relates to how clean energy will be delivered and paid for, how cities can minimize their energy use and their carbon emissions, how information and communications technology (ICT) can help the development of greener economic growth, and the role of international cooperation in research, trade, protection of the global commons, and the identification of “policies, frameworks, and governance mechanisms that can deliver rapid scientific and technological progress and lead to a quick and wide diffusion of innovation.”2 In its 2012 book, Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development, the OECD says “Getting infrastructure ‘right’ is at the heart of green growth … Infrastructure is a domain in which substantial synergies exist between economic growth and the environment.”3 Infrastructure investments are generally expensive, long lasting, and difficult to reverse, so decisions about where, how, and what to build must be made cautiously and with a long-term view. Constant tension exists between “building right” and “building more.” The potential for regret has always been a challenge for governments preparing their infrastructure policy; it is made much more complex by the uncertainties surrounding climate change. In contemplating a future based, at least significantly, on Green Growth, Japan has been required to make major investments in infrastructure that are designed to provide the foundations for a green future. Feed-in Tariffs Many jurisdictions have been implementing feed-in tariffs (FITs) as a means of expanding and financing a region’s energy infrastructure. Under a FIT system, producers of renewable energy – these can be as small as a household, but also include cooperatives and other small operators – are paid a higher price for the energy they produce in recognition of the fact that it costs more to generate power from renewables than from conventional sources such as coal. Utilities must pay that fixed and often dramatically higher price, but the cost is passed on to consumers, thus distributing the overall economic impact. The price is usually set for a fixed period – say, twenty years – giving producers of solar, wind, geothermal, and the like a guaranteed price per kilowatt hour for that period.4 A FIT can be designed in a variety of ways. There was criticism of Japan’s first attempt. The Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade (METI) prepared a feed-in-tariff plan in advance of the August 2009

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election, which the Democratic Party of Japan won. The Liberal Democratic Party had been in government almost without interruption – except for an eleven-month period in which a multiparty coalition governed in 1993 – since 1955, so this was a significant event in Japanese politics. Enacted right after the election, the plan applied only to excess solar power; most feed-in-tariffs apply to all the power produced, not only that which is surplus. As well, by focusing only on solar, Japan was intentionally not promoting the development of wind, geothermal, or any other form of renewable energy.5 In addition, a FIT usually obliges power companies to buy renewable power, but the Japanese FIT allowed “monopoly utilities to refuse grid connection to projects at their own discretion.”6 It did not require utilities to expand the power grid, so areas with renewable resources sometimes lacked the power lines to transmit to it. Utility operators, concerned about potential power supply disruptions, continue to suspend purchases of power from solar power operators. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Japan’s move away from fossil fuels was focused primarily on nuclear, supplemented by solar. This first FIT policy, along with a relaunch of the subsidy program, was part of an attempt to revitalize the solar industry. In July 2012, after the Fukushima disaster, the FIT was adjusted to include solar, wind, biomass, small hydro, and geothermal. (For residential solar, the FIT continues to be restricted to surplus solar.) Access refusal remains, but it has been curtailed (and has shifted from a dailybasis calculation to an hourly one) from up to 30 days per year to 360 hours (15 days).7 Japan’s FIT began as a generous one. The tariff rate was designed to begin high and be reduced over time. It began at ¥42 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2012, which was about three times the rate in Germany at the time.8 It dropped to ¥38/kWh in 2013, ¥32/kWh in 2014, ¥27/kWh in 2015, and ¥24/kWh in 2016. Cuts in tariffs encourage investors to get in early, but gives them time to make their operations cost effective and to earn an early return on investment. The FIT had an almost immediate impact. Between 1 July 2012 and March 2015, solar generating capacity jumped to 8,263 kW.9 Solar business increased from just over ¥500 billion in 2010 to ¥2.5 trillion in 2013. Photovoltaic installations expanded rapidly in Japanese cities. Tokyo even set up a Tokyo Solar Roof Registry that allows people to check the solar potential of each of the city’s buildings. Panasonic announced it would lease its factory rooftops for the installation of solar panels.10 Many more companies set up in the power sector (power producer and supply businesses), including local governments joining with private

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firms to enter the market. Some of the focus among these companies was on FIT-supported renewables, especially solar. As the FIT was initially only of benefit to solar, solar installations increased the most dramatically; however, wind, small hydro, biomass, and geothermal installations have also begun to increase. Importantly, larger solar projects tend primarily to be undertaken by larger companies as initial investment costs are high, but installation can be done quickly and revenue earned in short order. Potential for biomass as an energy source is high in Japan. Biomass has good potential for regional development because communities take more of a leadership role, since this energy source tends to be based on local resources.11 One effect of the increased push towards renewables is that it is encouraging a decentralization of power generation in Japan. Ten utility companies traditionally dominated the country’s energy sector, each responsible for a regional catchment area, but, as discussed in Chapter 2, in April 2016 the market was deregulated. The move away from nuclear and towards local energy production has the potential to revitalize smaller communities. Green ICT Information and communications technologies and the development of Internet applications have significant potential to help the growth of a greener economy. In 2012 ICT consumed almost 5 per cent of the world’s electrical energy and produced about 1.7 per cent of total carbon dioxide emissions, yet it has also been responsible for reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions in other sectors.12 A group of scholars describes the situation this way: The IT [information technology] industry has also begun to deal with climate change seriously, first as users of energy but also monitoring other products and industries. In contrast to the general perception that IT is environment-friendly, IT products consume considerable amounts of energy, contributing to the emission of CO2 throughout their entire lifecycle, from production to use to disposal. On the other hand, IT has great potential to make a significant contribution to reducing other products’ energy consumption and CO2 emission … IT has enormous potential to provide environmental solutions that could significantly reduce overall energy consumption and CO2 emission, e.g. smart power grids, building

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energy management systems … , intelligent transportation systems … , e-government services, tele-working, videoconferencing, etc.13

Studies by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Global Sustainability Initiative estimate that IT could enable annual global carbon dioxide emission cuts of about 15 per cent by 2020.14 In fiscal year 2006 Japan introduced its New IT Reform Strategy with the theme of “an environmentally friendly society that utilizes IT: efficient use of energy and resources” as a priority policy.15 Japan forecast that its IT electricity consumption would likely increase fivefold by 2020. While recognizing IT’s positive impact on energy efficiency to date, METI began to think about how the energy used by IT could be reduced and how an energy-efficient society could be created through IT. In December 2007 it hosted a Green IT Initiatives Meeting, which led to the formation of the Green IT Promotion Council in February 2008. One hundred companies and organizations became members, and the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Association agreed to be the secretariat. The Council has three main committees: the Technical Committee, which discusses new potential energy-saving technologies and proposes new national projects; the Public Relations Committee, which explains the work of the Council and hosts an International Green IT symposium; and the Research and Analysis Committee. The Council launched the Green IT Project with the goal of developing innovative IT technologies. Along with reducing the energy consumed by IT devices, the bigger goal was to use new technology to achieve a dramatic reduction in energy use for entire networks.16 Over the next few years, the Green IT Project began a series of initiatives to achieve these goals. These included efforts to disseminate energyefficient products (including the Top Runner and Eco-Points programs mentioned in Chapter 3) and the Green IT award for “savings in ITrelated energy consumption” and in “energy conservation through the use of IT.”17 The Green IT project also focused on international policy cooperation, working with the United States and the European Union on energy efficiency metrics for a data centre and harmonizing policies for energy-saving home electronics. Japan also began working with numerous countries in Asia, sharing its knowledge through Green IT missions and seminars. Other projects included developing a mechanism to assess private sector efforts to market energy-efficient products and services and measuring the environmental impact of IT through the product life cycle.18

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ICT hardware and software are the backbone of a smart grid – electronically monitored energy use across an urban environment. As discussed below, smart grids allow for the stabilization of supply and demand, which is key for the use of renewable energy in a grid, as its supply fluctuates with the weather. Pricing and use visualization can be used to influence consumption. ICT can also help improve efficiency throughout the various parts of the grid from energy generation to transmission and distribution. Energy loss can be reduced by using sensors and monitoring devices.19 Eco-Model Cities In 2008 Japan began its Eco-Model City Project, a governmentsupported regional revitalization program designed to help the country become a low-carbon society by testing different municipal models of balancing environmental and economic needs. An Eco-Model Cities competition was held in which communities submitted proposals showing how they believed, through cooperation with the local community and industry, they could achieve ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets while remaining economically sustainable. Six communities were selected in 2008 and another seven in 2009; more have been added since then. Some Eco-Model Cities are major cities (for example, Kitakyushu, Kyoto, Sakai, and Yokohama), others are regional core cities (for example, Toyota City, Toyama, Iida, and Obihiro), while others are small cities or towns (for example, Shimokawa, Minamata, Miyakojima, and Yusuhara). Each community sets its own mid- and long-term (2050) energy-reduction targets and its own particular initiatives. Many are targeting renewable energy, but others focus on transportation, waste reduction, or agriculture. As Warren Karlenzig writes, “[f]rom the overall zero carbon and renewable energy goals of Yokohama (3.67 million) to a small town of 2,000 that is trying to hit zero waste by 2020 (recycling of household waste in Kamikatsu reached 90 per cent in 2005, with 34 categories of stuff actively recycled), Japan is taking an aggressive stance in carbon control and economic development from the ground up.”20 Many of the municipalities aim for ambitious CO2 reduction targets (15–40 per cent by 2030 and 50–70 per cent by 2050), using base years ranging from 1990 to 2005. The Promotion Council of Low Carbon Cities offers a platform to promote best practices, encourage friendly rivalry, and disseminate information domestically and internationally.

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Representatives from Eco-Model Cities also participate in the Council to share ideas and information and plan and promote regional and other kinds of shared initiatives.21 The Japanese government clearly sees the Eco-Model City Program as a practical and effective means of promoting urban engagement in environmental sustainability. After the Fukushima disaster, Kitakyushu and Yokohama, as the most advanced of the Eco-Model Cities, were chosen to be part of a new program of Future Cities. The other selected communities were all from the disaster-struck Tohoku region. The goal was to rebuild these communities with a renewable energy focus.22 Smart Cities Worldwide, but particularly throughout Asia and the developing world, there is growing interest in how to create cities suitable for the twenty-first century. Given that cities collectively are responsible for consuming three-fourths of the world’s energy, producing half of its global waste, and contributing 70–80 per cent of its GHG emissions, developing ways to make cities more environmentally sound is clearly vital.23 Called future cities, eco-cities, or low-carbon cities, smart cities use ICT to improve the quality, performance, and cost of various aspects of their urban infrastructure. National and municipal governments and corporations are setting up pilot projects to test the feasibility of various kinds of energy and transportation infrastructure and other ways of creating more environmentally friendly, safe, and enjoyable homes and communities. The Japan Smart Community Alliance defines a “smart community” as a place “where various next-generation technologies and advanced social systems are effectively integrated and utilized, including the efficient use of energy, utilization of heat and unused energy sources, improvement of local transportation systems and transformation of the everyday lives of citizens.”24 ICT is “key to achieve a model of urban development where both economic and environmental targets can be achieved.”25 Indeed, ICT is central to energy management, energy-use visualization, and systems integration. This sector is projected to be worth over US$30 billion by 2020. Numerous initiatives are underway in Japan or led by Japanese companies overseas. Smart cities are thus designed to showcase new technologies, with the goals of both revitalizing the regional economy and, most significantly, eventually selling these new products and services domestically

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and internationally. Clarisse Pham identifies three goals for smart city projects: fostering energy security and efficiency, by lowering energy consumption, helping introduce renewables, and providing security and survival in times of disaster, as households can use locally produced energy and storage batteries; boosting economic development by showcasing large Japanese companies; and, as smart cities are often constructed in underused areas of the city, revitalizing the area and the local economy and improving social conditions (elder care is often included in plans, as is an emphasis on quality of life).26 Many of Japan’s smart community projects are constructed around the idea of building resilience and energy independence in the event of a natural disaster.27 The sectors that contribute to smart cities are those of strong economic potential, including environment and energy (such as storage batteries, advanced metering infrastructure and energy management systems, and electric vehicles and their infrastructure), ICT, and advanced technology and manufacturing. Smart cities could become popular in Japan and around the world, especially in China, the United States, India, and the Middle East. Indeed, to that end, Japanese companies are “designing a package of solutions for the global market,”28 providing one of the most high-profile examples of the direct connection between local sustainability and the search for global business opportunities. METI is the main ministry in charge of smart city policy-making and implementation. In 2008 METI established the New Energy Promotion Council to promote clean and renewable energy and assist companies in these fields. In January 2010 METI called for smart city project proposals, and in April of that year four cities, out of twenty that applied, were selected. The private sector, usually real estate and construction companies, is often involved in these proposals, and plays more of a leading role than the municipality does. According to Pham, the local government usually asks a consulting company to draw up the preliminary plan, and then puts together a consortium of companies that produces a master plan and a draft budget. The New Energy Promotion Council then gives subsidies to the companies and covers the project management costs.29 The consulting company is usually a long-term partner, and recruits a large company that then calls in its regular collaborating companies. Once a city has been selected, the local government becomes the intermediary between the companies and the public. Subsidy money goes directly to the companies (one-half to two-thirds of their budgets). Consortiums usually include a construction company, a real estate developer, a power company, an ICT company, a car

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company, an energy specializing company, urban planning and architecture companies, often a bank and a communications company, and sometimes a research centre or a hospital. Only a few foreign companies are involved in the projects.30 The four cities selected to carry out large-scale smart city demonstration projects were Kitakyushu, Yokohama, Kyoto’s Keihana District (Kansai Science City), and Toyota City. By August 2010 the plans had been approved by METI and the projects launched, running until March 2015. The total budget was ¥126.5 billion (more than US$1 billion). Each city had a CO2 emissions-reduction target and different plans on how to meet the target. Kitakyushu, for example, focused on energy management, while Kyoto’s Keihana district installed solar panels on a thousand homes, and implemented an electric vehicle car-sharing program and energy visualization on demand. Toyota City, not surprisingly, had an efficient transportation focus, and worked on the use of heat and unused energy. Yokohama set up four thousand smart homes and put two thousand electric vehicles on the road. (Chapter 5 looks at the Kitakyushu, Osaka, and Yokohama smart city projects in more detail.) Smart community projects have also been initiated by the private sector and local governments. The private sector pilots are designed to showcase advanced technology to attract both domestic and foreign customers. Seksui House has sixteen different projects, ranging from an individual house to a neighbourhood. Hitachi (Hitachi Smart Industrial Town), Toshiba (Ibaraki City Smart Community Project), and Mitsui Fudosan also have smart community projects. Panasonic, in cooperation with Fujisawa City, located approximately fifty kilometres outside Tokyo, announced in 2008 plans to build a “smart town” on its former television factory site. According to the company, the goal is not just to create a technology-centric town, but also “to create a concept for a smart community lifestyle based on residential comfort, regional characteristics, and future living patterns – taking into account such aspects as energy, security, mobility, and wellness.”31 Panasonic and eight other companies32 have been developing Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town (Fujisawa SST), which will showcase “Panasonic’s ‘entire solutions’ business model in full scale to the world.”33 Fujisawa SST includes smart houses, electric vehicles, smart street lighting, security systems, and a range of energy-saving devices.34 The first phase of the hundred-year plan for this new smart community of approximately one thousand homes (planned population of about three thousand people) opened in November 2014. A total of six hundred

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smart houses and four hundred smart apartments should be completed by 2018. Panasonic effectively will create an advanced model of a town demonstrating efficient use of energy by promoting energysaving devices and proposing new solutions that integrate measures for energy creation, storage and management. Specifically, the company plans to pre-install its solar power generation systems and home-use storage battery systems across the town, including in homes, various facilities, and public zones, which would be the first of its kind in the world. Panasonic intends to replicate Fujisawa SST as a business model in other parts of Japan and overseas.35 Attention will be paid to making each house and building and the entire town as energy efficient as possible. There are eight categories of smart town services: health care, mobility, energy, asset management (scenery beautification), finance, community platforms, and security. Naturally, Fujisawa SST will showcase everything from Panasonic’s automobile recharging infrastructure initiatives and eco-friendly technologies to its energy-saving equipment and systems for stores and offices, as well as its LED lighting, and security systems. Future cities will need new infrastructure and machinery in order to use energy more efficiently. The backbone of a smart city will be smart grids, which, as noted, use information technology and variable pricing to encourage off-peak energy use. Smart grids also introduce high levels of renewable energy while dealing with challenges to stable power supplies that solar and wind, for example, represent due to their dependence on the weather. A next-generation smart grid power supply – ultra-high-voltage power transmission – sends electricity over long distances with minimum power loss. A smart grid includes dispersed power systems (electricity-generating technology using renewable energy) and control of electricity transmission and distribution through the use of smart meters and sensors and network communication infrastructure. Essential to this are transformers and switch gears to protect the grid from power surges. Even before the Fukushima disaster, Japan had been looking at smart grids. The 2010 New Growth Strategy focused on green innovation, especially smart grids and cities. Prior to the disaster, however, these smart cities had thermal and nuclear power generation as a power base. Now smart cities are focusing on renewables as the energy source. The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) has implemented a number of demonstration projects to “establish a smart grid system which can efficiently adjust

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the energy demand and supply balance by integrating the grid side and the demand side.”36 In the early 2000s, nineteen Japanese companies (including Sumitomo, Tokyo Electric Power Services, Fuji Electric, Mitsubishi Electric, and NTT Communications) were selected to participate in two smart grid demonstration projects at five sites in New Mexico to learn how to standardize the smart grid concept. This was NEDO’s first overseas demonstration project. Other NEDO smart community projects are being tested in Maui (United States), Lyon (France), Malaga (Spain), Manchester (United Kingdom), and Gongqingcheng (China).37 Japan has begun touting itself as an infrastructure exporter, in some cases with an all-Japanese company team and sometimes where Japanese companies are the core participants but non-Japanese companies are also involved. China has also been busy planning a number of its own ecocity projects; many Japanese companies are involved in these projects. Smart cities bring together many of the technologies on which Japanese companies and the Japanese government have been focused. These include: • infrastructure for hybrid electric vehicle and hydrogen engines, on-vehicle chargers, electric vehicle quick chargers, battery replacement technology, and local energy management systems; • intelligent transportation systems, including safe-driving support, transport-control support, road-control support, IT-supporting environmental measures and network communications technology and equipment, and solutions and technologies for water, sewage, gas, electricity, and communications; • energy storage systems, including different kinds of batteries, fuel cells, inverters, converters, capacitors, condensers, and other manufacturing equipment; • devices supporting infrastructure and systems, including CPUs, capacitors, network products software, development tools, energysaving electronic devices; and • construction techniques for smart houses and smart buildings, solutions, and services, including smart houses, direct-current houses, eco-offices and eco-houses, and smart home appliances and home networks. According to one specialist in the field, Japan has seen “a considerable push into the areas of Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS)

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and Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS). HEMS and BEMS technologies are a core element of both domestic and international smart community projects. A long-term target is that all new buildings constructed after 2030 will be zero-emission homes/buildings and eventually even transition to energy positive buildings allowing for widespread distributed generation.”38 Future battery-powered homes will need a new generation of highcapacity storage cells to store the solar power they produce. Lithiumion batteries will be the likely solution, and will be installed in homes, parking garages, and convenience stores. In fact, popularizing and reducing the cost of large storage batteries is vital to commercializing next-generation transmission networks. As solar and wind power generation varies with the weather, storage batteries will be the only way to even out the power generation. Lithium-ion batteries remain expensive, however, and last for ten years, while solar power systems last for twenty years. So the development of cheaper and longer-lasting batteries will be vital. Smart meters that allow meter reading from a distance and can control machines such as air conditioners in response to supply and demand are also key to future smart homes. Both Toshiba and Fuji Electric are acquiring global standard technologies and aim to become market leaders in this field. The Japanese government also wants to demonstrate Japanese technologies outside the country. Hiroshi Watanabe, senior manager of the Smart Grid Business Management Department of Toshiba Corporation, says: “Most of the equipment and facilities required for a smart grid, including storage batteries, grid control systems equipped with new technology such as renewable energy generation scheduling and communication systems have been developed by companies. Yet, the question is whether these technologies and equipment will maximize the grid’s performance when integrated into a single system. This is why we are focusing on system integration aimed at overall connectivity between the various equipment used in this project.”39 Japanese companies have been looking for opportunities to showcase their smart community technologies overseas, especially in developing countries. NEDO is helping this by promoting smart city projects abroad and by subsidizing much of the technology that Japanese firms provide, so that the overseas community is primarily responsible only for ongoing maintenance and operations costs. NEDO signed a smart community technology agreement with Vietnam in 2011, one with Indonesia in 2013, and one with India in 2014. Companies are also involved,

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without NEDO support, in various projects in China, India, Thailand, and Malaysia.40 Smart community development involves a variety of industries and different levels of government. The Japan Smart Community Alliance was established to develop smart communities through private-public cooperation and joint activities. NEDO serves as the secretariat and provides support. The Innovation Network Corporation, another publicprivate partnership set up to revitalize industry, intends to supply up to ¥130 billion to eco-community development projects. It hopes to create opportunities for Japanese firms to win orders to supply and manage green infrastructure equipment and facilities overseas. Among the smart city project it proposes to fund is one in India.41 Japan gave smart cities a boost with its 2012 Japan Revival strategy and the Japan Reconstruction Strategy 2013. Ernst & Young found that the national government was promoting over 160 projects, not including prefectural, local government, and private sector initiatives.42 The smart city model, in fact, necessitates a huge shift towards more decentralized energy production and distribution, with municipalities taking on a much more powerful role. In a book on Smart Communities, Takao Kashiwagi, a senior academic and government policy advisor on energy and the designer of the renewables-based micro-grid project at the 2005 Aichi World Expo, argues that smart communities are a central part of Japan’s growth strategy. He says that Japan needs not just to follow the German model, which includes the FIT and deregulation of municipally owned utilities in the energy sector, but to go beyond it.43 There are many challenges to the commercial development of smart cities. Adam Greenfield, for example, questions both the ideology – the belief that technology can solve everything; the “willed blindness to the complexity of urban places” – and the marketing behind smart cities.44 Clarisse Pham nicely summarizes up some of the biggest challenges, particularly with regards to the various Japanese experiments. For example, much of the technology is not yet affordable commercially; once the subsidies stop, it is not clear if the smart city model and technology will be viable; and it is not yet established how a smart city would be operated on an ongoing basis and who would be responsible for the maintenance of the constructed infrastructure. All the current projects are being built from scratch; whether an already existing community can be converted to a Smart City is less certain. As well, some sectors, such as data management (and the protection of data privacy) and waste treatment have not been included in most smart city projects

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thus far. The projects lack transparency and are dominated by big companies; for the smart city model to work in the long term, the involvement of more actors, particularly municipalities, will be needed.45 Over the past five years, Japanese national policy-makers have encouraged the integration of individual smart communities or districts (there are hundreds of these across the country) into larger smart cities or regions. The objective is a distributed energy system based on increased densification, improved energy efficiency, and the use of renewable energy. To make this shift work, government leadership and appropriate incentives and oversight are crucial. There are so many players (communities, non-profit organizations, private companies, local and regional governments, citizen groups) and so many elements involved in this transition that it is vital the national government lead, coordinate, and incentivize.46 Six of Japan’s central agencies, including METI, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, have collaborated to support local governments construct smart energy companies through a range of subsidies and programs. In April 2016 METI announced its Energy Innovation Strategy which, based on wide consultation particularly with the business community, encapsulated this plan to move Japan towards a distributed energy system. Local communities are encouraged to harness their own renewable energy endowments and create their own microgrid. This locally produced energy can be sold to the regional grid, but can also be disengaged in the event of a disaster.47 Although there are numerous challenges to the creation of larger distributed energy systems – among them post-3/11 concerns about disaster resilience, the need for more energy autonomy, an aversion to nuclear energy, and the need for local jobs – Japan has the advantage of strong buy-in from local governments and the general public. Domestic critics still see the Abe government as too focused on nuclear and coal, and believe that the best approach is civil-society-centred activism focused on renewables and mitigation.48 Andrew DeWit, who is following the issue closely, points out that the national government is working with local governments, telecoms, and the private sector to create a whole-of-government model, “turning to local networks and distributed energy to maximize a multiplicity of objectives, including bolstered local government, more local jobs, massively increased efficiency, greater resilience, lower per-capita infrastructure costs, reconfigured infrastructure exports, and the like.”49

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Expanding International Cooperation The OECD states that “a greater research effort focused on fostering green innovation will also benefit from enhanced international cooperation. This will help share the costs of public investment and can also help improve access to knowledge and foster the transfer of technology across countries.”50 Green Growth implies that global problems can be solved through innovative technologies and development, while new markets and economic prosperity are created for the sponsoring countries. Although the Japanese government is determined to make the country more ecologically friendly through the application of emerging environmental technologies and services, it has a parallel goal of spurring economic development and enhancing Japanese exports. Japan is also positioning itself to be a test bed for new environmental technologies and products, showcasing the best of Japanese commercial and technological ingenuity. The broader national objective is to match Japan’s commercial success in automobiles and digital consumer products with a globally significant industry in the environmental technology sector. Here, as in other areas of the promotion of environmental products and services, the government does not leave the evolution of the field completely to the private sector. International development assistance provides national governments with the dual opportunity of assisting less advantaged nations while supporting the expansion of national industries by identifying, creating, and even funding international market opportunities. Many developing countries are projected to feel the brunt of climate change; many are also trying to industrialize while attempting to limit their CO2 output. Research and technologies aimed at addressing these challenges can be tied to Official Development Assistance (ODA), and therefore serve as a key part of an internationally focused Green Growth strategy. ODA was used to restructure Japanese industry after the 1985 Plaza Accord – an agreement reached by the G5 finance ministers to manipulate exchange rates in order to depreciate the value of the US dollar against the Japanese yen and the German mark – and environmental technologies and new forms of energy have become an increasingly important part of this assistance.51 This is part of what Maaike Okano-Heijmans refers to as Japan’s “green” economic diplomacy. Its roots go back to Japan’s Green Aid Plan of 1992, which was designed “to provide technological and financial support to developing countries in the Asian region for the

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purpose of environmental protection and energy conservation.”52 The Green Aid Plan sent Japanese environmental experts abroad and offered low-interest funding for the use of new environmental technologies. In 2010 the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) began a program to help Japanese companies and non-governmental organizations enter so-called BOP markets – the base/bottom of the economic pyramid, encompassing people with annual incomes below US$3,000 in local purchasing power – with environmental and social business. JICA funds one-to-three-year feasibility studies and pilot projects up to ¥50 million yen, and has funded fifty projects worldwide since the program launch in 2010.53 An example of such a pilot project is Kaiho Sangyo Co. Ltd’s study into the potential of establishing an automobile recycling factory in Abuja, Nigeria. Kaiho Sangyo has set up a joint venture with Nigeria’s WAO Global Trading Ltd to develop this recycling business. The new car recycling plant uses the most up-to-date Japanese recycling technology and management knowledge in its operations. The factory primarily hires local workers and provides technical and business training.54 The Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ), described in Chapter 2, has a number of international cooperation schemes. It works with overseas officials in the areas of capacity building (training courses are offered in Japan and experts are dispatched overseas), the development of policy proposals on energy conservation and GHG emissions reductions, technical cooperation around factory improvement, and the establishment of organizations modelled after the ECCJ. Funding is sometimes through METI and sometimes through JICA. The Asia Energy Efficiency and Conservation Collaboration Center was set up within the ECCJ in 2007 to facilitate its international cooperation activities. Numerous Asian countries are currently facing the industrial pollution and environmental degradation that accompanies rapid economic growth. As Japan has overcome these same challenges in the past, in 2007 it proposed the Clean Asia Initiative (CAI). As the government described the program, “CAI is an initiative that aims to help economic development in Asian countries to leap over environmental degradation by passing on Japan’s experiences of technologies, organizations, and systems.”55 CAI is central to METI’s vision of an Asian economic and environmental community. Japan attempted to achieve its Kyoto Protocol commitment to lower its GHG emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels. Some analysts

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believe that, if not for the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011, Japan would have reached its target.56 Instead, the disaster meant that all but two of Japan’s fifty-four nuclear reactors were offline for most of 2011 and beyond, and despite heroic energy-saving efforts, particularly in the six months after the disaster, Japan has needed to increase imports of natural gas and oil. In 2009 Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pledged that Japan would aim for a 25 per cent reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. The business community was less than enthusiastic about this commitment, and many in government believed it to be unrealistic, if not impossible. In 2015, in advance of the Paris climate change talks, Japan pledged to cut emissions by 26 per cent from 2013 levels by 2030. This was seen as a disappointing commitment, comparing unfavourably with the European Union’s reduction target of at least 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030 and even with the United States’ pledge of a 26–28 per cent reduction against 2005 levels by 2025, Canada’s commitment of a 30 per cent reduction below 2005 levels by 2030, and Australia’s commitment of a 26–28 per cent reduction by 2030 based on 2005 levels.57 Making pledges is one thing; achieving them is another. One way Japan hopes to contribute to global climate change efforts and to reach its GHG reductions target is through a METI- and MOEproposed bilateral credit scheme called the New Mechanism Program. The program’s primary new proposal is a Joint Crediting Mechanism/ Bilateral Offset Credit Mechanism, which would involve transferring Japanese advanced low-carbon technologies to developing countries and receiving offset credits in return after achieving a real emissions reduction.58 Japan thereby would contribute to the spread of lowcarbon technologies (and help its own companies), while assisting other countries to develop sustainably and achieve their reductions targets. Although not yet approved by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Japan has launched its first set of New Mechanism feasibility studies, which include projects on everything from waste management to transportation to energy efficiency/energysaving projects. Partner countries are primarily in Southeast and South Asia. Japan and Japanese companies are also involved in projects to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation in Indonesia, Brazil, and other countries. Many of Japan’s international initiatives are happening at the municipal level, especially in cities that are active on the environmental front. Kitakyushu and Yokohama are two such cities (explored in more detail

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in Chapter 5). For example, the Kitakyushu Asian Center for Low Carbon Society, nicknamed Asian Green Camp, was created in June 2010 with the goal of applying technologies from Kitakyushu in particular and Japan as a whole to Asian countries to help them create low-carbon societies through the development of environmental businesses. Asian Green Camp is operated jointly by the city of Kitakyushu, the Kitakyushu International Techno-cooperative Association, and the Kitakyushu Urban Centre of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), the MOE’s international outreach branch, and has signed a cooperation agreement with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Asian Green Camp acts “as a core facility dedicated to vitalization of local economies through a commitment to carbon reduction projects in Asian societies.”59 Successful technology transfer projects include water treatment projects in Dai Phong, Vietnam, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia; recycling eco-town collaborations in Qingdao, Tianjin, and Dalian, China; and various power generation and environmental impact control projects.60 One large and successful project launched by the city of Kitakyushu and IGES is the development of a sustainable waste management system in Surabaya, Indonesia. Thanks to technical cooperation provided by Kitakyushu, Surabaya decreased its waste by over 20 per cent within the first four years of the project. Surabaya’s new waste management system includes an organic waste-composting program, a campaign to increase public awareness of the need to reduce waste and separate it at the source, the startup of a number of small recycling businesses, and two waste water treatment pilot projects. The program has been so successful that Kitakyushu has organized workshops and networking seminars to give other cities implementing or planning to implement similar waste management programs the opportunity to meet and learn from each other.61 The motivation of these outreach projects is twofold: to help with carbon reduction in neighbouring Asian countries (and have these efforts count towards Japan’s GHG reduction goals) and, equally important, to open up opportunities for Kitakyushu’s environmental technology companies to expand into new markets. Kitakyushu has been actively spreading its environmental knowledge and technologies throughout Asia. The Kitakyushu International Techno-cooperative Association offers international training courses, cooperation projects, and seminars on environmental issues, and an international friendship program for trainees visiting the city. Between 1980 and 2008 it accepted 5,366 trainees from 133 countries, and sent

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144 specialists to 25 countries.62 Kitakyushu and Dalian, China, have been sister cities since 1979, the year following the signing of a Peace and Friendship Treaty between China and Japan. Although there were some environmental initiatives between the two cities in the 1980s, real environmental collaboration occurred in the early 1990s, when various seminars and exchanges of experts and government officials took place. The Kitakyushu municipal government proposed that Dalian be designated as an environmental demonstration zone, an idea the Chinese central government embraced. Japanese ODA funding was applied for and received. The resulting Dalian Environmental Demonstration Zone project was implemented between December 1996 and March 2000.63 The two-city project included environmental research, technology transfer of clean production technologies, training programs, and visits of engineers, plant managers, and officials focusing on everything from air, water, and noise pollution to solid waste and environmental monitoring. The Dalian Environmental Demonstration Zone project was deemed a success, and brought benefits to both Kitakyushu and Dalian. Kitakyushu’s strengths in environmental cooperation were highlighted, and opportunities to promote local environmental businesses increased. Dalian city officials “gained from the project specific, concrete, and very detailed know-how, technologies and policy options to tackle local environmental problems from a city in a neighbouring country with a similar experience.”64 Dalian’s environmental quality also improved and additional training programs between the two cities resulted, sparking additional regional environmental cooperation.65 International or cross-border trade of recyclable (end-of-life products and parts) and recycled products, particularly in the Asian region, grew dramatically in the twenty-first century until the economic slowdown of 2008.66 The roots of this trade grew out of the changes Japan made to its waste management systems to encourage and legislate a recycling and resource-circulating society,67 combined with rapid growth in Asia, especially China, which created soaring demand for resources, including recycled materials. Gradually more and more of Japan’s recyclable resources were sold to developing countries in Asia. Two serious problems arose, however, from this development. The first was the negative effect of this outflow of recycled materials on Japan’s domestic recycling system. Japanese recycling companies were left without an adequate supply of resources, and many companies went bankrupt. On the Asian side, improper treatment of materials during the recycling process was causing land, air, and water pollution, endangering the health

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of workers and nearby residents alike. A METI working group on recycling concluded that a workable cross-border recycling system should be developed in the Asian region, in which local governments should play a key role. To that end, METI launched a three-year pilot project, covering fiscal years (FY) 2005–07, to model a cross-border recycling system. The city of Kitakyushu, which was chosen to lead the project, created a task force of people from all aspects of the recycling system, and selected Tianjin, China, as its partner city. Using mixed plastics as the main item, the pilot project used radio frequency identification tags to trace the trade, and participants agreed to follow a strict code of practice. The project was deemed a success, and the Kitakyushu task force next took steps to create an ongoing regime with a traceability system certified by a third party. This third party, called the Resource Circulation Network, was established in 2009 in Kitakyushu. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism intends to replicate this model in promoting resource circulation domestically. Kitakyushu also hopes other Asian countries will copy this model. The city of Yokohama is also active on the international environmental stage, particularly in the area of water. As a report on the environmental performance of Asian cities notes: The Yokohama Water Company, with the backing of the national Ministry [of] Economy, Trade and Industry, runs several international projects, including constructing and maintaining water and sewage systems in India. The city has had a policy of exporting technical expertise, in recognition of the efforts that a British engineer made to improving the city in the 19th century. It also invites developing world engineers to training programs in Yokohama, and exports consulting expertise to developing countries in cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Furthermore, Yokohama is building what will be the country’s largest water purification plant to use innovative ceramic nano-filtration membrane technology.68

The Yokohama Water Works Bureau has transferred water service management technologies to developing countries, and since 1987 has trained people from developing countries to solve water problems. As of 2012 it had accepted 373 trainees from 31 countries and had dispatched 210 professionals to 29 countries. A partnership between the Bureau and CityNet, a city networking organization in Asia and the Pacific, started in 1999. It helps develop water capacity through work

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on infrastructure and management systems in twenty countries, puts on an annual two-week training program, transfers water treatment technology, and offers advice on water quality management and the operation of water facilities. Yokohama and Penang, Malaysia, had a technical cooperation and exchange agreement between 1986 and 1995, with a focus on city planning and management – specifically, urban design planning and pedestrianization for one of Penang’s inner-city areas and the implementation of a recycling program. Since the official program ended, Yokohama has continued to offer support, and officials have visited regularly.69 Team Minus 6% The Japanese government has long understood that high-profile symbolism and leadership are important. In this regard, it launched a series of initiatives to encourage citizens and companies to make every effort to combat global warming. In April 2005 Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the MOE led a national campaign called Team Minus 6%, in reference to the amount of GHG emissions that, under the Kyoto Protocol, Japan had pledged to cut. As members of the “Team,” all Japanese citizens were encouraged to limit their use of air conditioners, reduce water consumption, stop idling cars, buy environmentally friendly products, unplug unused appliances, and refuse extra wrapping of purchases. Interest in and commitment to the program spread rapidly. Within two years, 1.3 million individuals and 14,600 companies had registered; by 30 June 2008, towards the end of the campaign, 2.3 million individuals and close to 22,000 companies had signed on.70 As part of Team Minus 6%, the government launched its Cool Biz campaign to encourage energy saving during the summer. Japanese summers are notoriously hot and humid, so air-conditioning systems are major users of energy at that time. With the catch phrase “no necktie, no jacket,” the Cool Biz campaign, which now runs annually from 1 June until the end of September, advises all offices to set their air conditioners to turn on only when the temperature reaches 28º C. All national government offices immediately complied, and gradually Japanese companies, large and small, also began participating, including such major companies as Sharp, Toyota, Hitachi, Matsushita, Toshiba, and Canon. The reduction in CO2 emissions from Cool Biz in 2006 was estimated to be 1.4 million metric tonnes, equivalent to the amount of pollution produced by three million households in a month.71

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Cool Biz was decidedly government designed and led. At the beginning of the campaign, Prime Minister Koizumi was often shown in a short-sleeved shirt and without a tie to promote Cool Biz. His successor, Shinzō Abe, and his minister of the environment were also shown in advertisements promoting both Cool Biz and Warm Biz, an equivalent but less formally successful campaign calling on people to reduce heating-related energy consumption. Conclusion Personal and collective environmental actions and specific envirotechnology initiatives attract a great deal more attention than the backbone, collective and governmental actions. Governments and environmentalists are increasingly aware of the importance of infrastructure, energy management, and new economy control systems in laying the foundation for environmental sustainability. In Japan, governments and companies also recognize that local, regional, and national experimentation in ecologically designed infrastructure has the potential to become a major export item. The country’s growing capacity in smart cities, smart grids, and integrated energy management is of growing interest across Asia, in the developing world, and in other industrial nations. The Japanese experience demonstrates that the appropriate application of subsidies, government investment, and local strategies can produce substantial environmental savings. It also shows that extensive government-business collaboration is an important component in successful implementation of environmental technologies. It is also clear that direction-changing implementations are expensive, and can be justified only with a strong medium- to long-term perspective. In Japan the combination of the post-Fukushima urgency, global uncertainty around energy supplies and climate change, the country’s strong ecological value system, and a world-leading enviro-technology sector has given real staying power to national and regional efforts to address environmental change. What stands out among the various government and private sector initiatives is the relative absence of public protest, even with substantial costs and regulations required and the direct engagement of the private sector in substantial enviro-technology implementation. In infrastructure and general energy management, Japan has followed the contours of a Green Growth strategy, using new technologies to address national ecological concerns, while searching

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for commercial and export opportunities associated with the technologies tested in the Japanese context. Other nations have their own package of programs, subsidies, initiatives, and regulations. There is no standard approach and, perhaps surprisingly, less international learning and borrowing than might be expected. As with national innovation systems, where governments are wedded to slight variations of the standard package of post-secondary education, basic scientific research, and commercialization as a strategy for promoting the development of new businesses, national governments stick to a fairly small subset of policies, and generally believe that unique domestic circumstances dictate specialized policies. Japan’s policy environment, therefore, fits with the realities of Japanese politics and business, and seeks to motivate citizens to rethink their approach to energy consumption, economic development, and environmental sustainability. Over time – the Green Growth effort has gained traction only in the past decade – nations likely will gravitate towards international themes and approaches. With the model of national innovation systems, where imitation has dominated the development of new approaches, a more standardized set of policies and strategies might emerge. At this stage, governments are looking to countries such as Japan for inspiration and ideas.

Chapter Five

Green Cities and the Development of Environmental Potential

Shortly after 2010 the global balance between rural and urban populations shifted. More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities and that percentage is expected to grow dramatically in the future. Cities have become the world’s primary engines of innovation and economic development, serving as magnets for people from failing rural communities. In the developing world, so-called arrival cities such as Mumbai, Nairobi, São Paolo, Mexico City, and Bangkok have drawn millions. Cities are expected to dominate global economic growth in the years to come. Cities, however, consume enormous amounts of energy, produce mountains of garbage, and require major investments in infrastructure. The concentration of population, conversely, allows for cost-effective spending on new systems and creates the economies of scale that are required for many green economy installations and processes. Getting urban futures right, it seems, is essential for national and global strategies for environmental sustainability and continued economic growth. With Tokyo, the world’s greatest and most successful megacity, Japan has been a global leader in urban design, rapid transit, and environmental measures. With the country’s rural areas and small towns emptying out, continued innovation is likely to be required to stay atop of the expansion of the urban population. As Japan has confronted the dangers of climate change, the demands of environmental adaptation, the possibilities of technological transformation, and the imperatives of economic development, the nation’s efforts have become increasingly comprehensive. What started in the 1970s as an industry-specific and largely scientific enterprise has expanded into a national imperative driven by environmental concerns, business enthusiasm, and government priority-setting. Although the

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national government has the resources needed to launch major exploratory ventures and long-term strategies, other levels of government have become involved as well. Cluster developments with a strong eco-technology focus have drawn in prefectures and municipal governments, often with major financial and administrative commitments. Japan’s larger cities play an even more dramatic role, based on a desire both to address environmental issues and to build economic prosperity. As I touched on at the end of Chapter 2, local governments in Japan have become particularly interested in alternative energy projects in light of mounting uncertainty about nuclear energy. The national government faced heavy criticism across the country for its reliance on the nuclear industry, an expensive, long-term commitment that limited its interest in supporting renewables, especially wind. As political scientist Andrew DeWit explains, local prefectural and municipal governments have become especially concerned about their vulnerability to highly centralized power generation and transmission, as well as about clearly incompetent governance by the national administration. One response to this threat from centralized, overly complex energy institutions dominated by vested interests has been to increase local resilience and autonomy via decentralized power generation. Tokyo, for example, determined that it needed its own generation capacity in order to maintain subway transport and other critical functions in the event of an emergency. So it is installing gas-fired power and a small-scale smart grid separate from the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Also, Osaka City and Osaka Prefecture are explicitly committed to ramping up conservation and renewables in the face of the central government’s immobility; Kobe and Kyoto have joined as partners in this effort.1 Locally based and regionally supportive initiatives are increasing in both importance and impact. This has been the pattern in such countries as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, where local governments are developing imaginative and effective environmental strategies for preserving energy, recycling, and otherwise reducing their environmental footprint. Given the unique nature of the environmental movement – which typically consists of efforts to shift public attitudes, involve multiple levels of government, commercialize science and technology, and identify global eco-market niches – some Japanese prefectures and cities have embraced the potential for the development of localized environmental technologies strategies. This juxtaposition of national and regional priorities also reflects shared commitments to environmental improvement, job creation, and international trade, and

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build on the perceived need to create viable and sustainable illustrations of the merits of Japan-based solutions. Japan’s success in dealing with environmental problems associated with rapid industrialization has given it an understanding of the ecological challenges and a wealth of experience upon which more recently developing countries have been keen to draw. In 1990 the Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Program (MEIP), run by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, began its mission to help Asian cities deal with their environmental problems.2 MEIP has published reports on Kitakyushu, Osaka, and Yokohama to draw attention to their experiences with the protection and clean-up of urban environmental regions. These three Japanese cities have tied their economic futures to the development of environmentally friendly technologies, the implementation of next-generation energy infrastructure, city-wide recycling and conservation, and the promotion of external trade opportunities based on enviro-technologies. Osaka

The administrative context From the Meiji era on, and particularly during the post-war reconstruction period, Osaka grew and prospered as the commercial and industrial centre of western Japan. Large factories were constructed as early as the 1870s. As a result Osaka was the first Japanese city to experience problems with particulates in the air. Osaka became known as the “Smoke Capital.”3 It was one of the most polluted cities in the country, if not the world. Beginning in the 1950s and lasting well into the 1970s, Osaka suffered from severe urban environmental problems. As was the case across Japan, economic growth was the nation’s top priority, and environmental protection took a distant back seat. In 1960 Osaka “recorded smog on 156 days and the rivers resembled sewers.”4 Around Japan, citizen movements sprang up to protest the mercury and cadmium poisoning of the waterways and the asthma-inducing air pollution. Having brought in industry, many local governments felt some responsibility for regulating it. As a result, “local governments played a pioneering role in environmental regulation. They were the first to enact pollution prevention ordinances.”5 Osaka passed its first pollution prevention legislation in 1950. Efforts to reduce pollution began in earnest in the 1970s with a Special Task Force for Anti-Pollution

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Emergency Measures (1970) and the purchase and operation of a pollution measurement van.6 Since that time Osaka has been at the forefront of Japanese work on environmental issues. The region has launched a series of initiatives and polices to combat pollution, improve waste management and recycling, and, more recently, make a city-wide contribution to the effort to combat climate change. The city, led by its environmental bureau, launched its first Basic Environmental Plan in 1996, the second in February 2003, and the third in 2011. The 2003−09 plan had four main policies: • comfort (pollution prevention, the improvement of green spaces, and the development of a healthy urban environment); • recycling (waste reduction and recycling); • collaboration (among residents, businesses, and the city government); and • global environment (promote international cooperation). Under each of the four main polices was a series of action items. Comfort, for example, included air-quality measurement and improvement, water and land treatment standards and assessment, and traffic pollution control. It also involved the improvement of the urban heat island effect – the phenomenon that makes urban centres hotter than surrounding areas due to the heat stored by roads and buildings – by using climbing plants and moss on the roofs and walls of buildings to cool them, creating wind paths, and collaborative uchimizu projects whereby residents sprinkle water (recycled from baths) onto sidewalks to create a cooling effect.7 The 2011 Basic Environmental Plan builds on previous plans with an emphasis on making Osaka an environmentally advanced city by transitioning to a future-oriented industrial system based on the city’s strengths in environmental technologies. In addition, Osaka has set goals of a 25 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020 (from 1990 levels), an 80 per cent reduction by 2050, and a reduction in the garbage the city produces from 110 million to 100 million tons.8 The city has already been quite successful at encouraging waste reduction: although its population has remained constant, the amount of waste it incinerates dropped from 2.17 million tons a year in 1991 to 1.18 million tons in 2009.9 In March 2011 the city completed its “Osaka Environment Vision,” outlining its goals and the concepts and initiatives it plans to undertake

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to reach these goals. With the slogan “environment is the key to the future,” Osaka proposes a shift to an advanced, environmentally friendly urban and industrial structure whose citizens live environmentally conscious lives.10 Initiatives include exploiting unused energy from urban infrastructure (such as waste incinerators and sewage treatment plants), increasing the use of solar power, promoting low-carbon transportation (including electric vehicles), adopting LED lights in museums and other public facilities (such as roads and parks), promoting environmentally friendly buildings and eco-homes, developing a special economic zone to promote environmental and new energy industries, establishing and testing a “smart” community, and various initiatives to emphasize environmental education and citizen awareness of environmental issues. Osaka plans an aggressive and wide-ranging strategy of applying scientific and technological innovations, combined with regulatory and other government strategies designed to make the city and region a global leader in marrying technology and environmental protection and remediation.

Urban electric vehicle infrastructure Japanese automakers are at the forefront of the development of both hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). The Japanese government has been supporting the development of a variety of EVs (battery powered, fuel cell, and hybrid) since the 1970s. Through research and development (R&D) projects, long-term strategies, infrastructure support, and market/purchasing support programs, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has taken a keen interest in the development of alternative environmentally friendly vehicles.11 Japan is, by a substantial measure, the world’s largest and most successful producer of such vehicles. In December 2010 Nissan released the Leaf, the first affordable zeroemissions vehicle; the company intends to be the world’s premier producer of EVs. The world’s top-selling hybrid car is the Toyota Prius, with 8 million sold up to 2015 – 3.9 million of them in Japan – although sales flattened in 2014 as the collapse of oil prices removed a major commercial advantage for electric cars. At the December 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota launched its first range of EVs based on the iQ compact. The Prius C (called the Aqua in Japan) went on sale in Japan, the United States, and Europe in 2012. In 2011 Honda showed off its EV Fit and its

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EV-ster, an electric two-seat roadster. Mitsubishi’s i-Miev (Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle) hatchback has been offered to commercial customers in Japan since July 2009 (Japan Post was an important first customer) and then to the wider public in Japan and gradually around the world starting in April 2010. (Non-Japanese manufacturers are also entering the EV market: General Motors has launched the Chevrolet Volt; in 2013 Tesla Motors formed a business alliance with Toyota and Volkswagen to sell the E-Up3; and in 2012 Daimler started to mass produce an EV model. Ten Chinese automakers have invested 70 billion yuan in new-energy cars with a focus on EVs.)12 As of April 2016 there were about 1.3 million plug-in EVs (including plug-in hybrids) on the roads worldwide. Japan had the third-largest fleet (150,000) after the United States (450,000) and China (300,000).13 This is not the rapid takeup that might have been envisioned, but recent sales have been brisk. Bloomberg states that declining battery prices will make EVs an economic option, and predicts that, by 2040, EVs will make up 35 per cent of global new car sales.14 The vehicles are only part of the EV expansion. Without charging stations, appropriately priced electricity and other support systems, the development of the sector would have stalled quickly. Osaka and other Japanese cities, including those where many of the EV vehicles and components are produced, realized that the development of a global EV industry required successful demonstrations of an EV-based automotive eco-system. Consumers had to be introduced to the vehicles, charging systems were needed, and social acceptance had to be improved. Japanese cities have taken the global lead in this regard. In June 2009, Osaka Prefecture started the “Osaka EV Action Program.” An Osaka EV Action Council, consisting of industry experts, academics, and government representatives, was put in place to promote industries related to EVs and their components, such as lightweight parts and high-capacity motors.15 The program was divided into three stages. The first, implemented in 2010–11, focused on the development of EV infrastructure and the general promotion of electric vehicles. In the second stage, from 2012 to 2016, the prefectural government supported Osaka becoming the centre of production of EVs through policies to encourage their mass use. Local consumer sales, enthusiastically supported by city governments, were designed to provide a foundation for EV manufacturing. This is not an unrealistic ambition, as the Keihanshin region (Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe) has a population of over nineteen million people. The local government’s

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Table 5.1. Electric Vehicle Introduction Plan, Osaka Prefectural Government Stage 1 (2010–11)

Stage 2 (2012–16)

Stage 3 (2017–)

EV prevalence (creation of initial market)

Full swing of EV car sharing

Mass use of EVs in public transportation (e.g. 50% of taxies to be EVs by 2017)

Construction of powercharging facilities

Introduction of new energy industry zone

Prevalence and expansion of EVs in private car sector

Application for new energy industry zone

Introduction of new social transportation system

Convergence of new-energyassociated industries Prevalence of new transportation system

Empirical experiment, granting of subsidies (through METI; the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism; the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications; and the Ministry of the Environment), EV introduction and promotion and public relations execution Smart energy R&D

Application of smart energy technology to transportation infrastructure facilities and residences

Verification of storage Introduction of storage cells/solar cells (applied in public cells/solar cells (applied in facilities, buildings, residences, and business facilities) public facilities, buildings, and residences) Source: Osaka Prefectural Government, “Roadmap,” Osaka ed. (Osaka, November 2010), copy provided to the author.

target was for half of all taxis and newly registered private cars in Osaka to be EVs by 2017. Progress fell behind initial expectations, with the take-up by the taxi industry disappointing officials and the sale of EV vehicles falling well below expectations.16 The final stage of the program will be achieved when EV vehicles have widely penetrated both public and private forms of transportation and Osaka has become the centre of a significant global manufacturing cluster of electric vehicles and their parts.17 The Osaka EV Action Program has three main components: infrastructure, the development of an EV cluster, and the training of EV professionals. The development of infrastructure, particularly the availability of convenient rapid-charging stations, is widely understood to be the key to encouraging people to buy electric vehicles. Osaka began by putting in place twenty rapid-charging stations in optimal locations

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while developing a more complete “Osaka recharging infrastructure network”; within two years, thirty-six rapid-charging stations were in operation. The network was designed to reassure consumers that their vehicles would not run out of power. The locations of the charging stations had to be chosen carefully, with population density and traffic flows in mind. Charging stations were set up on the Meishin Expressway (Nagoya–Kobe) in cooperation with the West Nippon Expressway Company. Experiments with exact positioning of charging stations (for example, in parking lots, in front of convenience stores) are ongoing. Recharging was initially subsidized, so that consumers paid less than ¥300 per hour. Chargers made by different manufacturers are networked through the communications infrastructure. As of March 2011, reservations for charging could be made over a mobile phone.18 By April 2012 the Osaka Prefectural Government had opened 239 regular power-charging stations, some of which provide free power charging, and there were approximately a thousand EVs on Osaka’s roads.19 In Japan as a whole, there are now over forty thousand charging stations (including those at people’s homes), which is more than the number of gas stations.20 Along with the development of the necessary EV-recharging infrastructure, the Osaka government has undertaken other initiatives to encourage consumers to buy these new cars. Investment in the infrastructure – and by auto companies in the development of these vehicles – is worthwhile only if there is a market for EVs. To help create that market and to develop consumer awareness and comfort with EVs, Osaka has hosted EV promotion events. Taxi firms have been approached and encouraged, with subsidies of up to a ¥1 million (approximately US$12,000) a vehicle, to introduce electric vehicles into their fleets. Fifty EV taxis went on the roads in February 2011; for the first three weeks, passengers could ride in them for free. The Osaka prefectural government estimates that more than a million people were exposed to electric vehicles through these fifty taxis. Not all has gone smoothly, however. Despite initially favourable reviews, the EV taxis have run into some problems. The first challenge was that, after the Fukushima disaster, consumers no longer saw EVs as clean and safe. Second, since battery performance deteriorates over time, the cars could be driven only half as far on a full charge as they could initially. And as battery performance declines, recharging time increases substantially. Drivers also discovered that the cars’ heater run down batteries even faster.21 Electric vehicles do not appear, at this stage of their development, to be well suited as taxis.

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In other measures, Osaka has converted its government fleet to EVs, electric cars are being used as public pollution patrol cars and community safety patrol cars,22 electric motorbikes are being promoted by banks and delivery services, and subsidies are being offered to purchasers of electric vehicles to offset their higher price tag. Electric carpooling projects are also being promoted so that more people have a chance to drive an EV, programs have been launched to train mechanics to repair EVs, and Osaka Prefecture is subsidizing projects on how to convert an average car to an EV.23 The Osaka prefectural government clearly believes that the EV industry will help the region address significant environmental challenges. The government is equally convinced that EV developments supported at the local level will help create an internationally competitive export industry based in Osaka. The combination of objectives – the societal challenge of creating a cleaner energy region and the economic need to foster globally active export companies – has accelerated governmental investment and commitment and promoted the rapid development of the electric vehicle sector.

New energy cluster support In April 2010 Osaka prefectural governor Tōru Hashimoto began promoting Osaka to new energy companies, particularly automobile and solar panel manufacturers. His aim was to make Osaka the centre of a world-leading new energy cluster. Along with factories, Osaka and the surrounding area is home to many component parts makers and a variety of R&D facilities. Osaka has five large solar companies (Sharp, Sanyo, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric, and Kaneka), which, in 2012, held approximately 11 per cent of the world market share and 70 per cent of the domestic market share of solar power. The national and local governments together subsidize about 20 per cent of the cost of residential and industrial installations. The national subsidy program provides ¥30,000 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for installation costs under ¥550,000 and ¥35,000 per kWh for installation costs below ¥475,000. These subsidies have been declining in an effort to encourage solar panel makers to bring down installation costs as quickly as possible. Osaka City began a subsidy program for solar power system installations in 2009; it provided subsidies of ¥100,000 per kWh in FY2009 and ¥70,000 per kWh in FY2010 and FY2011. Over the three years of the program, more than 10,000 kWh worth of solar power systems was installed in Osaka.24

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A push to install solar panels on government and school buildings was also undertaken. The Osaka/Kansai region also boasts a significant concentration of companies and corporate research institutions, government research labs, and universities that specialize in battery research and production. In the lithium-ion battery sector, Kansai companies hold over 80 per cent of the domestic market share and 23 per cent of the global share; for solar batteries, Kansai companies hold almost 74 per cent of the domestic market share and 8 per cent of the global share.25 Osaka University and Kansai University are working on a project entitled “NextGeneration High-Performance Battery System Research and Development (Li-EAD),” funded by METI and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Kyoto University’s Sunrise Project, also funded by NEDO, focuses on next-generation batteries for EVs that are one-tenth as light as batteries currently in use. In addition to the network of large, globally branded companies is a sizable number of small-and medium-sized (SME) new-energy-related firms. From 2007 through 2010, eighty Osaka companies received METI’s Energetic and Innovative SME 300 company ranking, putting Osaka in first place among all prefectures. These companies manufacture everything from high-pressure valves for hydrogen fuel cells and high-precision printing devices for solar panel electric parts to gaskets (sealing material) for lithium-ion batteries. In the Yumeshima/Sakishima islands district, reclaimed lands on the city’s coast, Osaka is building a cluster of environmental technology and new-energy production facilities. Sumitomo Corporation and Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing are organizing a consortium of companies to fund and create a megasolar power generation facility in Yumeshima to produce power for about three thousand homes. Osaka City provided the land – previously a waste disposal site built on reclaimed land – for the project.26 As proponents declared at the November 2013 launch of construction, an event that emphasized the ecological values of the enterprise: The Hokko Landfill Site serving as the installation location for the megasolar plant is a landfill disposal site for incinerated ash from general and other waste and, as such, long-term ordinary land use will be restricted even after completion of the landfill. The Project was founded on the concept of multiple companies coming together to create a “Hikari-no-Mori” (Forest of Light), similar to the way individuals would plant one tree each

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to create a forest. The part of the Hokko area which is completed will be effectively utilized as the large-scale megasolar project site which will contribute to the area’s environmental improvement. The renewable electricity generated, eligible for the feed-in-tariff … will support the day-to-day lives and economic activities of the local community via Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.27

The megasolar initiative is just one of the metropolitan area’s major undertakings. The Osaka Station North District development project, made up of offices, commercial facilities, and residences, opened in spring 2013. Designed to bring people together to share ideas and projects and encourage collaboration among industry, academia, and government, showrooms and shops showcase new products and services. The goal is “to develop a Knowledge Capital where concerted efforts are made to create new industries, technologies, cultures and values and publicize them throughout the world.”28 In July 2005 Osaka Eco-Town was launched as Japan’s twenty-fourth such town. The initiative, created by METI and the former Ministry of Health and Welfare (later transferred to the Ministry of the Environment), was designed to prolong the life of landfill sites, of which Japan has a critical shortage, and to reinvigorate local economies through the development of environmental industries.29 The other key element of Japan’s eco-towns is the concept of zero emissions, or the taking of waste from one industry or from households and using it as raw material for other industries. The Osaka prefectural government’s eco-town plan called for the construction of a variety of recycling and industrial waste treatment facilities in a then-unused former landfill site in the waterfront area of the city. At the time Osaka had a large amount of industrial waste and difficulty in establishing appropriate waste treatment. Osaka began constructing “appropriate treatment and recycling facilities for difficult-to-treat wastes, including hazardous substances, recycling facilities targeting wastes both large in volume and disposal percentage, such as those derived from construction and recycling facilities targeting wastes considered to be useful resources that can be more effectively used, such as containers, packaging and/or food waste.”30 Seven recycling facilities are now located within the ecotown, spread among three areas (Osaka City Bay Area, the waterfront in Sakai City, and in Neyagawa City).31 These facilities include Rematec, which uses reclaimed fuel technology to convert industrial

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waste – which comes in by tanker from two thousand domestic companies – to recycled fuel without producing any gas emissions or waste water. The resulting product is sold to cement companies. Biomass Ethanol Japan Kansai Company produces bioethanol from construction wood wasters, Recycle and Equal Co. Ltd makes transportation pallets from waste plastic containers and packages, and Taisei Industry recycles food waste from restaurants and supermarkets into feed and fertilizer. In conjunction with the Osaka City government, the prefecture is working to bring more companies into the eco-town. Osaka City has also been building and upgrading its waste disposal plants over the past few decades. The Maishima Incineration Plant, built by Hitachi Zosen and run by the city, is the most famous due to its unique exterior, which resembles a theme park building. The incinerator handles regular and bulky waste disposal and iron and aluminum recycling for Osaka City. Incineration is done at very high heat so fewer harmful substances are produced. Through the use of gas exhaust treatment equipment, the incinerator produces clean smoke. Maishima recycles 900 tons of garbage a day, and all energy for the building is produced in-house. Staff at the plant run public and school tours for domestic and international visitors, and teach about recycling. Osaka has been actively engaged in environmental outreach for decades. In 1990 the city hosted the International Garden and Greenery Expo with the theme of “harmonious coexistence between nature and mankind.” And in 1992 Osaka established the Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC) in conjunction with the International Environmental Technology Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme. Osaka uses the GEC, which focuses on conservation and urban environmental management in developing countries, to sustain the spirit of the expo and to leverage its knowledge and experience in pollution prevention and energy conservation to help developing countries, which are facing many of the same environmental problems Osaka faced in the 1960s. The GEC is funded by Osaka City and Osaka Prefecture, with significant corporate support. It hosts workshops, seminars, and training programs for participants from developing countries, sometimes in cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Some of the workshops have focused on applying the Japanese eco-town concept to various cities in the Asia-Pacific region. As part of a JICA grassroots technical cooperation project, the GEC is working in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay to develop a community-based recycling system. Garbage from residents and

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sightseeing boats has caused a significant deterioration in the Ha Long Bay area, bad enough that UNESCO had considered delisting it from the list of World Heritage sites. The GEC also hosts a database of Japanese companies and their environmental technologies; interestingly, the United States is its biggest user. Main areas of overseas interest are industrial waste and air pollution technologies. The GEC also provides opportunities for Osaka citizens to learn about environmental issues. In another illustration of global engagement, the Kansai-Asia Environmental and Energy-Saving Business Promotion Forum (Team E-Kansai), a network of government, industry groups, and individual companies, works to facilitate the development of environmental connections between businesses in the Kansai region and elsewhere in Asia. The Forum’s activities include sending and receiving environmental business missions, supporting an oversees training program in Japan, sending Japanese specialists abroad, and introducing Kansai’s environmental and energy conservation technologies to other parts of Asia.32 Osaka and the broader Kansai area, one of the world’s largest and wealthiest urban aggregations zones, have committed substantial resources to the concept of Green Growth. They have made ecologically minded investments to address urgent local environmental concerns, and built local manufacturing and development networks that serve as conduits for long-term business expansion. While participating actively in a variety of national enviro-technology initiatives, Osaka and its Kansai partners have been charting a metropolitan future that capitalizes on emerging environmental technologies while figuring out how to convert ecological technologies into sustainable business opportunities. Kitakyushu Osaka is not the only region that has endeavoured to connect its economic future with environmental reclamation and environmental technologies. Kitakyushu, a city with a population just under one million located at the northern end of the island of Kyushu, has made a formidable commitment to this sector of the new economy.33 From the beginning of the twentieth century, when the first national steel works (formerly Yawata Steel Works, and now the Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Company) factory was constructed on Dokai Bay, over a thousand industrial plants were built along the coastline. The Kitakyushu area was a key part of the modernization of Japan. Industrialization was aided by easy access to energy due to the nearby Chikuho

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coalfields and the availability of iron ore from China. By the 1960s, Kitakyushu was one of the four largest industrial zones in Japan,34 and the city’s companies had, even earlier, accounted for 5 per cent of Japan’s industrial production.35 Machinery, shipbuilding, ceramics works, and cement, chemical, and electronic factories all became important parts of Kitakyushu’s industrial structure. Steel, however, became its backbone, dominating the local economy; at its peak, the Yawata Works had more than forty-six thousand employees.36 The downside of all this industrial activity was pollution. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Kitakyushu had serious air and water pollution problems. Smokestacks belched fumes that came to be known as “the seven-coloured smoke” due to the black smoke from burning coal, the red from iron oxide, and other colours from various fumes. Dokai Bay was so heavily polluted by industrial and domestic waste water that it was nicknamed the “Sea of Death.” In fact when, in response to citizen demands, the city conducted the first water quality survey of the bay in 1966, “results of the examination revealed that Dokai Bay could no longer be called ‘a sea’ because the water colour was reddish black or yellowish black.”37 Women’s groups actively agitated against pollution. As the husbands of most of these women worked for the steel company, the women did not protest against the company directly, but instead appealed to the city council. In the mid-1960s the Tobata Women’s Association produced a documentary called Aozora ga Hoshii (We want our blue sky back) that showed the damage the pollution was causing. The movie was shown throughout Japan and had a considerable impact. Kitakyushu then began to take steps to deal with its pollution problems. In 1967 the city signed a pollution prevention agreement, pollution monitoring began in 1970, and environmental quality standards for Dokai Bay and other waterways were established in 1971. Also in 1971 the city founded the Environmental Pollution Control Bureau (now the Environmental Bureau). Kitakyushu also began enacting a variety of environmental regulations, tougher than those passed by the national government, effectively persuading major companies to curb their pollution.38 Between 1972 and 1991 Kitakyushu spent a total of ¥804 billion (approximately US$7 billion) on measures to prevent or clean up environmental pollution.39 The decline of iron and steel manufacturing and other heavy industry prompted local officials to start promoting and supporting a shift to environmental businesses. As appropriate waste management took on greater importance nationwide due to a lack of landfill sites and a

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scarcity of raw materials, Kitakyushu began to carve out a niche for itself in this area. From the 1980s on, in particular, Kitakyushu started cooperating internationally in a number of ways. The Kitakyushu International Techno-cooperative Association (KITA) was established in 1980 to transfer environmental technologies and policies to the developing world. KITA offers training courses in areas such as industrial environmental protection, energy management, and renovating facilities for cleaner production; since its inception, over 6,200 trainees from 138 countries have been accepted and over 160 experts have been sent to countries around the world.40 Eco-business has gradually become a key industry for Kitakyushu, taking advantage of the city’s location near both South Korea and China, where environmental remediation efforts have also been growing. Kitakyushu was selected as one of Japan’s first four eco-towns in July 1997, with a focus on facilitating resource circulation – taking household and industrial waste and using it as raw materials for other industries – and stimulating the local economy through the growth of environmental industries.41 The Kitakyushu Eco-Town project is located in the eastern part of the Hibiki landfill area, which borders the sea, and is made up of the Comprehensive Environmental Industrial Complex (an area for the handling and distribution of recyclables), the Hibiki Recycling Area (business sites for lease to small and medium-sized environmental enterprises) and the Practical Research Area (a centre for R&D on environmental technologies);42 see Table 5.2. The Comprehensive Environmental Industrial Complex has become a recycling hub for western Japan, and accepts waste (household electric appliances, office machinery, cars, medical waste, fluorescent lights, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, and mixed construction waste) from a wide area. In 2012 Kitakyushu was Japan’s largest ecotown, with twenty-eight business facilities, sixteen research facilities, fourteen hundred employees, and an investment of ¥66 billion.43 One of the strengths of the Kitakyushu Eco-Town Project is the financial support, cooperation, and technology of large Japanese companies: “For example, the major funders of the Nishi-Nippon PET-Bottle Recycle Co. include Nippon Steel Corporation and Mitsui & Co., and the major funders of a company known as Recycle Tech which includes Shinryo and Ricoh Corporation. Indeed, it is not only funds that the parent companies are providing. In many cases the recycling factories are using production plants, technologies and know-how obtained from

Table 5.2. The Kitakyushu Eco-Town Project Strategy Promotion of Eco-business in the City of Kitakyushu Comprehensive development from basic research to technical development, research and testing, and industrialization Education and Basic Research

• Establishment of ecological policy and ideology • Basic research hub • Fostering human resources

Technological and Practical Research

• Incubation for local companies • Assistance for research plants

Comprehensive Environmental Complex

• Industrialization of various types of recycling • Assistance for small-and-medium-sized and venture business

Kitakyushu Science and Research Park

• The Faculty of International Environmental Engineering at Kitakyushu University • Graduate School of Applied Life Science, Kyushu Institute of Technology • Cranfield University (UK) at Kitakyushu • German National Research Center for Information Technology • Kyushu Laboratory, Advanced Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Waseda University • Graduate School of Information, Production and Systems, Waseda University • Fukuoka Research Center for Recycling Systems • Fukuoka University Graduate School of Engineering Recycling and Eco-Technology

Practical Research Area

• Fukuoka University Institute for Resource Recycling & Environmental Pollution Control Systems • Practical research for: final disposal site, incinerator ash, garbage • Practical Testing Site, Fukuoka Prefecture General Research Center on Recycling • Eco-Town Centre • Bean curd refuse and food refuse recycling business • Styrene Foam Recycling Project

Comprehensive Environmental Complex

• Gathering recycling plants: plastic bottles, office equipment, automobiles, home appliances, fluorescent tubes, medical devices • Mixed construction waste generated

Hibiki Recycling Area

• Local small and medium-sized and venture business (cooking oil, used paper, empty cans, other) • Improving the automobile disassembly and parts recycling industry

Second Stage Plan Area

• Recycling and reuse plant: pachinko, printer toner cartridges, discarded wood and plastics • Wind power

Source: Hong Kong Institute of Planners, “Kitakyushu Eco-Town Plan by the City of Kitakyushu” (Hong Kong, n.d.), annex A, available online at http://www.hkip.org.hk/plcc/ download/Japan.pdf.

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the parent. For example, the PET bottle plant is using know-how from Nippon Steel Corporation in its plant operating technology.”44 The Practical Research Area houses a number of research institutes and company testing and demonstration facilities. It is hoped that this applied research will lead to the emergence of new businesses. The Hibiki Recycling Area is a cluster of SMEs that work in the area of waste treatment and recycling and support the development of creative ideas. One section of this area is home to companies that have set up an end-of-life vehicle recycling plant, the first in Japan. The plant recycles 95 per cent of cars through a process that begins with disassembling them into their outer parts, liquids, plastics, mechanical parts, and non-ferrous parts. The plastics and liquids go on to be further recycled; parts that can be reused are sold, and the remaining steel is crushed into 600-kilogram blocks. The whole process takes about forty-five minutes.45 Another section of the area is home to the Nishinihon Kaden Recycle Corporation, which recycles home appliances. Each of the recycled products has its own dedicated processing line. The appliances are dismantled manually, the various resources are gravity separated into light and heavy plastics, non-ferrous metals, and so on, and then cleaned and crushed. In 2004 phase 2 of the Eco-Town Project was launched. This phase included strategies to expand recycling and various environmental projects, and had the goal of expanding the Eco-Town Project to include the whole city. Initiatives undertaken include the establishment of the Kitakyushu Eco-Premium Award for eco-friendly industrial activities in the city and the Eco Action 21 Certification and Registration Support Project for SMEs. Another is the Japan-China Eco-Town Cooperation Project, designed to create resource recycling cities in China using Kitakyushu’s Eco-Town Project as a reference; projects have begun in the Chinese cities of Qingdao, Tianjin, and Dalian. In April 2011 the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park opened, with the aim of promoting local industries and academic institutions. Four universities (Waseda University, Fukuoka University, the Kyushu Institute of Technology, and the University of Kitakyushu) have research facilities and graduate programs based there. Kyushu Recycle and Environmental Industry Plaza (K-RIP) was created by METI’s Kyushu office in 1999 to support companies in the recycling and environmental technology sectors. K-RIP’s financing comes from METI and from member companies. At the end of

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2010 K-RIP had 492 members, including 285 companies, 82 individual academics, 75 individual members, 9 from non-profit organizations, and 41 local government representatives. K-RIP has six regular staff members, all seconded from companies for two-year terms: one each from Aso Corporation, Asahi Kasei Corporation, Kankyo Technos Co. Ltd, Kyushu Electric Power Co. Inc., Saibu Gas Company Ltd, and Nippon Steel Corp. There are also two METI advisors/coordinators. Staff members help Kyushu’s mid-sized companies build contacts with China and South Korea by offering advice and introducing them to potential partners. As one K-RIP manager said, “[t]he future for environmental products is in China, and it is right on Kyushu’s doorstep.”46 In 2008 Kitakyushu was selected from among eighty-two applications to be one of the first of six (later thirteen) Japanese eco-model cities. As the government reported, “[t]he program selectively designates and provides support to cities that have set ambitious goals and undertook pioneering approaches to achieve a low-carbon society.”47 Kitakyushu now calls itself the Carbon Free City in Asia, and has proclaimed its desire to be the World Capital of Sustainable Development. To this end, the city is focusing on next-generation urban development, with an emphasis on using energy wisely, resource recycling, and sharing its knowledge with the Asian development region.48 The Kitakyushu Eco-Model City Action Plan (also called the Green Frontier Plan) calls for a 30 per cent CO2 reduction target by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050. Kitakyushu hopes that its technology transfer and assistance to Asian countries will result in the reduction of another 23.4 million tons of GHG emissions. The plan promotes the belief that environmental efforts will create an advanced society, develop the economy, educate people, and help them lead fulfilling lives. Specific actions include trying to make Kitakyushu as compact a city as possible with a low-carbon transportation system, energy-saving buildings, and the installation of solar-panelled roofs over shopping areas and other public spaces. Kitakyushu is also building on its lead in introducing green information technology and using factory by-product heat for public use. Kitakyushu is home to the Environment Museum, the Kitakyushu Eco-House exhibit, the Jono District Low-Carbon Advanced Model Area, the Kitakyushu Next Generation Park, and the Kitakyushu Smart Community Development Project.49 In 2012 the city expanded the area

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beside the Eco-Town to build the Kitakyushu Next Generation Energy Park. The park’s purpose is to educate people about the variety of energy sources upon which society depends. There is a coking plant, an oil storage facility, and a natural gas production facility, as well as wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric power, and a biomass manufacturing facility.50 Waste sites in the area are being cleaned up, and a large plot of land has been set aside as a green belt where, it is hoped, birds, plants, insects, and other wildlife will return. Students, seniors, citizen groups, and companies are carrying out a range of forest restoration activities. In January 2011 METI and Nippon Steel launched the Hydrogen Town Project to experiment with the use of hydrogen, a byproduct of the production of steel, as an energy source. The project fuels a number of homes and monitors electricity use.51 Finally, Kitakyushu was chosen as one of Japan’s four Smart Cities – cities that provide “sustainable growth and [are] designed to encourage healthy economic activities that reduce the burden on the environment while improving [quality of life].”52 The Kitakyushu Smart City Project focused on customer energy management – making energy use visible to the general public and corporate customers to get them thinking more deliberately about how they use energy. A key component of the project, which ended in 2015, was experiments around dynamic pricing – changing prices according to supply and demand. Dynamic pricing was combined with “energy management with local production for local consumption” – that is, all the energy that was produced in one area was used in that area.53 Yokohama Yokohama, with a population of 3.7 million, is Japan’s second-largest city and an important port. It was nominated by the World Bank as one of six Eco2 cities. Like Kitakyushu and Osaka, Yokohama was a centre of heavy industry prior to and during the Second World War. Iron and steel, shipbuilding, and munitions were particularly important. The war devastated Yokohama: a single air raid in May 1945 destroyed over 40 per cent of the city. After the US Occupation, Yokohama established a new development strategy by creating enhanced industrial zones. The existing industrial zones were quickly becoming saturated, so the city began large reclamation projects to create further industrial lands. Yokohama grew rapidly in population and industrialization in

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the late 1950s and 1960s. Steel, chemical, machinery, electric appliance, and petrochemical plants were established, primarily on newly reclaimed lands. The city was plagued by pollution. Iron oxide emissions created a problem of red smoke, which even turned laundry red. Residents became increasingly concerned, especially as more factories were being constructed in a new coastal industrial area, and began appealing to all levels of government to put pollution-control regulations in place. Although municipal governments did not have the legal authority to control pollution, beginning in 1963 the Yokohama city government worked with local corporations to reach pollution-control agreements for both the existing coastal industrial area and the newly established one. Some of the earliest agreements were actually established with the new factories and later accepted by the established ones. These agreements and the way in which they came together were nicknamed the “Yokohama style.” An analysis of the Yokohama agreements describes the accords and explains why companies agreed to them: The agreements specified maximum pollution control targets, based on scientific data and in light of present conditions and future prospects of air pollution, and of the level of pollution control technology available at the time. Although the agreements were much stricter than laws and prefectural ordinances established later, the companies recognized that scientifically reasonable standards based on large scale monitoring or a wind-tunnel test, were being set. The agreements played an effective role in introducing advanced technology and developing new technologies such as the country’s first power generation by [liquefied natural gas], and the improvement in ground concentration of pollutants due to collection smokestacks.54

As the public was becoming more vocal in its anti-pollution demands, the economic climate happened to be good. Companies were able to afford the costs of installing pollution-control technology, so they readily signed pollution-control agreements. These agreements, the first of which was concluded between the city and a thermal electric plant in 1964, formed the basis of later broader environmental regulations to control factory and vehicle emissions and other forms of pollution. Soon after the first pollution-control agreement was signed, Yokohama established a Bureau of Pollution Control. By the 1980s industrial pollution

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was under control, but other forms of pollution were increasing, including those associated with urban daily life, such as traffic exhaust, noise, and household waste. In 1986 Yokohama established the “Yokohama Environmental Basic Charter” and an environmental waste management plan designed to outline how to implement pollution control and create a better, cleaner urban environment.55 Since the turn of the twenty-first century, Yokohama has been implementing a series of plans designed to deal with environmental issues. The Yokohama Anti-Climate Change Measure Regional Promotion Plan (2001–10) was followed by the 2002 Yokohama G30 plan to reduce waste by 30 per cent by 2010; the city actually achieved this goal by 2005. Waste was reduced by more than 42 per cent between 2001 and 2009, which permitted the closure of two out of seven incineration facilities.56 The reduction in the volume of garbage incinerated led to a 47 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions,57 even though Yokohama’s population grew by more than two hundred thousand over the period. In 2008 Yokohama adopted its Yokohama Climate Change Prevention Measure Action Plan (CO-DO30 initiative), for which it was ultimately awarded Eco-Model City status. The plan included a variety of citizen education programs designed to reduce GHG emissions by 30 per cent by 2025 and 80 per cent by 2050 (compared with 1990 levels) and to reduce waste for the whole city by 30 per cent relative to the amount in FY2001. CO-DO30 became a multiyear action plan focused on three areas of CO2 reduction: reducing emissions from civic life, expanding environmentally friendly businesses, and increasing renewable energy tenfold.58 To reduce emissions from civic life, households were encouraged to aim for a 40 per cent reduction in their energy usage. This was promoted through various educational campaigns, and encouraged by a property tax reduction for verifiable energy savings. Restaurants and hotels were encouraged to stop using throwaway containers or to purchase carbon offsets. The use of low-pollution/energy-conserving vehicles, car and bike share programs, and the setting up of warehouses along highways for easier product distribution were all supported. Tax incentives were offered for the installation of vehicle recharging stations. As well, companies were encouraged to use renewable power, and solar panels were installed at schools. The Yokohama City Wind Power Plant, nicknamed Hama Wing, began operating in 2007. Hama Wing was funded by bonds that could be purchased by residents; 350 people bought the bonds within three days. Hama Wing, which

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can produce 2,000 kW – or the power usage of 860 households – was designed to showcase environmentally friendly energy and to power the central business district of the city. In 2010 the city began its Yokohama Green Valley initiative, focusing on Kanazawa Ward, which includes a section of the city developed during the 1960s especially for manufacturing and other industrial facilities. The initiative seeks to reduce GHG emissions while revitalizing the city through the development of environmental and energy industries. The Yokohama Green Valley has three main components: energy policies, the development of environmental and energy industries, and environmental education. Energy policies include the use of waste heat, a project to monitor the amount of household and corporate energy use and the amount of renewable energy provided, and an electric-vehicle-sharing project. Green innovation and the commercialization of green technologies are encouraged by forming clusters of businesses, factories, and public facilities. The city also tries to assist companies find partners and customers through the hosting of various matching and networking events. As well, in collaboration with local universities, the city has launched environmental education programs to encourage and mobilize citizen action. Yokohama Eco School (YES) started offering courses on environmental issues all around the city in 2009. In fiscal year 2014 alone, YES sponsored 377 lectures with over 35,000 participants.59 Another Yokohama initiative is its 3R Dream Plan, which has pledged to reduce the generation of garbage and recycling by more than 10 per cent, and GHG emissions that come from garbage processing by more than 50 per cent, by FY 2025, compared with FY2009. The city’s Resources & Wastes Recycling Bureau is active explaining to residents how to reduce waste through a series of educational campaigns.60 Along with Kitakyushu, Yokohama was one of four Japanese cities selected to be a Smart City. The Yokohama Smart City Project established and tested a smart grid over five years in Minato Mirai 21 (3,600 households), Kohoku New Town (76,000 households), and the Yokohama Green Valley area (small and medium-sized factories, amusement parks, and a residential area of 87,000 households). The project’s aim was to build a “Next Generation Energy Infrastructure and Social System” and to create a low-carbon city that remains a comfortable place to live. The project test site contained two housing complexes (16 and 24 houses), one apartment complex (177 apartments), 83 houses for technology verifications, and 4,000 houses and apartments for social

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verification. Project members included the city of Yokohama, Accenture, Tokyo Gas, Tokyo Electric Power Company, Toshiba, Nissan, Panasonic, and Meidensha. The overall goal of the project was to create a smart city model that could be exported to other Japanese cities and abroad.61 The project included the introduction of large quantities of renewables, home energy management systems (HEMS), building energy management systems (BEMS), factory energy management systems (FEMS), and community energy management systems (CEMS) – the complementary relationship between the overall utility grid and energy management systems. It also looked at next-generation transportation, lifestyle change, and governance structure. HEMS combine photovoltaics and energy-saving equipment in houses and buildings and the use of insulation to improve energy efficiency. CEMS manages both energy demand and stationary energy storage. The power from renewable energy fluctuates with the weather, so the system incorporates stationary batteries with the HEMS and BEMS systems. When surplus electricity is generated by the solar energy system, CEMS sends a signal to the electric vehicle storage battery to charge through the HEMS.62 In this way, the various energy management systems are connected and, by using chargeable and dischargeable EVs, allow for clean energy storage in houses and buildings. Effective energy storage is particularly important if renewable energy is to be introduced into an energy grid in a significant way. “Demand response” experiments to both decrease and alter the timing of energy use also took place. Part of the objective was to cut energy demand during the busiest times of the day. This would lessen the time of peak energy demand, thereby decreasing the amount of energy that would ever be needed at one time. This was to be achieved through a combination of education and pricing. Over the time of the Yokohama Smart City Project, a maximum peak shaving of 15.2 per cent was achieved with the home management system and of 22.8 per cent with the business management system.63 The Yokohama Smart City Program ran until the end of FY2014. In April 2015 the Yokohama Smart Business Council, a public private partnership, was established to apply the technologies and knowledge gained through the project; participating companies include Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Toshiba Corporation, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd, Panasonic Corporation, and Shimizu Corporation. The council is charged with moving the project from the demonstration phase to the

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implementation stage. The main goal is to develop projects that promote local production and consumption of energy, thereby improving energy efficiency, disaster resistance, and the local economy as new services are created based on the liberalization of the electricity market. The council promotes new approaches to local energy management and energy sharing “to bring energy-circulating cities – cities that have an increased supply of energy from their vicinity and make waste-free, efficient use of it – into reality.”64 One of the next steps will be a Community Energy Management System focused on improved energy cooperation, specifically between the Yokohama City University Medical Center and the adjacent New Minami Ward administration office. A co-generation energy system will be introduced and a system to share waste heat implemented.65 Another related energy cooperation initiative will share energy between the Kanazawa municipal offices, which need air conditioning in the summer, and the Yokohama Seaside train system, which requires heating in the winter to prevent the rail lines from freezing. Conclusion The environmental and technological action by several of Japan’s major cities – and there are many other such initiatives across the country – demonstrate both the importance of local governments in the environmental effort and the broad interest in Green Growth strategies. As cities face the economic and social implications of widespread deindustrialization and general economic transition, they are looking for alternate environmental solutions and “new economy” means of producing wealth and creating jobs. The search for an effective Green Growth strategy is seen as fundamental to the economic future – and even to the basic vitality – of their communities. The enviro-technology initiatives by these cities demonstrate that subnational governments, often acting with considerable national support and investment, are playing a leadership role in promoting economically viable environmental industries. The nature, extent, and cost of their efforts also demonstrate that it is both difficult and expensive to make the transition from a fossil-fuel-based society to one that is more ecologically sustainable. In Japan, as in other countries, cities are often taking a leading role in the development of a truly twenty-first-century economy and a sustainable environment. Although the actions and leadership of the national

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government is crucial, particularly in the area of long-term and speculative investments, local authorities are critical in the effort to convince citizens, businesses, organizations, the universities, government agencies and so on to participate in the Green Growth effort. These efforts are impressive, both in scale and diversity, but they remain substantially unproven. Experiments have been successful, in the main, and some of them have scaled up and become sustainable. Others remain to be tested in full – as with efforts to promote the use of electric vehicles – and might prove to be costly failures, transformative investments, or something in-between. Efforts to promote Japan’s cities as eco-cities and to develop international business connections that replace or build upon the country’s formidable industrial track record remain works in process, as the attempt to interest the developing world in large-scale enviro-technology investments continues. It is clear, however, from Japan and elsewhere, that local initiatives are fundamental in providing proof of concept and in convincing citizens to support the transition of environmental technologies from the laboratory to full implementation. That Japanese cities such as Kitakyushu, Yokohama, and Osaka can point to fundamental transformations is a spark of optimism in the national and global debate about the potential for large-scale and sustainable change. But if the “green” part of Green Growth has shown real achievement, often through large-scale public investments, the “growth” part of the concept remains substantially unproven. Cities are trying, as Osaka’s EV efforts demonstrate, and their efforts might well bear fruit. Major successes in these areas – and expecting uniform achievement is unrealistic – would provide a significant impetus for further Green Growth commitments, but Japan’s major cities and, indeed, the country as a whole, are still waiting for a definitive word from the national government on this important element. With emerging challenges from Singapore, Seoul, and a handful of other major cities, Japan has some of the most environmentally sensitive cities in the world. Moreover, and in the spirit of Green Growth, Japan has experimented with ways to export their strategies and technologies for urban development to other countries, particularly in East, Southeast, and South Asia. The manner in which Japan has combined urban redesign, the installation of new technologies, international development assistance, and the expansion of the country’s commercial presence in foreign cities is one of the better examples of Green Growth thinking. Japan’s stellar reputation for urban creativity – the

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country’s urban architecture is unparalleled – has opened doors for urban environmental business products and services. The Japanization of the world’s largest cities remains a long way off, but the ambitious environmental aspirations of Japan, its major urban areas, and citybased businesses are clearly in evidence.

Chapter Six

Pushing the Enviro-Technology Frontier: Big Dreams, Big Gambles

National innovation systems involve imagining the future through science and technology, and then, by commercializing a new development, converting ideas into practical applications. The commercialization process, when successful, produces new companies, jobs, and wealth for the host region and country. Although the vast majority of innovation efforts focus on incremental changes, there are always thinkers, technologists, and promoters who have a more grandiose vision for their sector. In the case of environmental technologies, the pressing nature of contemporary challenges – climate change is real and threatening – the focus has generally been on proximate solutions, strategies, and technologies that can make a substantial difference in the short term. Japan, befitting its longterm approach to economic and social development, remains among the world’s elite nations in terms of looking to the future and considering radical, disruptive strategies that might fail spectacularly or produce dramatic results. Even the United States, long the standard-bearer for exploratory innovation, lags behind Japan in the range of potential solutions investigated and the amount of money invested in these initiatives. This combination of discovery and application is particularly important in the environmental technology sector. The escalating concern about the global environment, politically embodied in the 2015 Paris accord on climate change, has made the identification of technological solutions close to imperative. A great deal of the work is incremental – improved solar cells, enhanced battery capacity, better wind turbines, new forms of home insulation – but there is growing interest in what technologists often call the “moon shot”: a game-changing technological transformation that would address, in a substantial way, the environmental risks associated with fossil fuel use.

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There is, as a consequence, considerable scientific interest in experimental and dramatic technological solutions, and, in a few countries, in government support for radical, high-risk, high-reward initiatives. Japan, more than almost any country, invests in speculative, multigenerational scientific explorations; in contrast, the United States, Germany, and a few others devote their resources to incremental improvements, experiments of reasonable possibility, and only a small number of truly experimental initiatives. In general, academics worldwide take the long view, supported through government-based research grants, while governments focus their investments on the electoral cycle, and businesses seek to balance shareholders’ interests and the prospects for large-sized financial returns. In world that once worried about “peak oil” – the point at which fossil fuel production would start to decline – and is now preoccupied with unpredictable climate change, the search for high-impact scientific discoveries, if not real solutions, has taken on new urgency. This can be seen in the serious contemplation of climate engineering, for example, and in the global search for reassurance that science and technology can pull us out of an environmental spiral that, in large measure, was launched by major scientific and technological discoveries. Japan maintains a watching brief on leading-edge scientific investigations, and encourages its laboratories, companies, and entrepreneurs to explore futuristic opportunities in many sectors, including environmental technologies. The National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, part of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, conducts a Delphi survey every five years. Three thousand scientists and engineers are asked to predict the technologies they think will have the biggest impact in the next thirty years. (Studies of the accuracy of past Delphi surveys have shown that survey participants are right just under three-quarters of the time.) The 9th Delphi Survey, which was released at the end of 2010, showed solutions to environmental problems as being a key research area expected to show results. Specifically, the research community mentioned the creation of solar cells with conversion rates above 60 per cent, technologies for mining and using methane hydrates, and the creation of airplane engines that do not burn fossil fuels.1 As one commentator has observed: “Contrary to what many claim, though, it is not true that existing solar and wind technologies could cheaply save the planet while also creating lots of green jobs if only they were subsidized for just a few more years. Those renewable power sources have cost consumers dear and mangled

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energy markets. Paying for yet more wind turbines and solar panels is less wise than paying for research into the technologies that will replace them.”2 This chapter describes Japan’s investments in some of the potential technologies of the future: hydrogen-fuelled vehicle and homes, offshore floating wind turbines, nuclear fusion, space-based solar power, Shimizu Corporation’s Luna Ring concept, green nanotechnology, and offshore sustainable cities. Hydrogen-fuelled Vehicles and Homes Japan is promoting hydrogen in the belief that it will be better for the environment, help solve Japan’s energy security problem, and improve its industrial competitiveness. In Japan, commercially available hydrogen for homes and vehicles is currently being researched, invested in, and prototyped. Hydrogen is generally considered a clean energy source, as heat and water are its only by-products. Its merits, however, are not without limits: Not everyone sees hydrogen as a dream fuel, however, and some in the energy industry doubt Tokyo’s bet will pay off. The most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen is typically found in compounds that make up fossil fuels. Separating the element from these compounds takes a large amount of energy and can release carbon dioxide, undercutting the point of using hydrogen in the first place. Even if hydrogen can be produced cleanly, it still must be transported. The infrastructure developed over decades to carry oil and natural gas barely exists for hydrogen, which must be compressed or liquefied to be transported.3

Nonetheless, although fossil fuels or another energy source are needed to enable hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity through chemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen, the rest of the process requires little fossil fuel consumption. Even more important, no carbon dioxide is emitted. This is not a far-future initiative. Indeed, Japan has been working on commercial applications of hydrogen energy systems for a decade or more. Companies such as Panasonic, Toshiba, and Toyota started selling residential fuel cell systems across the country in 2009. Japanese companies hold about 60 per cent of all patents related to fuel cells (European countries have 13 per cent and the United States 11 per

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cent),4 giving the country “first-mover” advantage in this potentially vital sector. That Japan has made significant steps towards hydrogen energy use reflects the impact of scientific and technological investments made by the Japanese government. The Japan Hydrogen Fuel Cell Demonstration Project, funded by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and covering fiscal years (FY) 2011–15, focused on the development of hydrogen production, delivery, and storage (improving performance and durability and decreasing cost) and on gathering data for the optimal development and streamlining of regulations (for transportation, materials, operations, and so on). It included demonstrations of cars and infrastructure and a variety of feasibility studies. NEDO continues to collect evaluation data and test methods for both fuel cells and other hydrogen technologies as part of its goal of developing international standards and ensuring Japan’s competitiveness. In January 2011 the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Nippon Steel launched the Hydrogen Town Project in Kitakyushu to experiment with the use of hydrogen as a commercial energy source. Hydrogen is a major by-product of the production of steel. The governments of Fukuoka and Kitakyushu partnered with thirteen companies and four major utility gas firms to conduct the experiment. A 1.2-kilometre hydrogen pipeline was laid from Nippon Steel’s Yawata Works, where the production of hydrogen from the steel-making process is created, and the hydrogen town. Currently, a seven-unit apartment block, a museum, and a hardware shop are powered via fourteen next-generation hydrogen fuel cells that can generate up to 100 kilowatts (kW). The Hydrogen Town Project is a part of the bigger Hydrogen Energy Social Infrastructure Development Demonstration Project, which aims to create a hydrogen-based society. The other part is the Hydrogen Highway Project, which provides expressway services using fuel cell buses. In 2015 thirteen Japanese companies, including car manufacturers and hydrogen fuel suppliers, launched mass-produced fuel cell vehicles into the Japanese market, targeting four major cities – Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka. Hydrogen fuel suppliers are opening about one hundred fuelling stations, initially primarily along major expressways. Hydrogen energy is also now a key part of Japan’s Revitalization Strategy. The June 2013 version stated a goal of 5.3 million ENE-FARM residential fuel cell units disseminated by 2030. The 2014 revised strategy goes a step farther, with the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Strategy Council,

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set up by METI, announcing a Strategic Road Map for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, aimed at creating a hydrogen-based society. The strategy describes three phases in the introduction of hydrogen based-technologies. The objective of phase 1 (2009–25) is to expand the use of hydrogen dramatically through the strong promotion of residential fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles. About 1.4 million residential fuel cell units should be in use in 2020 and 5.3 million by 2030. Commercial fuel cell vehicles were introduced in 2015 and a commercial fuel cell bus was to start in 2016. In 2017 fuel cells for commercial and industrial use will be introduced into the market. The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo will showcase hydrogen; the athletes’ village will be heated with hydrogen, and transportation will be on hydrogen-fuelled buses. By that date Japan hopes to have been able to reduce the price of hydrogen so that it is equal to or lower than that of fuel for hybrid vehicles. Phase 2 (2025–35) aims to introduce hydrogen power generation fully and to establish a large-scale system to supply hydrogen. This would involve establishing partnerships with hydrogen suppliers overseas, bringing down the price of hydrogen, and setting up an effective distribution system. Phase 3 (2035–50) envisions the “full-fledged operation of manufacturing, transportation and storage of zero-carbon emission hydrogen by combing the manufacturing technology with a [carbon capture and storage] process or making use of domestic and overseas renewable energy.”5 The hydrogen-fuel-related market is forecast to be about ¥1 trillion in 2030 and ¥8 trillion by 2050.6 Progress has been made on the phase 2 goals. An ENE-FARM unit, each of which produces 1 kW of electricity, dropped in price from US$26,000 in 2009 to US$13,000 in 2015, and consumers soon will be able to purchase the system for $10,000 per unit, with a possible government subsidy to lower costs. Manufacturers have set a target of lowering the cost of commercial systems to $5,000. Residential field tests are being conducted in 3,300 homes. The vehicle front presents a classic conundrum: just as with electric cars, the sector needs hydrogen-fuelled cars to justify building the infrastructure, but the infrastructure is needed before it is possible to sell the cars. In 2015 only seven hundred fuel cell vehicles were produced, with another two thousand in 2016 and three thousand expected in 2017. In November 2014 Honda unveiled the FCV Concept, a fuel cell concept car alongside the Power Exporter Concept, a model for an external power-feeding device that enables AC power output from the FCV. A year later Honda unveiled the Clarity, its new fuel cell vehicle based on

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this concept model, at the Tokyo Motor Show. Honda is also promoting its Smart Hydrogen station, a packaged hydrogen station unit. Hydrogen cars are promoted as being better for longer-range driving, while electric cars are better in the city. Toyota’s hydrogen car, the Mirai (meaning “future”) was launched in December 2014, and saw unexpectedly strong demand in 2015. Exports began to Europe and the United States in August 2015. The price was US$69,000, but the US government provides consumer rebates of about $20,000. Toyota hopes to have sold three thousand cars in the United States by the end of 2017. The lack of hydrogen stations outside Japan, however, will hinder overseas sales. An “industry ministry expert panel has said that it would hope to see the prices of fuel cell vehicles brought down to levels that would compete with price levels of hybrid vehicles (approximately $20,000) by around 2025.”7 In related developments, Toyota and Hino held a week long-test of a hydrogen fuel cell bus on public routes in Tokyo in July 2015,8 Honda began domestic sales of its fuel cell car Clarity in March 2016, and Toyota has said it will share most of its 5,700 hydrogen fuel cell patents with other auto companies without charging a royalty until 2020, in the hope of speeding up the introduction of the technology. As well, Toyota, in partnership with Toshiba, Iwatani, the Kanagawa prefectural government, and the Yokohama and Kawasaki city governments, has announced plans to create a carbon-neutral hydrogen supply chain. The main criticism of hydrogen-powered cars is the lack of environmental benefit if the hydrogen is produced with conventional energy. The Toyota project will use “water and electricity from wind and minimal electricity from the grid to make hydrogen”9 in an effort to develop a supply chain with minimal carbon dioxide emissions. The supply chain will begin with the use of electricity from the Yokohama City Wind Power plant to produce hydrogen by electrolyzing water. The hydrogen will then be compressed, stored (in a storage battery system in case of wind-powerless days), and transported by hydrogen-fuelled trucks to four different locations (to show their viability in diverse conditions). The goal of the project, which began in the fall of of 2016, is to study the feasibility of a hydrogen supply chain and gather data on the production process, cost reductions, and methods to reduce CO2 emissions.10 The Japanese government is subsidizing the installation of hydrogen stations, and has agreed to introduce policies aimed at helping generate demand for fuel cell vehicles. The cost of a hydrogen station is about ¥400–500 million (US$3.7–$4.7 million) compared with ¥100 million for

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a conventional gas station; the government has offered initial subsidies of ¥280 million (US$2.6 million) per station. Hydrogen stations require their own specific equipment and construction costs are high, as the supply of needed parts is still low. Major gas station operators JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corp. have announced their aim to have a hundred hydrogen stations in place by the end of FY2018. City gas suppliers Osaka Gas Co. and Toho Gas Co. also plan to build hydrogen stations, as does Air Liquide. Tokyo Gas opened its first hydrogen station in December 2014. Seven-Eleven Japan and Iwatani began establishing convenience stores with hydrogen service stations in 2015; plans call for twenty of these joint ventures by FY2017. Iwatani, a gas and energy supplier, had plans for the construction of twenty of its own hydrogen fueling stations across the country by the end of FY2015. By May 2016, eighty stations were in operation, mainly around Tokyo, Kobe/ Osaka, Hiroshima, and along the highways between them. Twenty-four hydrogen fuel recharging stations were in operation in 2015 and fiftyseven more were under construction. Refueling costs about ¥1,000 per kilogram of hydrogen, and it takes approximately ten minutes to refuel. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are working on a Joint Hydrogen Infrastructure Support Project to help speed up the development of the required infrastructure for fuel cell vehicles. They have pledged to spend up to $40 million to offset hydrogen fuel station operating costs incurred by the infrastructure companies.11 Naturally, all those building hydrogen stations are concerned that there be enough hydrogen fuel cell cars on the road to justify the expenditure, while the auto companies, in attempting to popularize such vehicles, need to ensure potential customers that they will be able to keep their cars operating. Fujitsu recently announced the launch of a hydrogen station data management service that allows people to access real-time information on the location and operating hours of hydrogen stations (both fixed and mobile) via car navigation systems. Hydrogen stations face safety standard challenges due to hydrogen’s flammability. For example, current regulations require all hydrogen stations to be manned, not self-service, and filling dispensers must be at least eight metres from the nearest street. Another drawback is that hydrogen has to be imported, and it is expensive and difficult to transport over large distances. The hope is that hydrogen soon will be produced from water using electrolysis, with the process powered by renewable energy. This would address many of the transportation and fossil fuel energy use problems together.

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As mentioned earlier, hydrogen energy will be showcased at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Tokyo plans to spend ¥45.2 billion on fuel cell vehicle subsidies and hydrogen stations. The idea of a pipeline to “transport hydrogen across the Olympic Village, where industrial-size fuel cells would power buildings like the media center and the athletes’ dormitories,”12 is being discussed. The city plans to have six thousand hydrogen cars on the road and thirty-five hydrogen fuel stations to keep them powered up. One hundred fuel cell buses will transport athletes and spectators in and around the Olympic Village. In March 2016 METI announced a target of 40,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles on the road by 2020 (and aiming for 800,000 by 2030) and 160 hydrogen refueling stations.13 Kobe, in partnership with Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd and Iwatani Corp., has begun to build a liquefied hydrogen import hub on a small island near the airport. The US$84 million pilot project is part of a NEDO study on designing a supply chain for the sea transportation of hydrogen made by the gasification of lignite coal.14 Japan has clearly decided to bet big on hydrogen, but the only way the investment to create the necessary infrastructure (pipelines, shipping, fueling stations) will be forthcoming is if other countries also believe in the potential of hydrogen and begin investing themselves. A hydrogen energy system could dramatically lower carbon dioxide emissions and economically benefit Japan and Japanese companies as first-movers. There is a distance to travel before this is possible (fuel cell cars are still expensive), but it is not beyond reach.15 Offshore Floating Wind Turbines Japan’s mountainous terrain means there is little land on which wind power generators could be installed. If generators were installed on the ocean, however, the potential for wind power would increase dramatically. Offshore winds are also more powerful and predictable than those on land. Unlike most wind farms, offshore wind platforms can be constructed closer to urban centres where more energy is used.16 Japan is well suited for offshore wind power development. Thirty wind power plants are already scheduled to be developed shortly.17 Offshore floating wind turbines are the next step; these would be installed on floating platforms in very deep water, where winds are often extremely strong. In March 2012 the Fukushima offshore wind consortium was formed to construct an offshore floating wind turbine demonstration project. The consortium consists of Marubeni, as the project integrator, the

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University of Tokyo, and ten other companies, including Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Shimizu, and Furukawa Electric. The project involves construction of a 2-megawatt compact semi-submersible floating wind turbine, two 7-megawatt Mitsubishi oil pressure drivetype wind turbines on floating platforms, the world’s first 66-kilovolt floating power substation, and undersea cables. The project, under construction twenty-three kilometres off the coast of Fukushima (and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant), is a major step towards building the world’s largest offshore wind farm. The winds here have the potential to produce 1 gigawatt of electricity – roughly the same as a nuclear reactor – from 140 wind turbines by 2020. METI is paying the $226 million cost of building the first three wind turbines. After that, the consortium plans to commercialize the project. What sets the project apart is that, unlike traditional turbine towers that have to be installed in waters under 50 metres deep, a floating wind turbine “complete with its own substation and multiple huge steel chains anchoring them to the seafloor,”18 would be built in much deeper water. The first phase of the project, including installation of two subsea cable connectors, one floating wind turbine, and the substation, was completed in 2013. Offshore floating turbines have major advantages, the most significant of which is access to high wind speeds. Most areas with such high winds are inaccessible to non-floating turbines due to depth constraints. As well, because these platforms would be so far offshore, there would be nothing to block the wind, and far fewer birds likely to fly into the turbines. “Out of sight, out of mind” is also a factor, as less opposition could be expected from people who do not like the look of more accessible turbines or the noise they make. Floating turbines also have some manufacturing advantages, as they are designed to be built in port and then towed out to sea, which is less expensive than traditional offshore wind turbine construction. A side benefit of offshore wind generation is that it involves heavy machinery, construction, electronics, and advanced materials, all sectors of traditional Japanese strength and ones the country would like to revive and sustain. Of course, building floating offshore platforms and substations is expensive. They must be able to withstand typhoons and other extreme forms of weather, and be able to endure the corrosive power of salt water. Building undersea cables to transmit the power back to land is also difficult and expensive.19 Other potential problems include disruptions to sea lanes and fishing zones. (The impact on the fisheries is yet to be determined.)

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Norway and Portugal are also experimenting with small-scale floating wind farms, but Japan’s project is set to be the largest and among the earliest to commercialize the technology. NEDO officials believe that, despite the expense, floating wind turbines have excellent potential. Japan hopes to be able to develop and export offshore floating and nonfloating wind technologies.20 Nuclear Fusion Japan is taking a leading role in exploring the possibility of developing a way to produce electricity by nuclear fusion. Unlike nuclear fission, this process involves creating a nuclear reaction by colliding atomic nuclei at high speed to form a new atomic nucleus and the emission of vast amounts of heat and energy. Construction on an advanced nuclear fusion testing facility – the Japan Atomic Energy’s Naka Fusion Institute – began in March 2013 northwest of Tokyo in Naka, Ibaraki Prefecture. The experiments at Naka will support the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion reactor, being built in France. The giant reactor is designed to prove that useful energy can be extracted from the fusion of hydrogen isotopes. By trapping the hydrogen using powerful superconducting magnets and heating it to the point of fusion at 150 million °C with specially designed heating systems, ITER aims to produce ten times more energy than it consumes. The project is funded and run by seven member entities: the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States; the EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing 45 per cent of the cost, with the other six parties contributing 9 per cent each. Japan was the other site in the running for the reactor; as consolation, Japan was guaranteed 20 per cent of the positions for scientists. Naka’s Tokamak JT 60SA is one of several large fusion science facilities built together by Japan and the EU as part of a Broader Approach Agreement for fusion energy signed by the two. It will test and develop the magnets and heating systems. In this process, a fusion reactor suspends plasma fuel – hot gas (hydrogen or deuterium) – in a donutshaped vessel by using magnets to ensure the plasma does not touch the sides of the container. Experiments to transform the fuel into a highpressure plasma state are scheduled to start in March 2019. Thus far, ITER has had its fair share of management problems and delays. Current official estimates are that construction will cost US$20

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billion or more. ITER’s “core philosophy is to share between the countries the risks, efforts and rewards of trying to crack the fusion-power problem – costs and delays be damned. The idea is that if the project proves successful, any of the domestic agencies involved should then be able to build its own version with the knowledge collaboratively gained.”21 Nuclear fusion offers no easy solution to the world’s energy crisis. The common saying about nuclear fusion is that it is always thirty years away. In a nutshell, the overriding issue is how to create a facility that can heat the fuel to a high enough temperature (100 million °C), and confine it long enough so that more energy is produced through the fusion reaction than was used to get the reaction started. Nonetheless, those closest to it are still optimistic. “Fusion is real, possible, and important” said Andrew Holland, the American Security Project’s senior fellow for energy and climate at the December 2013 major fusion power conference. He also said scientists have not overpromised but policy-makers have not delivered the resources to achieve the promise of fusion power.22 Space-based Solar Power Japan is also exploring the possibility of placing solar panels in space and then beaming the electricity from space to homes on earth. As earth’s atmosphere reflects or absorbs a great deal of solar energy, placing panels above the atmosphere would offer access to a much greater amount of solar energy – almost 150 per cent of that on the surface.23 As a space-based solar power system would not be affected by weather, it could collect five to ten times as much power as a solar power station on earth.24 A solar power station in space would benefit the environment and do more to combat climate change than thermal power because it would not emit carbon dioxide; moreover, it would not have the safety risks associated with nuclear power. The idea of space solar technology was first presented in 1968 by US aerospace engineer Peter Glaser. Although too ambitious at that time, NASA and the US Department of Energy carried out serious studies on space-based solar power over the decades, and proposed some satellite ideas, but none has been orbited. One specialist has described the current state of the science: [T]echnological advances and growing concern about providing environmentally friendly baseload electricity have renewed interest in collecting

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solar energy in orbit and transmitting it via microwave to Earth. Studies by the National Space Security Office of the Department of Defense in 2007 and the International Academy of Astronautics in 2011 concluded that constructing a one-gigawatt solar power station in geosynchronous orbit was technically feasible. The economics of launch, however, were another matter. At $20,000/kg, launching the 3,000 metric tons of material and equipment for a [space-based solar power] station would cost an impractical $60 billion. At $200/kg, the launch cost would be $600 million, a much less daunting financial obstacle. For SBSP to become a reality, reducing the cost of reaching orbit is as important as the technology.25

Japan has started to take the idea of space based solar production further. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been seriously studying solar power from space since 1998, with about 130 researchers working on the project. Various consortia of universities and major corporations are also involved in researching and thinking about the industrial applications of some of the technology necessary for space based solar production. JAXA now has a technology road map leading to the development of a 1-gigawatt system – equivalent to a nuclear power plant – by the 2030s. This system would be able to generate power twenty-four hours a day and would not, of course, require any land. The idea is to place solar collectors into geostationary orbit 367,000 kilometres above earth’s surface. Giant floating solar panels would convert sunlight into electricity, then beam that energy to the ground, where antennas would capture the beams and convert them to use. One panel would power approximately 250,000 homes. As Alan Pierce reports, “Japanese officials estimate that, ultimately, they will be able to deliver electricity at a cost of $0.09 per kilowatt-hour, which will be competitive with all other sources. With an initial investment of $21 billion, the project also includes the funding of a 16 company research consortium looking into how to make the technology needed to bring the electricity to earth. The geosynchronous orbit will keep the satellite in the same spot so it will be able to beam down the electricity to a collection spot currently anticipated to be on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay.”26 The satellite would need to be very large – several kilometres across – and weigh more than 10,000 tons. There would be many expensive challenges, including transportation into space,27 the construction of large structures in orbit, and satellite and orbit control, but the biggest

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would be how to transmit the energy back to earth. There appear two possible ways to do so. One would be by a laser beam, which would require only a small antenna on the ground, but which would not work well on cloudy days, when the shorter wavelengths would be blocked by the atmosphere. Lasers also lose focus when travelling through air. As the solar energy would have to be transmitted very accurately over an extremely long distance, this could be a serious problem. A slight mistake in calibration could result in the laser beam’s being off by a very large distance when it reached earth. The second option is through microwaves (at a lower intensity than a mobile phone). There would not be any problem with transmission with microwaves, but they would require a very large platform (covering an area of two square kilometres). Progress is being made on microwave transmission. A 2008 microwave experiment “transmitted 20 watts of power between Maui and the island of Hawaii, more than 150 kilometers … away. Though only about a microwatt was collected at the receiver, the study was seen as a major success. The team believes that the concept is feasible for space, since an orbiting projector would only need to transmit its power through roughly 2 kilometers of the densest air, not 150. The biggest downside of microwaves is that they are generally feared by the public but that’s offset by research showing that even multiple generations of microwave-blasted animals show no negative health effects.”28 In 2012 Japan Space Systems (JSS), an incorporated foundation under METI, undertook the Solar Power Wireless Transmission Technology Development Project. In March 2015 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, part of JSS, reported a successful wireless transmission ground test, with 10 kW of power transmitted by microwaves from a transmitting unit to a receiver 500 metres away. The advanced control system designed to regulate the microwave beam so that it stays on target also worked well. These new technologies could be used as the central technology in the functioning of a space-based solar system.29 JAXA hopes to perform the first microwave power transmission in space by 2018. Scientists are experimenting with two different satellite concepts. One is a simple version that has a huge square panel approximately one kilometre on each side and fixed in place, and therefore limited in its ability to receive sunlight all the time. The second is more a complex version that positions two huge mirrors alongside two photovoltaic panels, thereby allowing for sunlight to be reflected at all times.

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The International Academy of Astronautics has named JAXA as the most likely source of early space-based power projects.30 Indeed, spacebased power is a classic example of Japan hedging its energy and environmental options. While the Japanese government focuses most of its efforts on traditional scientific and technological solutions, the country is determined to be part of the exploration of more radical and potentially transformative energy-generating strategies. The Luna Ring Concept Potentially larger and more dramatic energy-producing experiments are also under active academic, business, and government consideration in Japan. The Shimizu Corporation, a large construction firm, has proposed a plan to harness solar energy on an enormous scale. Its ambitious plan involves building a belt of solar cells around the moon’s eleven-thousand-kilometre equator, converting the electricity to powerful microwaves to be beamed at earth, and then converting the beams back to electricity at ground-based power stations. The Luna Ring concept, the company says, could meet the entire world’s energy needs. The Luna Ring itself initially would have a width of a few kilometres, but could be broadened up to four hundred kilometres. As it would be difficult to get materials into space, the proposal calls for robots to play the primary role in building the Luna Ring. Tele-operated twenty-four hours a day from earth, the robots would level the lunar landscape and assemble machines and equipment on the moon or in orbit before they are landed on the moon. A team of astronauts would support the robots on-site. Japan has experience with remotely operating robots, and has been experimenting with tele-operating a robotic arm since 1997.31 Shimizu explains that it plans to use lunar resources to the fullest extent possible. “Water could be produced near the equator by reducing lunar soil with hydrogen imported from Earth. Cementing material can also be extracted from lunar resources. These materials will be mixed with lunar soil and gravel to make concrete. Bricks, glass fibers and other structural materials can also be produced by solar-heat treatments.”32 Creating the solar panels from lunar soil is a key component of the plan. Silicon, aluminum, and aluminum oxide are all key components in solar panels, and can all be found on the moon. These minerals, however, are not concentrated in specific areas, but spread out over the lunar surface. Scientists are working on methods to access these materials.33

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Tetsuji Yoshida, president and CEO of Shimizu’s wholly owned space consulting subsidiary, CSP, leads the project. His optimistic forecast is that it will be twenty-five years before lunar surface activity could begin, assuming the funding could be found. Although the challenges to building a solar power station are considerable, they are not insurmountable. As futurist Patrick Tucker states, “[T]he LUNA RING is buildable. Photovoltaic panels, remotely guided robots, and microwave transmission and lasers are already proven technologies. The LUNA RING is simply raising the proverbial bar on the current state of innovation – raising the bar to the Moon.”34 The biggest challenge is finding financing for a project of this size and scope. David Criswell, director of the Institute for Space Systems Operations at the University of Houston, says it might be expensive, but “solar power from the moon is our best shot at meeting future energy demands. If the United States had stayed on the Moon during the 1970s, focusing on using the common lunar materials to manufacture at low cost the simple standard components of a lunar solar power system, then today, not only the United States but also the rest of the world would be green, prosperous, and secure. Such a system would pay for itself within 15 years of use.”35 Green Nanotechnology In the Japanese government’s 2nd and 3rd Science and Technology Basic Plans, nanotechnology and materials were among the four priority areas. In the third plan (FY2006–10), US$4 billion was invested in nanotechnology and materials over the five years in five research areas: nanodevices and new materials for future information technology; new environmental conservation and efficiency materials; nanobiology; instrumentation and processing technologies; and new innovative materials.36 According to scientists from the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, in the historical development of nanotechnology this decade is “the era of ‘organization of nanotechnology’ which means autonomously organized/designed nanoscale structures expanding to macro scale for practical use.”37 Among the government-led initiatives is LC-Net Japan (Low Carbon), a network building program made up of research centred on CO2 reduction. There is also the Global Research Center for Environment and Energy based on Nanomaterials Science (GREEN), funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and promoted by NIMS. This centre focuses on research in photovoltaics,

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fuel cells, and rechargeable batteries “by taking advantage of computation theoretical analysis of surface/interface and advanced characterization techniques.”38 The Tsukuba Innovation Area (TIA-nano), established in 2009 by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, NIMS, the University of Tsukuba, and Nippon Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) focuses on nanoelectronics and nanogreen research. It receives financial support from METI and MEXT. There is also a consortium of universities (University of Tokyo, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Keio University, Waseda University, and NIMS) with a similar mission to TIA-nano but focused on nanochemistry and nanofluidics.39 Offshore Sustainable Cities Some of Japan’s initiatives to address the country’s environmental and societal challenges are more dramatic. Green Float (Botanical City) is a concept for environmentally friendly cities that are ocean based, self-contained, and carbon negative. Another idea from Shimizu Corporation, these artificial islands would be built in the equatorial ocean – which is less stormy, at lower risk from typhoons, has stable warm temperatures, and is subject to fewer strong winds – and would aim for self-sufficiency in food and energy. Shimizu, along with the Super Collaborative Graduate School (a collaboration of fourteen universities) and Nomura Securities (which supplies financial support), has been researching the construction of its Green Float concept since 2010. Green Float is designed with floating cells or “districts” that resemble water lilies (with an approximately one-kilometre radius) that would form a compact village housing ten to fifty thousand people. These districts would be joined together with others to create a city (or module) of around a hundred thousand people; joining the modules would then form a “country.” Most of the inhabitants of the floating cities would live in one-kilometre-high towers at the centre of the circular cells, in a “City in the Sky.” Other residences would be located in “waterside” zones that contain low-rise townhouses built on the outer edge. As the cities grow in size, new cells would be added to the structure outward. Designed to be fully self-sufficient and sustainable, the cells would house a plant factory within the high towers and livestock/farming in the “plains” area surrounding the towers. This area would also feature reservoirs, waterways, and grasslands.40

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These compact cities would be carbon negative through the use of advanced technologies: the cities would produce lower levels of CO2 due to their efficient transport and distribution methods, additional reductions would occur through energy conservation from increased thermal insulation, facility efficiency, and next-generation technologies, and the use of space-based solar power, ocean thermal energy conversion, and wind/wave technologies would further reduce CO2 emissions. The Green Float concept concentrates on recycling resources and converting waste into energy that would eliminate waste.41 As a Shimizu staff member comments: The main issue is how to construct new cities and buildings; that is, technology for building floating cities or aerial cities. Another issue is how to create a new environment on the Earth. This involves such fields as satellite solar power and waste circulation. We also have to think about new economic systems such as trading in CO2 emission rights, and systems for international coordination, as it wouldn’t be fair for the cities to belong to individual countries. So the three big themes are construction, the environment, and social systems. We’re currently working with Super Collaborative Graduate School and Nomura Securities, as we’d like to do all sorts of interdisciplinary research with universities.42

There would be many challenges to living and working on megafloat pontoons. Analysts worry that residents could feel “pretty groggy” much of the time due to the movements of the ocean. Shimizu is not alone, not surprisingly, in exploring the idea of “seasteading,” although some of the other people or organizations who have explored the idea have had more notorious aspirations (gambling, prostitution, and rogue libertarian states) for their free-floating islands.43 Conclusion The most significant aspect of frontier-edge technologies is that no one really knows what will happen. Surprising discoveries in battery technology, for example, would change the game in renewable technologies overnight. Pollution-reducing systems for fossil-fuel-using vehicles likewise could alter climate change equations dramatically. Conversely, governments, business, and others could invest billions of yen in nuclear fusion and end up with only enhanced scientific understanding to show for the effort. The scientific and technological

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innovations discussed here – and these are but a tiny number of the enviro-tech possibilities – hold promise, but it is impossible to determine which ones will be implemented, accepted by consumers, or capable of producing major environmental returns. Many of these ideas are risky and expensive and face many scientific barriers, to say nothing of the social challenges, which have not been fully explored. Nonetheless, many government officials, corporate leaders, and scientists believe strongly in the potential of major and dramatic initiatives – as one example, Shimizu Corporation has thirty people dedicated to the Green Float project.44 Against this pessimism, one must admit that the world requires substantial scientific and technological input into the search for environmental solutions. Many climate change observers agree that conventional systems, including recycling and conservation efforts, will fall short of the needed reductions in CO2 production and other environmental threats. Accordingly, the world likely will pin its hopes on new and sustainable energy supplies and new technologies to mitigate the effects of environmental damage. Japan is greatly involved in this search for new energy and other technological solutions, and is investing heavily in frontier-edge science and innovation. Japan is not the only country thus engaged, but it remains a key player. To the degree that science and technology hold the key – or at least a significant part of the environment-saving puzzle – to energy sustainability, Japan’s investments could prove pivotal. Equally important, the dozens of leading companies, often with large and sustained financial commitments of their own, that are actively participating in these new fields are doing so in the belief that these innovations could be the foundation for Japan’s next economy. Thus, the national and corporate engagement with scientific and technological innovation is extending the promotion of Green Growth into the next generation and beyond. Japan’s long-standing fascination with emerging technologies – this is the country of Astro Boy, after all – has prepared it well for the scientific challenges of the twenty-first century. The Japanese government has invested far more in future-oriented science than have the governments of most nations, with a strong focus on alternate energy, urban design, and other environmental options. The track record for scientists working on futuristic technologies, however, is not overly impressive: the gaps between being theoretically possible, available in a prototype, and commercially viable are large and often insurmountable. Although techno-optimists believe that this is an age of scientific abundance, with

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the potential to solve all of the world’s problems, others argue that the pace of practical and impactful innovation has slowed to a crawl, throwing the prospects for real and sustained change in doubt. Japan has realized, more than most nations, that the world needs breakthrough technological transformations to address the medium- to long-term challenges facing the planet. If the country has guessed wisely, and if one or more of the transformative technologies work out, the nation’s Green Growth enterprises will benefit as they provide yet another Japanese-led global transformation.

Chapter Seven

Japanese Economic Environmentalism in Review

Governments continue to struggle with the challenge of balancing general economic well-being and business development with their environmental commitments. The promises made at the COP 21 climate change conference in Paris in 2015 carry considerable economic risks – though offset, many agree, by the possibility of averting an ecological nightmare through coordinated government action. Meeting those commitments will cost an enormous amount of money and, in the process, uproot significant parts of the global industrial economy. The prospect of lost jobs, lower standards of living, and widespread economic dislocation understandably worries political leaders around the world. Green Growth – which focuses on replacing fossil fuel energy with alternate sources or enhanced conservation efforts through the creation of new technologies and businesses – has emerged as the cornerstone of twenty-first-century environmentalism. If there was not a race already underway, the next quarter-century should see a truly intense and global effort to mobilize technology in the interest of environmental sustainability and emissions control. The government of Japan understands the desire, if not the need, to reconcile standard-of-living and quality-of-life expectations with ecological targets. As a result, the country has linked the challenge of meeting its Paris targets with specific technological innovations, most of which are based on the use of Japanese-made technologies, domestically and internationally. In its 2014 biennial report to the United Nations on actions to combat climate change, Japan stated its plan was to have “smart meters in every residence and factory by the early 2020s and 5.3 million fuel cells in homes by 2030.”1 By 2014 Japan’s home builders were incorporating solar panels and fuel cells as regular

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components of new homes. Sekisui House Ltd, a major Japanese family home builder, reports that 50 per cent of its homes now have fuel cells and over 80 per cent have solar power.2 Japan understands, in turn, that successful implementation within the country, even if subsidized and tested at government expense, could well produce next-generation export markets as the rest of the world struggles to meet its climatic obligations. As Hiroshi Komiyama has commented, “[t]hese solutions will benefit Japan directly, but moreover they can provide a model for the rest of the world, since Japan is in fact coming up against these many problems in advance of other nations; in other words, Japan is not merely an advanced nation saddled with problems, but a nation saddled with problems in advance.”3 This is, of course, the essence of Green Growth and the attempt to marry environmental commitments, economic growth, and material well-being. Green Growth presents fascinating evaluative challenges. It is not immediately obvious which industrial activities constitute “green” initiatives: solar panels clearly fit, but do incremental savings in energy consumption in heavy equipment qualify? Equally, with companies around the world racing to label their products and services as truly “green,” it is hard to give credence to all their claims. Many aspects of the modern economy – the use of the Internet, for example – have considerable environmental impact, and yet are seen as more part of the solution than of the problem. A few countries – Denmark standing out among them – have made major strides in environmental sustainability, but those with colder climates (such as Canada, Finland, and Russia) and larger areas (Canada and Russia, again, and Australia) face ecological diseconomies of scale. In this context it is impossible to claim that one country is more “green” than others, that Green Growth is more advanced in one jurisdiction than another, or that a model of economic and environmental sustainability is readily transferable to other nations. What works in Japan might not apply in China or the United States. That said, environmental technologies can transfer between nations; innovations in one country can be used in others, to the betterment of the global eco-system. But, as Denmark’s signal achievement demonstrates, real progress in one country does little – beyond signalling the potential for change in specific socio-economic settings – to solve the formidable challenges of global climate change. At the same time, there is evidence of real progress, particularly in the area of renewable energy sources. As an article in the Economist notes: “Growth rates are impressive – solar-energy generation grew by 38.2% last year, reckon statisticians at BP, an oil firm whose annual energy review came out this week. But the

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growth is from a very small base. Solar, wind and the like met 0.9% of global energy use a decade ago; that has risen to 3% now and will reach 8% by 2035, BP thinks. To make the picture brighter, costs will have to plummet. Wind offers less scope for this (bigger windmills are more efficient, but costly to make and build). Solar is what most cheers the optimist. It can work at any scale from a modest panel placed on the roof of a house to a giant array.”4 The plunge in costs is continuing, as is the increase in the installation of major solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric energy. Technology changes, public acceptance shifts, and the possibilities for sustained improvement are real, on a global scale. Japan has made significant contributions to environmental sustainability, produced numerous energy and emissions-savings products, and provided examples of selective Green Growth, based on the hope for international exports of Japanese industrial products. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, for example, “Japan accounted for around 30% of world inventions in air, water and waste management technologies over the 2000-05 period.”5 Japan has also become a leader in climate-related technology, which “can be partly explained by the increase in public expenditure for related R&D [research and development] for fuel cells, energy-efficient lighting, solar energy and bio-energy.”6 This is far from being a case of “problem solved.” With solar energy, cloudy days and nights need power from storage or from the grid. The systems need better and cheaper batteries; current products are too expensive and cannot store enough energy. The power grids themselves need to be bigger and more flexible, with greater connectivity so that power can be generated in one place and used in another. As the Economist has observed, “[t]he growth in renewable energy requires new ways to manage the distribution of electricity.”7 Germany – where 7 per cent of the electricity (as high as 50 per cent on sunny weekends) comes from solar – has worked particularly hard on this matter. The country coped with a partial solar eclipse on 20 March 2015, which at least partially addressed the concern that the sudden disruption of solar power would cause serious fluctuations that could damage the grid. Cloudy days have proved to be manageable, but power producers still must increase backup capabilities and turn off energy-intensive processes to deal with fluctuations. The eclipse offered important lessons: “An eclipse is an extreme event, but as more homes, offices and factories fit solar panels and become, in effect, mini power plants feeding surplus electricity into the grid, engineers are having to perform a similar balancing act every day. Without careful monitoring, the intermittent nature of solar power – even with the sun passing briefly in and out of clouds – can lead to

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voltage surges and drops, causing brownouts and power cuts.”8 Steady voltage is very important for digital devices. This has led such places as Australia, Hawaii, and the United Kingdom to place restrictions on new solar installations to protect power quality. Ways to maintain power quality and better storage batteries will be crucial.9 Major problems remain to be solved, providing ample challenges for researchers and companies. Although much is made of the fact that renewable generators fulfilled about 78 per cent of Germany’s domestic demand in peak season, “renewables other than hydropower still provide less than 3% of the world’s energy.” As the Economist commented in the summer of 2015, [t]he most equitable and straightforward way to move towards more low-carbon energy would be a global system of steadily escalating carbon taxes. In the absence of such an enlightened policy, though, there are other ways to encourage the spread of renewables. Removing subsidies around the world on fossil fuels is one of them. Another is increasing public investment in low-carbon energy research. Research into renewable energy, storage systems and energy transmission accounts for only about 1% of government R&D spending in rich countries. This has meant that the renewables boom of the past decade, especially in the case of wind, has been mostly a come-as-you-are affair: big subsidies for the deployment of today’s technology but very little spent on tomorrow’s.10

The list of challenges is formidable. Attention needs to be paid to the design of electricity markets, provisions for backup capacity for renewable power supplies, technology, and pricing regimes that convince people and industry to use less power when the grid is running on fossil fuels and more when it is windy or sunny. No one expects these problems to be solved in the short term, although the progress over the past twenty years has exceeded expectations. Consider one simple metric: the cost of the photovoltaic cells used in the production of solar panels. Japan has played a significant role in the research and industrial development of these cheaper solar panels. The price decline, even in the past ten years, has been impressive; systems that were extremely expensive in the mid-1970s are now commercially viable. The price of these cells, expressed in terms of dollars per watt of power, collapsed from almost US$80 per watt in 1977 to under US$1 per watt in 2013.11 The government of Shinzō Abe has begun to “vigorously promote renewable energy and efficiency. Its initiatives accelerated over the summer of 2015, and the momentum continues to increase. The measures

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include not just ample fiscal, regulatory and other policy support for renewable generation and energy-harvesting technology. The Abe regime is also investing heavily to build a renewable-based hydrogen economy as well as expand the smartgrid and district heating systems that are core network infrastructures for a low-carbon economy.”12 The goal, and it is a vital one, is to revitalize local economies through renewable and competitively priced energy while also growing sectors of the economy, increasing energy security, and contributing to the national and international effort to deal with climate change. The appropriate government agencies are on board. The Ministry of the Environment requested 62 per cent more in 2015 for renewable energy and efficiency, and requested a green taxation levy on fossils fuels to support increased spending on renewables. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has responded similarly, more than doubling its spending in the area. The prospects for Japan are significant. Most energy analysts believe the renewable share of the power mix could easily exceed the new Basic Energy Plan’s target of 22–24 per cent and reach well over 30 per cent. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry itself released a study by the Mitsubishi Research Institute that projects renewable energy supplies could reach between 33 and 35 per cent of the power mix by 2030.13 The respected Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies argues that Japan could achieve 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.14 Japan’s corporate pattern of enviro-tech innovation extends into a variety of sectors. Sanyo has in development a domestic washing machine called Aqua that uses air converted to ozone to wash clothes. Oxidization kills bacteria, breaks down dirt, and eliminates odours. Toyota’s Smart Insect new personal mobility unit is a supercompact electronic vehicle that can be connected to a Global Cloud Platform known as Toyota Smart Center to maximize energy efficiency. Panasonic’s new air conditioner, called Air Guide, has an airflow control robot that tracks people’s movements with five sensors and controls and directs airflow to maximize comfort and save energy. The company’s HIT series of solar panels have a high resistance to summer heat, and they can fit on Japanese-style rooftop ceramic tiles, using half-sized panels to fit where there is limited rooftop space. Other firms are using flexible photovoltaic cells to make panels easier to install. Mitsui Chemical has been looking at commercializing a fuel cell system powered by carbondioxide-derived methanol. This would be a way to chemically sequester CO2 and convert it into industrial ingredients. The company wants to create a high-value-added resin from the methanol. TEPCO, Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd (in association with Chubu University) and

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Mayekawa Manufacturing Co. have developed and installed superconducting cables so that electricity is not lost in during transmission. (Normally almost 5 per cent of the electricity generated in Japan is lost in transmission.) Liquid nitrogen is used to cool the core and make the cable superconducting. I-Miev, an electronic vehicle, has an automated charge function that allows the batteries to charge only at night, when power is cheaper. Charging at night could reduce operating costs of the i-Miev to one-tenth of the cost of a gasoline car Patents have long been a strong indication – imperfect, to be sure – of national innovation performance. Although most patents do not result in viable products, they illustrate the collective effort of a nation’s scientists and entrepreneurs in building business opportunities. A review of selected patent fields provides an excellent indication of the priority that Japanese researchers, companies, and funding agencies attach to certain fields of environmental technologies (see Figures 7.1–7.4). In each sector, Japan is among the world’s leaders, if it is not already dominant in the field.

Figure 7.1. Energy-efficiency Building and Lighting Patent Applications, Selected Countries, 2001–11 Japan China

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Figure 7.2. Emissions Abatement & Fuel Efficiency in Transportation Patent Applications, Selected Countries, 2001–11 Japan

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Figure 7.3. Energy Generation from Renewable and Non-fossil Sources Patent Applications, Selected Countries, 2001–11 United States China

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Figure 7.4. General Waste Management Patent Applications, Selected Countries, 2001–11 United States

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That Japan has made such a strong and consistent investment in environmental technologies reflects many interests: the desire to sustain national prosperity and global competitiveness, a shared global concern about climate change, and a realization of Japan’s unique ecological vulnerability. A major reason for working towards an ecologically resilient future is the fact that the country has enormous risk exposure. As mentioned earlier, the disaster risk for the whole country and particularly the Tokyo-Yokohama region is extremely high.15 With climate change ushering in an era of unprecedented ecological transition and, with it, much greater and more unpredictable storm action, Japan will find itself increasingly at risk. Indeed, as Table 7.1 shows, half of the cost

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Table 7.1. Top Ten Countries Expected to Suffer Economic Losses from Increased Storm Strength by 2090 Country

Estimated economic loss (US$ billions)

Japan

4,500

China

1,250

South Korea

1,000

Taiwan

1,000

United States

800

Hong Kong

250

Philippines

240

Mexico

230

Vietnam

150

Thailand

100

Source: J. Spross, “Why Tropical Storm Vongfong May Just Be the Beginning for Japan,” ThinkProgress, 12 October 2014, available online at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/ 2014/10/12/3579143/vongfong-japan-storm-losses/.

of the world’s storm damage over the rest of this century is expected to occur on the Japanese archipelago. If Japan did not have sufficient motivation based solely on business and material interests to tie a substantial portion of its economic future to environmental technologies, simple self-interest is clearly relevant. It is therefore hardly surprising that Japan has embraced the belief that the commercialization of environmental technologies holds the key to the nation’s future. Japan has undertaken an aggressive Green Growth agenda without, however, creating an official or sustained strategy for ecologically based transformation. Along with a handful of other countries – Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and, in some respects, the United States – Japan has sought to marry sustainable environmental targets with technology-based development and trade. The country is doing well in selected sectors, and has secured substantial government, business, and consumer engagement with its sustainability initiatives. Climate change is a truly “wicked” problem with no simple solution and no easy way to track the effectiveness of a specific technology, policy, or regulation. An effective emissions-control agenda requires both concerted

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national action and large-scale global engagement, if only for the obvious reason that one country’s actions will never be sufficient to halt and reverse climate change. It is impossible to argue, therefore, that Japan has achieved Green Growth, that the country’s package of regulations, subsidies, technological innovations, and programs is the “right” program for Japan or the world as a whole, or that the current strategies will produce both ecological sustainability and economic prosperity. Japan is driven forward by its unique set of vulnerabilities: shortages of non-renewable energy, the high potential for future disasters, the need for energy security, the need to protect its high national standard of living, and the challenges of reformatting its industrial establishment for environmentally based manufacturing and development. What can be said is that Japan has done more than most countries, and has presented other national governments with a model for balancing ecological aspirations with economic ambitions. Key Elements of Japan’s Approach to Green Growth Japan’s approach to green growth has several key elements. A high level of motivation provided by Japan’s unique energy and environmental vulnerabilities: Japan lives on the knife-edge in many respects, in terms of both economic and natural vulnerabilities. There is a general appreciation for the risks associated with sudden change – an earthquake or an oil shock – and a deep societal desire to be well prepared. The triple tragedies of March 2011 served as a huge motivator for the country, spurring a reconsideration of the reliance on nuclear power, encouraging support for alternate energy sources, and reminding government and people alike of Japan’s vulnerability. The very high risk of future earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters has made Japan acutely aware of how disasters interrupt energy supplies and transportation networks. This has ingrained a desire for local resilience and assurance that energy and other essential items can be supplied from nearby. The country has long known that it has to prepare for the future with care and with a view to solid and reliable technological solutions. Corporate engagement: Leadership in Japan does not come solely and sometimes not even primarily through the political process. Major corporations, among the world’s largest and most technologically astute, have long invested heavily in new technologies and future-oriented

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developments. They have been leading many industrial sectors globally in the search for more ecologically sound and commercially viable solutions. Long-term government commitment: The government of Japan tends to think in multigenerational terms, an approach supported by the longterm dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party. The government has invested substantial amounts of money, over a long time, on projects with remote payoffs. The emphasis on the long term has allowed for more risky and uncertain scientific investments, sustained by the country’s general enthusiasm for futuristic solutions. Corporate-government alignment: The often close cooperation between business and government in Japan routinely includes major joint research funding, consumer subsidies, and regulatory advantages, providing an excellent foundation for innovation and the development of green technology. A high level of experimentation: Japan has long been well disposed to experimentation, a consumer-based approach that helped launch portable computers, the video game industry, and the mobile phone. The openness to new technologies and even radical scientific initiatives should stand the country in good stead as efforts are made to consider new energy sources and conservation efforts. Government funding to stimulate consumer purchasing and engagement: Japan’s version of the Asian development state model has long relied on sizable government investment to support emerging businesses and to encourage companies to adjust to new markets and consumer opportunities. The effective use of subsidies in the solar panel industry, for example, demonstrated the constructive interventions by government to convince companies to move into an area of broader societal importance. Multilevel government engagement: Much is made of Japan’s unitary government and its powerful central administration. The role of prefectural and municipal administrations is given less attention. On the environmental front, in Japan and many other countries, subnational governments are often among the most innovative and action oriented. That is certainly the case in Japan, where communities such as Kitakyushu, Osaka, and Yokohama have played a leading role on both the environmental and environmental technology fronts. Although Green Growth is an amorphous concept, with only vague connections between sustainability initiatives and business development, Japan offers a significant number of direct and obvious efforts to link environmental strategies and domestic and international business

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development. These explicit connections have helped build collective understanding of the potential – and actual – relationships between economic well-being and environmental sustainability. Lessons from Japan’s Experience with Green Growth

Broad insights This examination of Japan’s foray into the complicated world of Green Growth offers preliminary but, one hopes, useful insights into the global effort to connect sustainability and technological innovations. Consider, for example, the specific lessons associated with national innovation strategies. Urgency: Green Growth is like national innovation on steroids, increasingly carrying the weight of the prospects for future ecological sustainability and material well-being on its shoulders. The standard approaches to national innovation, which focus on incremental and directional change, pale in comparison to the globe-saving expectations aligned with Green Growth. The evaluation of impact: The study of national innovation lends itself to fairly simple metrics of inputs (research funding, government subsidies, development policies) and outputs (patents, new products, new companies, incremental jobs, national income). Green Growth, in contrast, combines the standard metrics of national innovation with a much broader set of criteria: social acceptance, behavioural change, energy and other material savings, improvements to quality of life, emissions reductions, and the like. Understanding the full impact of Green Growth and attributing causation to a specific action, technology, or innovation can be extremely difficult. Focused innovation: In national innovation strategies, government takes a broad approach that seeks to transform economic development and commercialization in general. With Green Growth, government avoids this comprehensive approach, focusing instead on elements that reflect priorities of ecological sustainability and climate change. Previously, then, Green Growth was a subset, and often a small one, of national innovation strategies. Now, as in the case of Japan, the balance has shifted. Green Growth embodies national and global priorities to environmental protection. It is a case of the child outgrowing the parent, with Green Growth attracting a growing share of funding, attention, and future-building.

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Specific insights Japan, like all nations, is unique. What works – or fails – in Japan will not necessarily work – or fail – in another country. Several aspects of Japan’s initiatives, however, provide useful lessons for other jurisdictions contemplating Green Growth strategies. Incremental environmental standards: Japan put in place regulations that encourage or even require continuous improvement. This approach appears to work. The Top Runner Program for the development of energy-efficient appliances sets a continually moving bar, based on the most efficient model commercially available. These targets are adjusted every three to ten years as companies improve their technologies and applications. Analysts agree that this approach is better than applying the usual “minimum acceptable” standard. Long-term research and development: Although addressing climate changes requires substantial private sector engagement, the participation of government is essential. Many of the key technological and environmental issues require long-term R&D. Governments play a crucial role in maintaining and supporting major research facilities, thus ensuring that scientific and technological professionals can continue to improve the effectiveness of existing technologies and seek longer-term solutions to ongoing environmental concerns. Similarly, governments can play a critical role in coordinating research activities across national boundaries, thus maximizing the global impact of scientific discoveries and developments. Government leadership: Government action is key to setting and funding an economic agenda. Governments set the tone, in terms of community action, business development, and national policy. Japan provides ample evidence of the broad range of tools at a government’s disposal to use towards the development of Green Growth. The Japanese government has led a national innovation strategy with an environmental focus for more than two decades, through a combination of priority setting, regulations, standards, and the investment of substantial amounts of money. In many instances the strategy has worked; other actions have been less successful. The government’s publicly funded and supported research into risky long-term technologies can be seen as a success. Japan can point to numerous examples of projects seeded two or three decades ago, such as LED lighting and solar panels, that are showing substantial benefits in the early twenty-first century. For almost twenty years, Japan has

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been a dominant producer of patents in all areas of environmental technologies. As a result, Japanese companies are key players in many of the smart grid and smart city technologies likely to be of great significance in the coming years. On the other hand, strong support for the nuclear industry – backed by a belief, which some both inside and outside Japan still share, that nuclear energy would be Japan’s answer to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and maintaining energy security – limited the Japanese government’s interest in and support for renewable energy with the exception of solar. Even with solar, some argue that cutting the consumer solar panel subsidy in 2005 sent the wrong signal to the market and contributed significantly to Japanese companies’ rapid loss of global market dominance. The government has been successful at promoting broad public and corporate participation in energy conservation and green living through a range of initiatives, including the Team Minus 6% campaign (2006–08), various product labelling systems, Eco-Points programs, and strict recycling and energy conservation laws. Cool Biz, a component of the Team Minus 6% campaign, remains in place years later. Similarly the Japanese government has played a major role as a first purchaser of environmental technologies, thereby creating a market and allowing producers to reach economies of scale. Governments generally, and the Japanese government specifically, play a central role in the development and maintenance of key infrastructure, including feed-in tariff regulations, electronic and hydrogen vehicle infrastructure, and smart city trials. Equally important, governments are creating and sustaining regulatory environments, putting the rules in place to ensure that companies and the public obey government edicts regarding anti-pollution measures and recycling. On Green Growth initiatives, governments matter. The role of municipalities: National governments are central to major Green Growth initiatives, but subnational authorities also play important roles. In Japan’s case, major municipalities have been at the forefront of the Green Growth movement. As they watched local firms founder in the changing economy, local governments have supported new economy initiatives. These governments also have realized that transformative ecological initiatives, such as electric vehicles (EVs), require local infrastructure to succeed. Municipal and regional authorities, moreover, are better able than the national government to make effective and sustainable connections with local populations. This

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pattern is not unique to Japan; some of the most successful American environmental initiatives are rooted in municipal settings. Economic growth trumps environmental sustainability: Political realities have to be taken into account. Green Growth is predicated on seeking a balance between environmental and economic considerations. But governments live in the “here and now”: they have to keep the lights on, the trains running, and the economy expanding. The Japanese example shows that governments still see their first priority as achieving economic growth and producing jobs. Japan’s 2016 decision to open more than forty coal-fired power plants in the coming decades and its lukewarm GHG emissions-reduction targets are further indications that, despite major corporate and government efforts on the environmental side, ensuring economic growth remains the top national priority. Unpredictability: Japan’s experience demonstrates that there is no easy path to environmental sustainability and enviro-tech innovation. Some technologies, such as nuclear fusion, remain unproven. Others, such as space-based power, remain on the design table, holding promise for fifty to a hundred years from now. Not all plans and products work. As Japan has discovered, it is best to prepare for disappointment and not to be deterred by failure. The major investment in EV taxis, for example, did not work out as planned: taxis used more electricity than anticipated, keeping the vehicles heated for passengers used even more, and recharging took longer than expected. Although the taxi experiment was something of a disappointment, it also helped identify areas for additional R&D, likely contributing to greater success in the long run. The creation of subsidies for solar power helped launch and accelerate the commercialization of solar panels and domestic photovoltaic systems in Japan, but the premature removal of the subsidies had a sharply negative impact on the industry, resulting in a sharp decline in Japan's global market share and subsequent loss of industry leadership. Put simply, there is no easy, obvious, or assured path to the commercial viability of Japanese enviro-tech, the social acceptance of new technologies, or even the environmental effectiveness of the latest development. The race to address environmental sustainability is an uncertain, at best, and certainly unpredictable. The weight of existing industries: Substantial risks are associated with the pressures of incumbent industries. Japan, like other industrial nations, has a considerable industrial infrastructure, much of it tied to “old economy” firms. These industries resist change for the obvious reason that Green Growth portrays them as the “enemy,” rather than

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as the solution to long-term economic well-being. Japan has made great efforts, as in the automobile industry, to marry old and new industries to mitigate against large-scale dislocations. The importance of symbolism: Japan does not underestimate the importance of symbolism in formulating its environmental strategies. When Tokyo hosts the Summer Olympics in 2020, all of the medals awarded will have been manufactured from recycled cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic devices. Organizers have launched a national campaign to collect the two million used devices that will be needed. This approach will encourage recycling on a national scale, and draw international attention to the reuse of discarded electronics. For the Japanese government, and going back to the days of Prime Minister Koizumi and the Team Minus 6% strategy, such high-profile, symbolic acts have been important in shaping public opinion and changing personal behaviour on the environmental front. Betting on Green Growth It is increasingly evident that the world has to cut its GHG emissions, that developing countries are likely to begin using more renewable energy, and countries that dominate the production of these goods are creating an economic sector that will be profitable for the foreseeable future. Japan, China, Germany, and the United States are the main players. By betting on a sector and betting early, these countries are more invested in the economic outcome of the global ecological effort. In various ways and to differing degrees, they have committed themselves to Green Growth strategies, the outcome of which will not be clear for several decades. Green Growth has made the transition, in less than a generation, from a niche strategy for innovative governments and entrepreneurs to a national and global approach for both ecological redemption and the maintenance and improvement of material well-being. By positioning sponsoring nations at the balance point between major environmental commitments and the ability to sustain a high standard of living, Green Growth policies are designed to respond to the widely shared belief in the urgent need to address climate change without losing citizenpleasing jobs, economic well-being, and business development. Japan, an early experimenter with environmental technologies and now a key nation in the pursuit of Green Growth, is demonstrating both the possibilities and the limitations of the concept. The country’s

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returns have been impressive in some quarters, in terms of both the development of new products and significant reductions in energy use and emissions. Japan’s experience shows, however, that Green Growth is expensive, difficult to export, long term in nature, hard to measure, and uncertain as to its cumulative impact. In this book I did not set out to prove or to argue that Japan’s effort to combine environmental technologies, business development, and ecological improvements was exemplary. There are as yet no national metrics for Green Growth nor has there been sufficient time to demonstrate the effectiveness and longevity of these policies and initiatives. At its most extreme, Green Growth represents the “last cannon shot” of the industrial world, an “all or nothing” gamble on the ability of technological innovation to save the planet and preserve economic well-being and social stability. Japan has not come close to approaching this extreme position. Green Growth is, at best, an increasingly important item in the governmental toolbox as Japan seeks to meet its global environmental obligations and restart a long-stagnant economy. Japan’s Green Growth experience, while mixed and still in its early stages, suggests there are reasons for optimism provided the nation continues to mobilize government, business, and the scientific research community in a coordinated, urgent, ecological variant of a national innovation strategy. Put simply, the outcome of Japan’s Green Growth efforts remains to be seen, but they represent a good-faith, sustained, and forward-looking strategy to reconcile the well-being of the citizenry, the need for economic stability, and the prospect (if not yet the reality) of reducing GHG emissions and addressing the serious consequences of global climate change. The Quadruple Helix: Green Japan and National Innovation Systems Green Growth represents a crucial shift in the nature and potential impact of national innovation systems. Over the past forty years governments, academic research institutions, and the private sector have capitalized on the technological and economic potential of the scientific revolution to transform societies and create new businesses and whole fields of employment. Green Growth represents both an extensive and a fundamental transformation of national innovation systems. National Innovation Systems (NIS), as various scholars have documented over the past 40 years,16 started as an extension of national industrial policies. Collectively, NIS built off existing structures for

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national economic planning and development, added intensely scientific and technological elements, and provided an intellectual framework for the creation of “new economy” systems and approaches. NIS scholarship focuses primarily on the so-called Triple Helix: the government-academic-industry interface. The focus is on the ability to commercialize scientific and technological innovations and thereby create additional wealth and employment. This effort has attracted global attention and billions of dollars in investment. Governments have underwritten the cost of educating millions more university students globally. Universities and research units have expanded, and funding for basic research and commercialization has exploded. This innovation system approach has stimulated a great deal of “new economy” thinking by national governments and business groups. NIS strategies have produced major innovations (wireless Internet) and large-scale investments (global fibre-optic networks), some of which (social media) are of mixed societal value and others (such as advances in medical technologies) that are of clear benefit to society at large. The NIS system, as constituted and operationalized in the years before Green Growth emerged as a priority, drew on the work of scientific and technological researchers for inspiration, mobilizing government regulations and funding, and encouraging business connections. Importantly, NIS has not relied upon input from the public at large to define priorities or set the political agenda. For the most part, the small group of scholars advocating Green Growth are focusing on the key and traditional elements of national innovation systems. They emphasize the standard model of government investment in science and technology, academic research in basic sciences, and government- and business-supported efforts at commercialization. In other words, Green Growth is presented primarily as a theme or strand of general innovation policies, and not substantially different in nature and extent from NIS strategies. Japan’s Green Growth experience modifies this conception of NIS in important ways. The country has demonstrated a new and expanded conception of NIS that can be understood as a “Quadruple Helix.” The Triple Helix is the classic, expert-driven, top-down approach to economic development. It leaves the work to the technocrats (government), the scientists (the academy), and the commercializers (business/ industry). It assumes that fuelling this system, primarily through government investment and subsidies, ensures that beneficial economic growth follows. Broadly speaking, the NIS approach has produced

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billions of dollars in government and private sector investments and some useful outcomes, but not what was expected or promised. The Quadruple Helix, however, adds a fourth strand representing societal expectations and needs. In this approach the primary impulse for rapid change comes from society at large – an element that is missing in nanotech, biotech, genetic engineering, and even information tech, and exists only minimally in the educational and medical innovation sectors. With Green Growth the impetus for change originates in societal and even global concerns about human-caused climate and ecological change. Society wants answers; it expects governments, researchers, and the business community to produce viable solutions. Green Growth comes, similarly, from the broad desire to have positive and constructive changes that do not destroy jobs or undermine economic activity overall. Green Growth, then, is mainly an assignment given to government, researchers, and business by society at large, in contrast to the traditional NIS approach that focuses on science-andtechnology-driven or laboratory-based innovations that seek commercial markets. One of the best illustrations of the Green Growth approach is the Japanese government’s “backcasting” concept, whereby the process does not begin in the laboratory; rather, society is asked to define its preferred future. This redefinition – in Japan’s case, focusing on environmental sustainability, improvements to the quality of life (particularly for the elderly), and low-impact lifestyles – then becomes the target that defines government investments, research priorities, and state-supported corporate subsidies. In this conception, which is central to Japan’s approach to innovation, social priorities take an equal, if not pre-eminent, role alongside scientific impact, government policies, and business needs. Japan’s NIS has become, in effect, a Quadruple Helix in the area of environmental technologies. Final Thoughts Japan is not an ecologically ideal nation. It does not have Green Growth down to a political or economic art form. It has made major investments in scientific and technological innovation, but with the same uneven results as other nations that have been tackling environmental technologies and new energy. The country’s businesses have created some crucial innovations that have attracted international attention, but the general public would know of few of them. Japanese politicians have been more cautious than environmental activists would hope and, in

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some areas – such as the construction of new coal-burning plants – even backward. The government of Japan does not hold itself up, even for domestic political purposes, as a paragon of Green Growth achievement. The evolution of Green Growth strategies and investments in Japan reflects a domestic variant of a global effort by national governments to bring together two vital elements: the search for environmental sustainability and the pursuit of continued economic growth, with the attendant employment and business opportunities. Japan has done more than other nations, but Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, South Korea, and Denmark have also made a determined effort to show that future prosperity and ecological protection can go hand-in-hand. Politically it seems clear that, globally, the pursuit of prosperity takes precedence over environmental protection, even in the face of mounting evidence about the impact of climate change. In short, the core political determination needed to propel real Green Growth – that urgent action is required to protect the world from environmental catastrophe – is lacking. Instead, governments are using strict regulations or environmental controls to achieve national objectives and attempting to demonstrate that environmental technologies can find sizable markets and profitability on their own merits. The absence of a full national commitment to Green Growth, in Japan and elsewhere, reflects the uneven public support for a comprehensive commitment to a reformation of national and global economic strategies. Japan’s initiatives show what is possible, and illustrate that even solid ideas can fail to produce sustainable results. Preventing and reversing climate change will require exceptional technological innovation and creativity in public policy. Creating a parallel or integrated economic system that focuses primarily on environmental impact, rather than on profitability, remains an elusive goal, in Japan as elsewhere. To a degree that is largely unrealized, the economic and ecological fate of humanity may be determined by the success or failure of Green Growth strategies. Although the evidence of future success is unclear, at best, Japan’s many initiatives and programs offer reasons for optimism and important possibilities that link environmental sustainability and continued prosperity.

Notes

Introduction 1 A. DeWit, “Japan’s Resilient, Decarbonizing and Democratic Smart Communities,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 12, issue 50, no. 3 (2014): 11. 2 C. McKenna, The House, CBC Radio, 19 December 2015. 3 For a global overview, see P. Ekins, Green Growth and Sustainability: The Prospects for Green Growth (London: Routledge, 2002); S. Hallegatte et al., “From Growth to Green Growth: A Framework,” NBER Working Paper 17841 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012); M. Jacobs, “Green Growth: Economic Theory and Political Discourse,” Working Paper 108 (London: Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, 2012); M. Jänicke, “‘Green Growth’: From a Growing Eco-industry to Economic Sustainability,” Energy Policy 48 (September 2012): 13–21; and S. Lorek and J.H. Spangenberg, “Sustainable Consumption within a Sustainable Economy: Beyond Green Growth and Green Economies,” Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014): 33–44. For a useful site that provides national background information on Green Growth strategy and regularly updated information on the subject, see the Global Green Growth Institute at http://gggi.org/. On South Korea’s Green Growth strategy, see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Green Growth in Action: Korea” (Paris: OECD, 2016), available online at http://www.oecd.org/korea/ greengrowthinactionkorea.htm; also useful is J. Sonnenschein and L. Mundaca, “Decarbonization under Green Growth Strategies? The Case of South Korea,” Journal of Cleaner Production 123 (June 2016): 180–93. Germany has extensive initiatives in this area; see, for example, R. Buehler et al., “How Germany Became Europe’s Green Leader: A Look at Four Decades

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Notes to page 6 of Sustainable Policymaking,” Solutions Journal 2, no. 5 (2011): 51–63; U. Lehr, C. Lutz, and D. Edler, “Green Jobs? Economic Impacts of Renewable Energy in Germany,” Energy Policy 47 (August 2012): 358–64; and R. Wüstenhagen and M. Bilharz, “Green Energy Market Development in Germany: Effective Public Policy and Emerging Customer Demand,” Energy Policy 34 (September 2006): 1681–96. Israel also has interesting initiatives; see the useful overview in Israel, Ministry of Environmental Protection, “Green Growth: Connecting the Economy and the Environment in Israel” ([Jerusalem], April 2014), available online at http://www.sviva.gov.il/InfoServices/ReservoirInfo/ DocLib2/Publications/P0701-P0800/P0744.pdf. For Sweden, see the overview at Green Growth Knowledge Platform, “Sweden” (Geneva, 2016), available online at http://www.greengrowth knowledge.org/country/sweden. Canada does not have a national Green Growth strategy; see Green Growth Knowledge Platform, “Canada” (Geneva, 2016), available online at http://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/country/canada. The province of Ontario is the strongest advocate of Green Growth in Canada; see Ontario, Ministry of Finance, “Jobs for Today and Tomorrow, 2016 Ontario Budget: Investing in the Low-Carbon Economy” (Toronto, 2016), available online at http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/budget/ ontariobudgets/2016/bk4.pdf. For China, see Manish Bapna, “A Golden Opportunity for China to Embrace Green Growth” (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 16 March 2014), available online at http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/03/ golden-opportunity-china-embrace-green-growth; and OECD, “Green Growth in Action: China” (Paris: OECD, 2016), available online at http:// www.oecd.org/china/greengrowthinactionchina.htm. On Thailand, see Green Growth Knowledge Platform, “Thailand” (Geneva, 2016), available online at http://www.greengrowthknowledge .org/country/thailand. For Green Growth in Indonesia, see J. Jupesta et al., “Managing the Transition to Sustainability in an Emerging Economy: Evaluating Green Growth Policies in Indonesia,” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 1, no. 2 (2011): 187–91; see also Global Green Growth Institute, “Indonesia” (Seoul, n.d.), available online at http://gggi.org/indonesia -green-growth-planning/. On India, see World Bank, “India: Green Growth – Overcoming Environment Challenges to Promote Development” (Washington, DC, 6 March 2014), available online at http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/

Notes to pages 14−16

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feature/2014/03/06/green-growth-overcoming-india-environment -challenges-promote-development?cid=SAR_TTWBSAREN_EXT; Green Growth Knowledge Platform, “Initiative on Green Growth and Development in India” (Geneva, 2016), available online at http://www .greengrowthknowledge.org/project/initiative-green-growth-and -development-india; and Global Green Growth Institute, “Green Growth and Sustainable Development in India: Towards the 2030 Development Agenda” (Seoul, November 2015), available online at http://www.teriin.org/projects/ green/pdf/National_SPM.pdf. 1. Techno-environmentalism: Making Science and Technology Work for Society 1 C. Freeman, Technology Policy and Economic Performance: Lessons from Japan (London: Pinter Press, 1987). 2 C. Freeman, “Technological Infrastructure and International Competitiveness” (Draft paper submitted to the OECD ad hoc group on Science, Technology and Competitiveness, Paris, August 1982). 3 OECD, “Investment for Green Growth” (Paris, 2016), available online at http://www.oecd.org/investment/green.htm. 4 J. Zysman and M. Huberty, “Religion and Reality in the Search for Green Growth,” Intereconomics 47, no. 3 (2012): 140. 5 Jänicke, “‘Green Growth,’ ” 14. 6 M.A. Schreurs, “Breaking the Impasse in the International Climate Negotiations: The Potential of Green Technologies,” Energy Policy 48 (September 2012): 6. 7 Bloomberg New Energy Finance, “Clean Energy Investment: End of Year 2016” (n.p., 2017), 1, available online at https://about.bnef.com/clean -energy-investment/. 8 United Kingdom, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Low Carbon Environmental Goods and Services (LCEGS): Report for 2011/12 (London, July 2013). 9 Jänicke, “‘Green Growth,’ ” 16. 10 See, for example, United Nations Environment Programme, “Towards a Green Economy: A Synthesis for Policy Makers” (New York, 2011); and World Bank, “Moving to a Green Growth Approach to Development” (Washington, DC, 2011). 11 R. Schmalensee, “From ‘Green Growth’ to Sound Policies: An Overview,” Energy Economics 34, suppl. 1 (November 2012): S3. 12 See, for example, T. Machiba, “Eco-innovation for Enabling Resource Efficiency and Green Growth: Development of an Analytical Framework

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18

19

20 21 22 23

24

25 26

27

Notes to pages 17−23 and Preliminary Analysis of Industry and Policy Practices,” International Economics and Economic Policy 7, no. 2 (2010): 358. Jänicke, “‘Green Growth,’ ” 19. OECD, “Declaration on Green Growth” (Paris, 25 June 2009), available online at http://www.oecd.org/env/44077822.pdf. Ibid. OECD, Towards Green Growth (Paris, May 2011), 146, available online at http://www.oecd.org/env/towards-green-growth-9789264111318-en.htm. OECD, “Global Forum on Environment on Eco-Innovation: Documents and Background Papers” (Paris, 2016), available online at http://www .oecd.org/env/consumption-innovation/oecdglobalforumonenvironment oneco-innovation.htm. United States, White House, “Remarks by the President on the Importance of Passing a Historic Energy Bill” (Washington, DC, 25 June 2009), available online at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/ remarks-president-importance-passing-a-historic-energy-bill. K. Burkhart, “UN climate talks in focus at Davos forum,” Tck Tck Tck: The Global Call for Climate Action (28 January 2011), available online at http:// tcktcktck.org/2011/01/un-climate-talks-in-focus-at-davos-forum/#sthash. h8YIVj7Q.dpuf. E. Barbier, Rethinking the Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal (Geneva: United Nations Environment Programme, April 2009). Jänicke, “‘Green Growth,’ ” 13. See, for example, M. Yamazaki, “Hopes and fears for the future of science,” Yomiuri Shimbun, 20 April 2015. J. Yellen, “Normalizing Monetary Policy: Prospects and Perspectives” (speech at “The New Normal Monetary Policy” conference, San Francisco, 27 March 2015), available online at http://www.federalreserve .gov/newsevents/speech/yellen20150327a.htm. P. Victor, “Exploring Alternative Economic Futures: A Zero Growth Economy” (presentation at “Re-examining Japan in a Global Context,” Tokyo, 26 May 2015), available online at http://www.suntory.com/sfnd/ jgc/forum/008/pdf/008.pdf. L. Elliott, “Can a dose of recession solve climate change?” Guardian, 25 August 2008. S. Borghesis et al., “Environmental Innovation and Socio-economic Dynamics in Institutional and Policy Contexts,” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 23, no. 2 (2013): 241. Ibid., 242.

Notes to pages 23−6

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28 P. Aghion, D. Hemous, and R. Veugelers, “No Green Growth without Innovation,” Bruegel Policy Brief 2009/07 (Brussels: Bruegel, November 2009), 1. 29 Ibid., 2. 30 Zysman and Huberty, “Religion and Reality,” 140. 31 Ibid., 143. 32 Ibid., 146. 33 S. Zadek, “Reshaping the Political (Green) Economy,” Journal of Corporate Citizenship 51 (September 2013): 5. 34 Ibid., 12. 35 J. Reilly, “Achieving a Low-Carbon Society,” Climate Policy 13, suppl. 1 (2013): S155. 36 M. Jänicke, quoted in Ernst & Young Environment and Sustainability Services and RDC-Environment, Eco-Industry, Its Size, Employment, Perspectives and Barriers to Growth in an Enlarged EU (Brussels: European Commission, June 2006), 48. 37 Ibid. 38 G. Huppes et al., Measuring Eco-innovation: Framework and Typology of Indicators based on Causal Chains: Final Report of the ECODRIVE Project (Leiden, Netherlands, 6 March 2008), 4. 39 Ibid., 29. 40 Machiba, “Eco-innovation.” 41 P. Ekins, “Eco-innovation for Environmental Sustainability: Concepts, Progress and Policies,” International Economics and Economic Policy 7, no. 2 (2010): 268. 42 S. Zadek, “Reshaping the Political Green Economy,” in Global and Corporate Citizenship: The Alternative Gaze: A Collection of Seminal Essays, ed. Malcolm McIntosh (Saltaire, UK: Greenleaf, 2015), 239. 43 A. de Serres, F. Murtin, and G. Nicoletti, “A Framework for Assessing Green Growth Policies,” OECD Economics Department Working Papers 774 (Paris: OECD, 2010), 13. 44 OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, OECD Green Growth Studies (Paris: OECD, 2011), 9. 45 Ibid., 11. 46 A. Jordan, R. Wurzel, and A. Zito, eds., “New” Instruments of Environmental Governance? National Experiences and Prospects (London: Cass, 2003). 47 Ekins, “Eco-innovation,” 287. 48 Ibid., 276. 49 Ibid.

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Notes to pages 26−32

50 S. Fankhauser, “A Practitioner’s Guide to a Low-Carbon Economy: Lessons from the UK,” Climate Policy 13, no. 3 (2013): 345–62. 51 Ibid., 345. 52 Ibid., 346. 53 Ibid., 347. 54 de Serres, Murtin, and Nicoletti, “Framework for Assessing Green Growth Policies,” 15. 55 Ibid., 5. 56 Ibid., 6–7. 57 Ibid., 29. 58 Ibid., 25. 59 P. Aghion, R. Veugelers, and C. Serre, “Cold Start for the Green Innovation Machine,” Bruegel Policy Contribution 2009/12 (Brussels: Bruegel, November 2009), 1. 60 Ibid., 5. 61 Ibid., 6. 62 Ibid., 7. 63 F. Oosterhuis, ed., Innovation Dynamics Induced by Environmental Policy: Final Report (Amsterdam: Institute for Environmental Studies, November 2006), v. 64 Ibid., vii. 65 Ibid., 13. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid., 16. 68 Schreurs, “Breaking the Impasse,” 7. 69 M. Okano-Heijmans, “Japan’s ‘Green’ Economic Diplomacy: Environmental and Energy Technology and Foreign Relations,” Pacific Review 25, no. 3 (2012): 339. 70 A. DeWit, “Japan’s Bid to Become a World Leader in Renewable Energy,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 13, issue 39, no. 2 (2015): 1–20. 71 See DeWit, “Japan’s Resilient”; and “Tokyo, Yokohama declared cities at highest risk of natural disaster by Swiss insurance company,” Japan Today, 2 April 2014, available online at http://www.japantoday.com/category/ national/view/tokyo-yokohama-declared-cities-at-highest-risk-of-natural -disaster-by-swiss-insurance-company. 72 A. DeWit, “Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience as Structural Reform in Abenomics,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 13, issue 1, no. 3 (2015): 6. 73 Nippon Keidanren, “Achieving Growth through Green Innovation: Proposals for Japan’s New Growth Strategy and Other Initiatives in the Environmental Sector” (Tokyo, 16 March 2010), available online at https://www.keidanren.or.jp/english/policy/2010/019.html.

Notes to pages 32−47

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74 “Survey shows that Japanese emphasize environment over higher standard of living,” Japan Echo, Information Bulletin 3 (2 June 1995), available online at http://web-japan.org/trends95/3.html. 75 NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, “‘Concerns’ over the Environment in the Light of Awareness of Burdens and Actions” (Tokyo, April 2011), available online at http://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/English/ reports/summary/201104/02.html. 76 Y. Saito, “The Japanese Appreciation of Nature,” British Journal of Aesthetics 25, no. 3 (1985): 239–51. 77 M. Garrett, ed., Encyclopedia of Transportation: Social Science and Policy, vol. 1 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014), 397. 78 D. Engler, “Is Japan a Leader in Combating Global Warming? The WindPower Problem,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 6, issue 5 (2008): 1. 79 OECD, OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Japan, 2010 (Paris: OECD, 2010), 51. 80 K. Urashima, “Current Science and Technology Policy in Japan” (presentation to the Japan Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference, Saskatoon, 3–6 October 2013). 81 Okano-Heijmans, “Japan’s ‘Green’ Economic Diplomacy,” 346. 82 I. Capozza. “Greening Growth in Japan,” OECD Environment Working Papers 28 (Paris: OECD, 2011), 12. 83 Ibid., 7. 84 Ibid., 3. 85 Schreurs, “Breaking the impasse,” 11. 86 K. Lang, “Japan’s Green Growth Strategy – On/Off” (Powerpoint presentation, 7 November 2014), available online at http://www.grips .ac.jp/teacher/oono/hp/course/student_slides/2014/konstanze_green .pdf. 87 Japan, Cabinet Secretariat, National Policy Unit, “Rebirth of Japan: A Comprehensive Strategy” (slide presentation, [Tokyo], 8 August 2012), slide 10, available online at http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/npu/ pdf/20120821/20120821_en.pdf. 88 Ibid. 2. Environmental Sacrifice: Japan’s Economic-Environmental History 1 C. Totman, Japan: An Environmental History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 262–3. 2 S. Avenell, “From Fearsome Pollution to Fukushima: Environmental Activism and the Nuclear Blind Spot in Contemporary Japan,” Environmental History 17, no. 2 (2012): 244.

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Notes to pages 47−52

3 Ibid., 428–9. 4 M.A. Schreurs, Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 39. 5 Ibid., 40. 6 Ibid., 41. 7 Totman, Japan, 259–60. 8 See the Toyama Prefectural Itai-itai Museum website, at http://www.pref .toyama.jp/branches/1291/lang/english/index.html. 9 D. Allchin, “The Poisoning of Minamata,” ShiPS Teachers’ Network (n.d.), available online at http://shipseducation.net/ethics/minamata.htm. 10 A.L. Jenks, Perils of Progress: Environmental Disasters in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pearson, 2011), 30. 11 Ibid., 29. 12 “Central government, prefecture not responsible for mercury poisoning, court rules,” Japan Times, 24 March 2015. 13 Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Bluebook 2014 (Tokyo, 2014), 35. 14 S. Avenell, “Japan’s Long Environmental Sixties and the Birth of a Green Leviathan,” Japanese Studies 32, no. 3 (2012): 425. 15 T. Miyauchi, “Pursuing the Sociological Study of Environmental Governance in Japan: An Introduction to the Special Issue,” International Journal of Japanese Sociology 15, no. 1 (2006): 2–6. 16 Schreurs, Environmental Politics, 38. 17 Avenell, “Japan’s Long Environmental Sixties,” 429. 18 Ibid., 426. 19 Ibid., 428. 20 Totman, Japan, 263. 21 For details on the Pollution Research Group, an influential group of activists who led the fight against pollution in Japan, see Avenell, “From Fearsome Pollution to Fukushima,” 244. 22 Avenell, “Japan’s Long Environmental Sixties,” 432. 23 M.R. Reich, “Mobilizing for Environmental Policy in Italy and Japan,” Comparative Politics 16, no. 4 (1984): 379. 24 Schreurs, Environmental Politics, 41; Avenell, “From Fearsome Pollution to Fukushima,” 251. 25 Avenell, “Japan’s Long Environmental Sixties,” 436. 26 Totman, Japan, 263. 27 Schreurs, Environmental Politics, 43. 28 Ibid., 44. 29 Aozora Foundation, “The History of Japan’s Air Pollution” ([Osaka], 2011), available online at http://aozora.or.jp/lang/english/the-history-of -japans-air-pollution.

Notes to pages 52−9

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30 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Japanese Experience in Industrial Pollution Control: From the Viewpoints of Pricing, Markets, and Cleaner Production for Developing Countries, Final Report (Tokyo, 2004), 150–1. 31 Reich, “Mobilizing for Environmental Policy,” 388, 390. 32 Ibid., 395. 33 JICA, Japanese Experience in Industrial Pollution Control, 150. 34 Schreurs, Environmental Politics, 46. 35 Avenell, “Japan’s Long Environmental Sixties,” 436. 36 R. Mason, “Whither Japan’s Environmental Movement? An Assessment of Problems and Prospects at the National Level,” Pacific Affairs 72, no. 2 (1999): 189. 37 Ibid., 190. 38 Avenell, “Japan’s Long Environmental Sixties,” 430; emphasis in original. 39 Ibid., 440. 40 See the website of the Energy Conservation Centre, Japan, at http:// se4allateccj.org/. 41 A. DeWit and T. Iida, “The ‘Power Elite’ and Environmental-Energy Policy in Japan,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 9, issue 4, no. 4 (2011): 1–23. 42 Japan Center for Economic Research, “Conservation at 70s Levels Could Cut Energy Consumption by 20% – Industries Pursuing Energy Efficiency to Grow Most” (Tokyo, 23 March 2012), available online at https://www .jcer.or.jp/eng/pdf/m38_topic.pdf. 43 Mason, “Whither Japan’s Environmental Movement?” 187. 44 DeWit and Iida, “‘Power Elite,’ ” 5. 45 J. Graham, “Japan’s Regional Environmental Leadership,” Asian Studies Review 28, no. 3 (2004): 285. 46 J. Taylor, “Japan’s Global Environmentalism: Rhetoric and Reality,” Political Geography 18, no. 5 (1999): 538. 47 Ibid., 539–40. 48 Graham, “Japan’s Regional Environmental Leadership,” 283. 49 R. Hicks et al., Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 151–2. 50 Ibid., 153. 51 Graham, “Japan’s Regional Environmental Leadership,” 293. 52 Hicks et al., Greening Aid? 125–7. 53 Ibid., 129. 54 Taylor, “Japan’s Global Environmentalism,” 543. 55 Ibid., 546. 56 Hicks et al., Greening Aid? 153–4. 57 Mason, “Whither Japan’s Environmental Movement?” 196. 58 Graham, “Japan’s Regional Environmental Leadership,” 286.

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Notes to pages 63–7

59 See National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, “About AIST” (Tokyo, n.d.), available online at http://www.aist.go.jp/ aist_e/about_aist/index.html. 60 Japan, Ministry of the Environment, “Japan’s Action Plan for a World-Wide Sound Material-Cycle Society through the 3R Initiative” (Tokyo, 28 April 2005), available online at https://www.env.go.jp/en/ press/2005/0428a-01.html. 61 Ibid. 62 Japan, Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, “Innovation 25” (Tokyo, 8 March 2014), available online at http://japan.kantei.go.jp/innovation/ okotae2_e.html. 63 Japan, Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, “Innovation 25: Creating the Future, Challenging Unlimited Possibilities,” Interim Report, Executive Summary (Tokyo, 26 February 2007), available online at http:// www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/innovation/interimbody_e.html. 64 Ibid. 65 Japan, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan (Tokyo, 2011). 66 T. Nishiyama, “Science and Technology in Japan and Canada” (presentation to the Japan Studies Association of Canada conference, “Japan in the Pacific Neighbourhood,” Vancouver, 2 October 2010). 67 R.S. Jones and B. Yoo, “Japan’s New Growth Strategy to Create Demand and Jobs,” OECD Economics Department Working Papers 890 (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2011), 10; available online at http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/ download/5kg58z5z007b-en.pdf?expires=1485694853&id=id&accname= guest&checksum=97D4B74BF12FCFDD0FD78409781B227D. 68 Nippon Keidanren, “Achieving Growth through Green Innovation.” 69 Japan Science and Technology Agency, “JST 2016 Profile: Contributing to Society through Science, Technology and Innovation” (Tokyo, 2016), available online at http://www.jst.go.jp/EN/JST_Brochure.pdf. 70 Japan, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, “The Center of Innovation Program” (Tokyo, 2014), 14. 71 Ibid., 2. 72 A. DeWit, “Fallout from the Fukushima Shock: Japan’s Emerging Energy Policy,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 9, Issue 45, no. 5 (2011): 1–14; C. Dent, Renewable Energy in East Asia: Towards a New Developmentalism (London: Routledge, 2014), 99. 73 See, for example, DeWit, “Fallout from the Fukushima Shock.” 74 DeWit and Iida, “‘Power Elite,’ ” 5. 75 Ibid.

Notes to pages 68−75

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76 Ibid. 77 World Nuclear Association, “Fukushima Accident” (London, January 2017), available online at http://www.world-nuclear.org/information -library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx. 78 K. Mahr, “Report: Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Man-Made,” Time, 5 July 2012. 79 A. DeWit, introduction to Masayoshi Son, “Creating a Solar Belt in East Japan: The Energy Future,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 9, issue 38, no. 2 (2011): 1. 80 T. Saito, “Quick Look: Renewable Energy Development in Japan,” Renewable Energy World, 22 December 2010, available online at http:// www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2010/12/quick-look-renewable -energy-development-in-japan.html. 81 Engler, “Is Japan a Leader in Combating Global Warming?” 82 E. Moe, Renewable Energy Transformation or Fossil Fuel Backlash: Vested Interests in the Political Economy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 40. 83 Renewable Energy Institute, “Annual Statistics in Japan” (n.d.), available online at http://www.renewable-ei.org/en/statistics/annual.php. 84 European Commission, Energy, “Renewable Energy: Moving towards a Low Carbon Economy” (Brussels, n.d.), available online at https:// ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/renewable-energy. 85 Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, “Our Mission” (Tokyo, n.d.), available online at http://www.isep.or.jp/en/about/mission. 86 T. Iida, quoted in S. Yeo, “Fukushima to use 100% renewable energy by 2040,” Climate Home, 31 January 2014, available online at http://www .climatechangenews.com/2014/01/31/fukushima-to-use-100-renewable -energy-by-2040/. 87 D. Rogers, “Japan plans dash to coal with 43 stations in 12 years,” Global Construction Review, 19 April 2016. 88 K. Ito, “Five Years after Fukushima, Japan Launches Massive Electric Sector Deregulation,” Forbes, 4 April 2016. 89 J. McCurry, “Japan’s coal-fired plants ‘to cause thousands of early deaths,’ ” Guardian, 17 May 2016; S. Furuno, “Cool Japan or Coal Japan?” Huffpost Politics, 23 May 2016; Rogers, “Japan plans dash to coal.” 90 MEXT, Part 1, “Challenges in Realizing a Super Smart Society Supported by the IofT, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence – Japan as a Global Frontrunner,” White Paper on Science and Technology (Tokyo, 2016), p. 44. 3. Green Growth Policies: The Japanese Government’s Environmental Strategies 1 A. Heller, “Once around the Global Loop – Impressions of Expo 2005 Aichi, Japan” (n.p.: A. Heller, 2005), available online at http://www

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Notes to pages 76−81 .worldsfairs.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Once-around-the -Global-Loop--impressions-of-Expo-2005-Aichi-Japan/HMLSC_upam _BX44_AMD1313. Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, “Industrial Cluster Policy” (Tokyo, n.d.), available online at http://www.meti.go.jp/ policy/local_economy/tiikiinnovation/industrial_cluster_en.html; idem, “Industrial Cluster Project 2009” (Tokyo, 2009), available online at http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/local_economy/tiikiinnovation/ source/2009Cluster%28E%29.pdf; and K. Ibata-Arens, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth (Paris: OECD, 2011), 9. Ibid., 11. Jordan, Wurzel, and Zito, “New” Instruments of Environmental Governance? Capozza, “Greening Growth in Japan,” 30. de Serres, Murtin, and Nicoletti, “Framework for Assessing Green Growth Policies,” 15. OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 10. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, “Outline of NEDO’s Proposal-based Programs” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, February 2012). Ibid. NEDO, “Profile of NEDO April 2011–March 2012” (Tokyo, 2012), 4. NEDO, “NEDO’s Project Evaluation System: How Outputs and Outcomes Are Surveyed and Results Are Utilized” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, 22 February 2012). Ibid. NEDO, “About AIST” (Tokyo, n.d.), available online at http://www.aist .go.jp/aist_e/about_aist/. K. Tanimoto, “Message from the Director” (Tokyo: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Department of Energy and Environment, Research Institute of Electrochemical Energy, n.d.), available online at https://unit.aist.go.jp/riecen/intro/index_en.html. OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 58–63. “LED Market Shines Ever Brighter; Asian Rivals Hot on Japan’s Heels,” Nikkei Weekly, 13 December 2010, 36. P. Johnson, T. Shirai, and P. White, “Inorganic Light Emitting Diode (LED) Development and Applications in Japan” (Dorchester, UK: DTI Global Watch Service, 2004), unpublished.

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19 P. Jessup, “Japan’s Eco-Point Program Transforms Market for LED Lamps,” LEDs Magazine, August 2011, available online at http://www.ledsmagazine .com/features/8/7/6. 20 Ibid. 21 NEDO, “Recent Activities and Topics on LED, OLED Lighting in Japan” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, October 2015); copy in author’s possession. 22 Ibid. 23 A. DeWit, “A New Japanese Miracle? Its Hamstrung Feed-in Tariff Actually Works,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 12, issue 38, no. 2 (2014): 1. 24 NEDO, “FCH: Development of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies 2009–2010, Industry–Academia Consortium PEFC Project Report” (Tokyo, December 2009), introduction. 25 Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Cool Earth-Innovative Technology Program (Tokyo, March 2008), available online at http://www .meti.go.jp/english/newtopics/data/pdf/031320CoolEarth.pdf. 26 Ibid., 1. 27 Author’s e-mail interview with M.R. Gardiner, US Department of Energy, at NEDO, Tokyo, March 2012. 28 D. Carter, “Fuel Cell Residential Micro-CHP Developments in Japan,” Fuel Cell Today, 29 February 2012; and author’s interview with T. Yoshida and H. Yamada, General Affairs and Policy Planning Department, NEDO, 16 March 2012. 29 R. Rose, “Ene-farm installed 120,000 residential fuel cell units,” FuelCellsWorks, 23 September 2015, available online at https://fuelcellsworks.com/ archives/2015/09/23/ene-farm-installed-120000-residential-fuel-cell-units/. 30 Author’s e-mail interview with M.R. Gardiner, March 2012. 31 “Microbes Put to Work in Systems for Powering Fuel Cells with Waste,” Nikkei Weekly, 19 January 2009. 32 NEDO, “Recent Activities and Topics on Fuel Cell and Hydrogen in Japan” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, 2 November 2011). 33 NEDO, “Profile of NEDO April 2011–March 2012,” 7. 34 NEDO, “Present Status of NEDO Fuel Cell Development Projects” (Tokyo, October 2015, unpublished). 35 NEDO, “Recent Activities and Topics on Fuel Cell and Hydrogen in Japan.” 36 NEDO, “Development of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies 2009–2010” (Tokyo, 2010). 37 S. Matsuda, “Japanese Battery Makers Racing to Improve Materials, Power, Capacity,” Nikkei Weekly, 14 March 2011, 21; and CCM Intelligence, “China’s

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44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Notes to pages 84−8 Li-ion Battery Market Analysis and Forecast” (Powerpoint presentation, 15 December 2014), slide 11, available online at http://www.slideshare.net/ ccminternational/webinar-42709277. CCM Intelligence, “China’s Li-ion Battery Market Analysis and Forecast.” Tepia Exhibit, Tokyo, 2014; see the museum website at https://www.tepia .jp/english. Hitachi, “Elemental technology for high-energy-density lithium ion batteries that doubles electric vehicle driving range,” News release, 14 November 2014, available online at http://www.hitachi.com/New/ cnews/month/2014/11/141114.html. NEDO, “NEDO’s Energy Storage Technology R&D Projects” (Tokyo, October 2015). World Nuclear News, “Plans set out Japan’s energy mix for 2030,” 3 June 2015, available online at http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Plan -sets-out-Japans-energy-mix-for-2030-0306154.html. G. Templeton, “How Do Solar Cells Work?” ExtremeTech, 20 July 2015, available online at https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/208802 -how-do-solar-cells-work. Moe, Renewable Energy Transformation, 40. Ibid., 41. Dent, Renewable Energy in East Asia, 184. O. Kimura and T. Suzuki, “30 Years of Solar Energy Development in Japan: Co-evolution Process of Technology, Policies and the Market” (paper prepared for the Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, Berlin, 17–18 November 2006), 9, available online at http://userpage .fu-berlin.de/ffu/akumwelt/bc2006/papers/Kimura_Suzuki.pdf. Ibid. For more details on the New Sunshine Project, see ibid. Moe, Renewable Energy Transformation, 42. DeWit and Iida, “‘Power Elite,’ ” 5. Moe, Renewable Energy Transformation, 423. J. Legewie, “Foreign competition begins to overshadow Japan’s solar industry,” Japan Times, 30 July 2007. DeWit and Iida, “‘Power Elite,’ ” 5. NEDO, “Overview of ‘PV Roadmap toward 2030’” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, June 2014); copy in author’s possession. Ibid.; see also Dent, Renewable Energy in East Asia, 184. Details of the initial plan can be found at NEDO, “Overview of ‘PV Roadmap toward 2030.’ ” Information on the updated plan is at Japan for Sustainability, “NEDO Updates Japan’s Photovoltaic Technology

Notes to pages 88−92

58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69

70 71 72

73 74 75

209

Roadmap to 2050,” 7 September 2009, available online at http://www .japanfs.org/en/news/archives/news_id029318.html. NEDO, “Activities to Realize a Smart Community” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, n.d.). Author’s interview and correspondence with Y. Tokumoto and T. Sazaki, Osaka City, Environmental Bureau, 20 April 2012. Dent, Renewable Energy in East Asia, 185. Statista: The Statistics Portal, “Global Cumulative Solar PV Capacity at the End of 2015, by Country (in Gigawatts)” (2017), available online at http:// www.statista.com/statistics/264629/existing-solar-pv-capacity -worldwide/. NEDO, “NEDO Activity Report, Annual Report 2011” (Tokyo, 2011), 16. Author’s interview and correspondence with Y. Tokumoto and T. Sazaki, Osaka City, Environmental Bureau, 20 April 2012. J. Erbentraut, “Giant Floating Solar Power Stations Are Japan’s Newest Power Source,” Huffington Post, 15 June 2015. J. Meltzer, “After Fukushima: What’s Next for Japan’s Energy and Climate Change Policy?” Global Economy and Development at Brookings (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 7 September 2011), 4. Ibid. S. Unozawa, “Domestic Solar Cell Makers Getting Fat on Japan Subsidies,” Nikkei Weekly, 14 March 2011. EnergySage, “What Are the Top Solar Panel Manufacturers in the United States?” 16 June 2016, available online at http://news.energysage.com/ best-solar-panel-manufacturers-usa/. “Solar Cell Makers Ramp Up Efficiency,” Nikkei Weekly, 2 April 2012; Fiona MacDonald, “Panasonic Has Made the World’s Most Efficient Rooftop Solar Panel,” Science Alert, 8 October 2015, available online at http://www .sciencealert.com/panasonic-has-produced-the-world-s-most-efficient -rooftop-solar-panel-with-22-5-module-efficiency. NEDO, “Situation of PV in Japan and Outline of ‘NEDO PV Challenges’” (Tokyo, October 2015). Ibid. S. Kakuno, “NEDO’s Efforts in Research and Development of Low GWP Alternative Technology” (Powerpoint presentation at ATMOsphere Asia 2014 – Technology and Innovation, Tokyo, 3–5 February 2014). OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 13. G. Kelly, “Sustainability at Home: Policy Measures for Energy-Efficient Appliances,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 16, no. 9 (2012): 6856. OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 98.

210

Notes to pages 92−9

76 See the website of the Japan Environment Association, Eco Mark Office, at https://www.ecomark.jp/english/. 77 Author’s conversation with Yasushi Shiraishi, Hanako Negishi, and Asami Miyake, Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry, Tokyo, 14 December 2010. 78 Ibid. 79 Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, “Carbon Footprint International Symposium,” News release, Tokyo, 22 February 2012. 80 Jessup, “Japan’s Eco-point Program Transforms LED Market.” 81 Japan for Sustainability, “Yokohama City Develops Pilot Program for ‘Eco Point System,’ ” 3 February 2008, available online at http://www.japanfs .org/en/pages/026925.html. 82 Japan for Sustainability, “Yokohama Visualizes Citizens’ Green Actions through its Eco-Point System,” 11 November 2009, available online at http:// www.japanfs.org/en/pages/029482.html. 83 OECD, OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Japan, 2010, 47. 84 OECD Environment Directorate and Austria, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Summary of Proceedings of Workshop on ‘Budget, Financial & Accounting Issues in Greener Public Purchasing,’ Vienna, 29–30 October 2001. 85 Ibid. 86 The official name for the law is the Law Concerning the Promotion of Procurement of Eco-Friendly Goods and Services by the State and Other Entities. 87 J. Morden, “Japan revises green purchasing policies for ICT,” 1 June 2011. 88 M. Yamaguchi, “Extended Producer Responsibility in Japan,” ECP Newsletter, February 2002. 89 S. Sakai et al., “An International Comparative Study of End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) Recycling Systems,” Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management 16, no. 1 (2014): 7. 90 After a car is dismantled, the remaining car hulk is often put into a shredder. The shredded materials are separated into irons and non-ferrous metals and into automobile shredder residue (heavy) and automobile shredder residue (light). 91 Sakai et al., “International Comparative Study,” 5. 92 K. Togawa, “Background of the Automobile Recycling Law Enactment in Japan,” Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 6, no. 4 (2005): 271–83. 93 Sakai et al., “International Comparative Study,” 7. 94 Togawa, “Background of the Automobile Recycling Law,” 276–7. 95 Sakai et al., 9–10. 96 “Government Aims to Exploit Urban Mines but Collecting e-scrap Isn’t Easy,” Nikkei Weekly, 22 April 2013, 32.

Notes to pages 99−109

211

97 Ibid. 98 H. Imura, “Planning for Smart Cities in Japan” (presentation at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1 March 2016); and Tokyo Metropolitan Government, “Tokyo cap-and-trade program achieves 25% reduction after 5th year,” press release (Tokyo, 25 February 2016). 99 Tokyo Metropolitan Government, “Tokyo cap-and-trade program.” 100 Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Bureau of Environment, “Green Building Program” (Tokyo, 2014), available online at http://www .kankyo.metro.tokyo.jp/en/climate/build.html. See also Y. Nishida, “Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Policies and Programs in Tokyo” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, 2013), available online at http://www .eu-japan.eu/sites/eu-japan.eu/files/Nishida.pdf. 101 C40 Cities, “Case Study: Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Government) Green Building Program” (New York, 7 November 2011), available online at http://www.c40.org/case_studies/tokyo-tokyo-metropolitan -government-green-building-program. 102 OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 88. 103 Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, “Top Runner Program: Developing the World’s Best Energy-Efficient Appliance and More” (Tokyo, March 2015), 5. 104 Ibid., 24. 105 Kelly, “Sustainability at Home,” 6858. 106 Ibid. 107 OECD, OECD Economic Surveys: Japan, 2009 (Paris, 2009), 141. 108 Dent, Renewable Energy in East Asia, 187. 109 OECD, OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Japan, 2010, 49. 4. Green Infrastructure: The Foundations of Green Growth in Japan 1 OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 46. 2 Ibid., 56. 3 OECD, Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development (Paris, May 2012), 133. 4 See DeWit, “Fallout from the Fukushima Shock.” 5 DeWit and Iida, “‘Power Elite.’ ” 6 DeWit, “New Japanese Miracle?” 5. 7 RTS Corporation, “PV in Japan and Utility’s Activities” (presentation to the PV & Utility Workshop, Asia Power Week, Bangkok, 2015), slide 14, available online at http://iea-pvps.org/fileadmin/dam/public/report/ technical/9_4___PV_in_Japan_-_Kaizuka.pdf.

212

Notes to pages 109−14

8 A. DeWit, “Japan’s Renewable Power Prospects,” in Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan, edited by Jeff Kingston (London: Routledge, 2014), 127. 9 DeWit, “Japan’s Bid,” 9. 10 C. Pham, Smart Cities in Japan: An Assessment on the Potential for EU-Japan Cooperation and Business Development (Brussels: EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, October 2014). 11 DeWit, “Japan’s Bid.” 12 E. Gelenbe and Y. Caseau, “The Impact of Information Technology on Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions,” Ubiquity (June 2015): 1–15. 13 S.M. Lee, S-H. Park, and S. Trimi, “Greening with IT: Practices of Leading Countries and Strategies of Followers,” Management Decision 51, no. 3 (2013): 630–1. 14 Ibid., 632. 15 Ibid., 635. 16 Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, “Green IT Initiative in Japan” (Powerpoint presentation, Tokyo, October 2008), available online at http://home.jeita.or.jp/greenit-pc/activity/asia/file/japan_rink.pdf. 17 Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, “Green IT Initiative in Japan” (Tokyo: METI, October 2008), available online at http://www.meti .go.jp/english/policy/GreenITInitiativeInJapan.pdf. 18 A. Taketani, “Green IT Initiative in Japan” (Tokyo: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2011). 19 OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 73. 20 W. Karlenzig, “Measuring and Marketing in Japan’s Eco-Model Cities,” SustainableCitiesCollective, 17 September 2010, available online at http:// www.sustainablecitiescollective.com/commoncurrent/15471/measuring -and-marketing-japans-eco-model-cities. 21 Y. Ogawa, “The Eco-Model City Project and Future Directions” (Tokyo: Government of Japan, Regional Revitalization Bureau, March 2010). 22 DeWit, “Japan’s Renewable Power Prospects,” 124. 23 A. DeWit, “Japan’s Rollout of Smart Cities: What Role for the Citizens?” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 11, issue 24, no. 2 (2014): 1–12. 24 Japan Smart Community Association, “Smart Community Development” (Kawasaki City, n.d.), available online at https://www.smart-japan.org/ english/index.html. 25 Pham, Smart Cities in Japan, 8. 26 Ibid., 16–17. 27 DeWit, “Disaster Risk Reduction.” 28 Pham, Smart Cities in Japan, 17. 29 Ibid., 21.

Notes to pages 115−21

213

30 Ibid., 23. 31 Fujisawa SST Management Company, “Project Overview: Town Concept” (2015), available online at http://fujisawasst.com/EN/project/. 32 The eight companies are Accenture, Mitsui & Co., Ltd, Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd, Nihon Sekkei, Inc., ORIX Corporation, PanaHome Corporation, Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co., Ltd, and Tokyo Gas., Ltd. 33 Panasonic Corporation, “Nine leading companies and Fujisawa City to collaborate on sustainable smart town project,” Press release, Osaka, 26 May 2011. 34 Pham, Smart Cities in Japan, 31–2. 35 Ibid., 30. 36 NEDO, “Profile of NEDO April 2011–March 2012.” 37 NEDO, “NEDO Activity Report, Annual Report 2011.” 38 Author’s e-mail interview with M.R. Gardiner, March 2012. 39 A. Ling, K. Sugihara, and M. Mukaidono, “The Japanese Smart Grid Initiatives, Investments, and Collaborations,” International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications 3, no. 7 (2012): 1–11. 40 Pham, Smart Cities in Japan, 33–4. 41 Y. Mochizuki, “Smart Cities Gain Traction on China Spending, Viable Business Models,” Nikkei Weekly, 24 January 2011, 20; see also “Fund Earmarks ¥130 Billion for Green City Projects Abroad,” Nikkei Weekly, 24 January 2011, 20. 42 Cited in DeWit, “Japan’s Rollout of Smart Cities,” 5. 43 Cited in DeWit, “Japan’s Resilient,” 2. 44 A. Greenfield, Against the Smart City (New York: Do Projects, 2013). 45 Pham, Smart Cities in Japan, 36–42. 46 A. DeWit, “Energy,” in Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan, edited by Hiroko Takeda and Mark Williams (forthcoming). I am extremely grateful to Dr DeWit for sharing a pre-publication draft of his chapter and his willingness to share his encyclopedic knowledge of the Japanese energy ecosystem. 47 Ibid. 48 A. DeWit, “Beyond nuclear power: Japan’s smart energy communities mushroom,” Asia Times, 7 February 2017, available online at http://www .atimes.com/article/beyond-nuclear-power-japans-smart-energy -communities-mushroom/. 49 Author’s email correspondence with Dr Andrew DeWit, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, 22 February 2017. 50 OECD, Fostering Innovation for Green Growth, 11. 51 Okano-Heijmans, “Japan’s ‘Green’ Economic Diplomacy,” 342.

214

Notes to pages 122−5

52 Ibid., 345. 53 JICA, “JICA’s Tools for Promoting Private Sector Partnership” (Tokyo, n.d.), available online at http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/latin/fealac/ pdfs/1-3_jica.pdf. 54 T. Opara, “Vehicle recycling plant set to take off in Abuja,” Vanguard (Lagos), 24 August 2012, available online at http://www.vanguardngr .com/2012/08/vehicle-recyling-plant-set-to-take-off-in-abuja/. 55 Japan, Ministry of the Environment, International Environmental Cooperation toward Sustainable Development, “Clean Asia Initiative (CAI): About CAI” (Tokyo, n.d.), available online at http://www.env .go.jp/earth/coop/coop/english/cai/about.html. 56 Author’s interview with a senior research professional, Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc., Tokyo, 11 April 2012. 57 S. Evans, “How Ambitious is the EU’s Offer to the Paris Climate Change Talks?” CarbonBrief: Clear on Climate, 10 March 2015, available online at http://www.carbonbrief.org/how-ambitious-is-the-eus-offer-to-the-paris -climate-change-talks. 58 Japan, Ministry of the Environment and Global Environment Centre Foundation, “MOEJ/GEC Feasibility Study Programme on New Mechanism and CDM in 2011” (Tokyo, November 2011), 1. 59 Kitakyushu, “Kitakyushu Asian Center for Low Carbon Society” (Kitakyushu, 2012). 60 See the website of Asia Green Camp, at http://asiangreencamp.net/ eng/func101.html; and K. Ishida, “Kitakyushu’s Initiatives to Create Low Carbon Societies in Asia” (Powerpoint presentation, n.d., available online at http://www.iges.or.jp/en/archive/kuc/pdf/activity20110314/25_WS -S3-3-Ishida_E.pdf. 61 D.G.J. Premakumara, “Kitakyushu City’s International Cooperation for Organic Waste Management in Surabaya City, Indonesia, and Its Replication in Asian Cities” (March 2012, unpublished). 62 Kitakyushu, “Eco-Tour Guide Book: Overcoming Pollution” (Kitakyushu, March 2010). 63 S. Shin, “East Asian Environmental Co-operation: Central Pessimism, Local Optimism,” Pacific Affairs 80, no. 1 (2007): 9–26. 64 Ibid., 20. 65 Ibid. 66 This section is drawn from E. Hosoda and T. Hayashi, “A Cross-Border Recycling System in Asia under the Resource and Environmental Constraints: A Challenging Project by the City of Kitakyushu and the City of Tianjin,” Sustainability Science 5, no. 2 (2010): 257−70.

Notes to pages 125−33

215

67 The Container and Packaging Recycling Law came into place in 1997. With the Basic Law for Establishing the Recycling-Based Society, which went into effect in 2000, the government established a framework for both recycling generally (source reduction or waste prevention, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, appropriate disposal) and extended producer responsibility for the recycling of the products and services they produce. The Law for the Recycling of Home Appliances went into effect in 2001, and was followed by laws regarding food waste, construction waste, and end-of-life vehicle recycling. 68 Siemens AG, Asian Green City Index: Assessing the Environmental Performance of Asia’s Major Cities (Munich, 2011), 62. 69 B.I. Tjandradewi, P.J. Marcotullio, and T. Kidokoro, “Evaluating City-toCity Cooperation: A Case Study of the Penang and Yokohama Experience,” Habitat International 30, no. 3 (2006): 357–76. 70 C. Tan, A. Ogawa, and T. Matsumura, “Climate Change Communication: Team Minus 6%,” GEIC Working Paper Series 2008-001 (Tokyo: United Nations University, Global Environment Information Centre, 2008), 16, available online at https://i.unu.edu/media/ourworld.unu.edu-jp/ article/102/wp2008_001.pdf. 71 Japan, Ministry of the Environment, “Report of this year’s ‘COOL BIZ’ achievement” (Tokyo, 10 November 2006), available online at http:// www.env.go.jp/en/earth/tm6/061110.html. 5. Green Cities and the Development of Environmental Potential 1 A. DeWit, “Japan’s Remarkable Renewable Energy Drive – After Fukushima,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 10, issue 11, no. 10 (2012): 1–7. 2 World Bank, Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Program, “Japan’s Experience in Urban Environmental Management: Yokohama, A Case Study” (Washington, DC: World Bank, Asia Technical Department, Environment & Natural Resources Division, 1996). 3 Aozora Foundation, “History of Japan’s Air Pollution.” 4 Japan International Cooperation Agency, Japan’s Experiences in Public Health and Medical Systems (Tokyo, 2005), 147. 5 M. Lovei, and C. Weiss Jr., Environmental Management and Institutions in OECD Countries: Lessons from Experience (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1998), 33. 6 Ibid. 7 Osaka, Environment Bureau, “Environment in Osaka City” (Osaka: Osaka City, 2009).

216

Notes to pages 133−8

8 Osaka, Environment Bureau, “Environment in Osaka City” (Osaka: Osaka City, 2011). 9 Osaka, “Developing Low-Carbon Cities: Environmental Change and Metropolitan Responsibility” (Powerpoint presentation, Osaka, 23 December 2010). 10 Osaka, “Environment Vision of Osaka” (Osaka: Osaka City, March 2011). 11 M. Åhman, “Government Policy and the Development of Electric Vehicles in Japan,” Energy Policy 34, no. 4 (2006): 433–43. 12 “Start Your Electric Motors,” Nikkei Weekly, 13 December 2010, 1. 13 J. Cobb, “Norway Is Fourth Country to Register 100,000 Plug-in Cars,” Hybrid CARS, 9 May 2016, available online at http://www.hybridcars .com/norway-is-fourth-country-to-register-100000-plug-in-cars/. 14 “Electric Vehicles to Be 35% of Global New Car Sales by 2040,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 25 February 2016, available online at https://about .bnef.com/blog/electric-vehicles-to-be-35-of-global-new-car-sales-by-2040/. 15 Next Generation Electronic Vehicle Promotion Centre, “Best Practices Osaka” (Tokyo, 2014), available online at http://www.cev-pc.or.jp/ english/practice/area/osaka.html. 16 “Osaka’s great EV taxi experiment does a slow burnout,” Japan Today, 20 February 2013, available online at https://www.japantoday.com/category/ kuchikomi/view/osakas-great-ev-taxi-experiment-does-a-slow-burnout. 17 Lin Su-Chin, “EV Demo Run Plan Launched by Osaka Prefectural Government,” Invest Taiwan, 5 January 2012, available online http:// investtaiwan.nat.gov.tw/news/ind_news_eng_display.jsp?newsid=91, accessed June 2014. 18 Author’s interview with Y. Maeno, Osaka Prefectural Government, 22 December 2010. 19 Ibid. 20 “More Electric Car Charging Points in Japan than Gas Stations,” Phys.org, 17 February 2015, available online at http://phys.org/news/2015-02 -electric-car-japan-gas-stations.html. 21 “Osaka’s great EV taxi experiment does a slow burnout,” Japan Today, 20 February 2013. 22 Osaka, “Developing Low-Carbon Cities.” 23 Author’s interview with Y. Maeno, 22 December 2010; see also Lin, “EV Demo Run Plan.” 24 Author’s interview with officials from the Osaka City Environment Bureau, 22 December 2010; author’s interview with Y. Tokumoto and T. Sazaki, Osaka City Environment Bureau, and Y. Bono, Manager for International Relations, Office of the Mayor, Osaka City, 20 April 2012.

Notes to pages 139−44

217

25 Osaka, “Invest Osaka: Economic Profile of Osaka City 2010–2011” (Osaka: City of Osaka, 2011). 26 Author’s interview with officials from the Osaka City Environment Bureau, 22 December 2010; author’s interview with Y. Tokumoto, T. Sazaki, and Y. Bono, 20 April 2012. 27 Sumitomo Corporation, “Official start of environmental contribution project – ‘Osaka Hikari-no-Mori Project’ – on Yumeshima, Osaka,” News release, 11 November 2013, available online at http://www.sumitomocorp .co.jp/english/news/detail/id=27394. 28 Invest Osaka, “Ongoing Urban Redevelopment in Osaka” (Osaka, n.d.), available online at http://www.investosaka.jp/en/development/kita .html. 29 R. Van Berkel et al., “Industrial and Urban Symbiosis in Japan: Analysis of the Eco-Town Program 1997–2006,” Journal of Environmental Management 90, no. 3 (2009): 1544–56. 30 T. Fujita, “Eco-Town Projects/Environmental Industries in Progress” (Tokyo: METI, 2006), 21, available online at http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/recycle/ main/3r_policy/policy/pdf/ecotown/ecotown_casebook/english.pdf. 31 Author’s interview with T. Watanabe, Secretary General, Sakai-Rinkai Ecofactories Association, and M. Tanaka, President, Rematec, Osaka, 21 December 2010. 32 See the website of Team E-Kansai, at http://team-e-kansai.jp/en/. 33 For an overview of Kitakyushu’s Eco-Model City initiatives, see “Eco-Model City Kitakyushu and Japan’s Disposal of Radioactive Tsunami Debris,” AsiaPacific Journal: Japan Focus, 10, issue 24, no. 6 (11 June 2012): 1–13. 34 M. Yamada and M. Suzuki, “Success Story from Industrial Pollution and Research on Present Environmental Problems in Dokai Bay, Kitakyushu, Japan” (Proceedings of the Twelfth International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, Kitakyushu, Japan, May 2002). 35 P.P. Karan, Japan in the Twenty-first Century: Environment, Economy and Society (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005), 155. 36 Ibid., 155. 37 Yamada and Suzuki, “Success Story from Industrial Pollution,” 441. 38 Kitakyushu, “The World Capital of Sustainable Development” (Kitakyushu, 2015), available online at http://www.city.Kitakyushu.lg.jp/ english/file_0064.html. 39 M. Sato, “The Concept of Eco-Town” (presentation to the East and East South Asia BAT/BEP Forum Annual Board Meeting, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 14 December 2009). 40 See the KITA website at http://www.kita.or.jp/english/kita/index.html.

218

Notes to pages 144−50

41 “Creation of a Recycling-oriented Society with the Kitakyushu Eco-Town,” in Handbook of Environmental Measures in Kitakyushu City: The Building Blocks towards a Sustainable Society (Kanagawa, Japan: Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, 2004), available online at http://enviroscope .iges.or.jp/contents/76/eng/story/storyi7.htm. 42 Asia-Pacific Environmental Innovation Strategies, Research on Innovative and Strategic Policy Options, Good Practises Inventory, “Kitakyushu Eco-Town Project: Summary of the Practice” (Kanagawa, Japan: Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, 2005), available online at http://enviroscope.iges .or.jp/contents/APEIS/RISPO/inventory/db/pdf/0147.pdf. 43 Information obtained during author’s visit to Kitakyushu Eco-Town, 23 April 2012. 44 “Creation of a Recycling-oriented Society.” 45 Information obtained during author’s visit to Kitakyushu Eco-Town, 23 April 2012. 46 Author’s interview with K. Hashimoto, S. Kanafusa, and J. Hasegawa, Kyushu Recycle and Environmental Industry Plaza, Fukuoka, 6 December 2010. 47 Kitakyushu, World Capital of Sustainable Development Report – Eco-Model City Action Plan (Kitakyushu, February 2011). 48 Japan, Cabinet Secretariat, Regional Revitalization Bureau, Eco-Model City Project – Sustainable City for Future, “Dynamic Towns and Cities Reimagine the Future of Development” (Tokyo, n.d.), available online at http://doc.future-city.jp/pdf/english/forum/pamphlet2.pdf. 49 Kitakyushu, World Capital of Sustainable Development Report. 50 Author’s visit to the Next Generation Park area, Kitakyushu, 23 April 2012. 51 Author’s visit to the Hydrogen Town Project, Kitakyushu, 22 April 2012. 52 The website is no longer available, but for additional information, see OECD, Green Growth in Kitakyushu, Japan (Paris, OECD, 2013). 53 Ibid. 54 World Bank, Metropolitan Environmental Improvement Program, “Japan’s Experience in Urban Environmental Management,” ix. 55 Ibid. 56 F. Hayashi, “Yokohama Water and Greenery Master Plan and Biodiversity” (presentation by the mayor of Yokohama, City Biodiversity Summit 2010, Nagoya, 24–26 October 2010). 57 N. Masato, “FutureCity Yokohama – Community Development with Civil Participation” (presentation to the International Forum on the ‘FutureCity’ Initiative, Portland, OR, 9 February 2016), available online at http://doc .future-city.jp/pdf/forum/2016_portland/doc_1345-1400_Mr_Masato_

Notes to pages 150−9

58

59 60

61

62

63 64

65

219

Nobutoki_en.pdf; author’s meeting with City of Yokohama staff, October 2015. T. Takahashi, “Climate Change Prevention Policy of the City of Yokohama” (presentation to the Kitakyushu Initiative for a Clean Environment, Fifth Meeting, Kitakyushu, 10 February 2010), available online at http:// kitakyushu.iges.or.jp/activities/network_meetings/KIN5/Presentations/ Session%20E/E-3%20Yokohama.pdf. Masato, “FutureCity Yokohama,” 13. Yokohama, “Beyond the G30 Plan: Yokohama 3RDream Municipal Solid Waste Management Master Plan” (Yokohama, January 2011), available online at http://www.city.yokohama.lg.jp/shigen/sub-keikaku/keikaku/3rm/ plan/3rmplan/3rmplangaiyo-en.pdf. Yokohama, Climate Change Policy Headquarters, “Yokohama Smart City Project – YSCP” (Yokohama, 2013), available online at http://www.city .yokohama.lg.jp/ondan/english/yscp/. T. Nakajima, “Efforts to Promote Electric Vehicles: Challenges by the City of Yokohama” (Powerpoint presentation, Yokohama, Climate Change Policy Headquarters, n.d.), available online at http://www.yumpu.com/en/ document/view/25445042/city-of-yokohama-nakajima-aicep-portugal -global/1. Author’s interviews with staff in the Climate Change Policy Headquarters, Yokohama, 23 October 2015. Yokohama, Climate Change Policy Headquarters, “Yokohama Smart City Project: Large-scale Demonstration and Future Implementation” (Yokohama, 2014), 21, available online at http://esci-ksp.org/wp/wp-content/ uploads/2012/05/Yokohama-smart-city-project.pdf. Author’s interviews with staff in the Climate Change Policy Headquarters, Yokohama, 23 October 2015.

6. Pushing the Enviro-Technology Frontier: Big Dreams, Big Gambles 1 S. Arai, “Future Family’s Lifestyle in 20 Years: How Different, Which Cool Gadgets,” Nikkei Weekly, 6 September 2010, 20; Urashima, “Current Science and Technology Policy in Japan,” slide 25. 2 “Hot and Bothered,” Economist, 28 November 2015. 3 M. Obe, “Tokyo hopes to make hydrogen power the star of the 2020 Olympics,” Wall Street Journal, 11 September 2015, available online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/tokyo-hopes-to-make-hydrogen -power-the-star-of-the-2020-olympics-1442174267. 4 J. Thompson, “Japan carmakers lead fuel cell drive,” Financial Times, 9 July 2014.

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Notes to pages 160−4

5 Japan, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, “Summary of the Strategic Road Map for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells” (presentation, Tokyo, 23 June 2014), 2, available online at http://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2014/pdf/0624_04a.pdf; Y. Shinko, “NEDO’s R&D Program for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell towards Hydrogen Society” (presentation, Tokyo, 30 November 2015), available online at http://www.iphe.net/docs/Meetings/SC24/Education/02 _Japan_IPHE_Outreach_Grenoble.pdf. 6 Ibid. 7 D. Leggett, “Japan: Government plans subsidies for fuel cell vehicles,” Just Auto, 23 June 2014, available online at http://www.just-auto.com/news/ government-plans-subsidies-for-fuel-cell-vehicles_id147344.aspx. 8 J. Ramsey, “Toyota ready to test fuel cell buses in Japan,” Autoblog, 22 July 2015, available online at http://www.autoblog.com/2015/07/22/toyota -ready-to-test-fuel-cell-buses-in-japan/. 9 D. King, “Japan wants to make the 2020 Olympics hydrogen powered,” Autoblog, 17 September 2015, available online at http://www.autoblog .com/2015/09/17/japan-2020-olympics-hydrogen-powered/. 10 Kanagawa Prefectural Government et al., “Public-private partnership to test end-to-end hydrogen supply chain,” Press release, 14 March 2016, available online at http://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/detail/11362388. 11 J. Cobb, “Japan’s Top Automakers Pledge Support for ‘Hydrogen Society,’ ” HybridCARS, 1 July 2015, available online at http://www .hybridcars.com/japans-top-automakers-pledge-support-for-hydrogen -society/. 12 Obe, “Tokyo hopes to make hydrogen power the star of the 2020 Olympics.” 13 “Japan eyes 40,000 fuel-cell cars, 160 hydrogen stations by 2020,” Japan Times, 16 March 2016; U. Irfan, “Japan Bets on a Hydrogen-Fueled Future,” Climate Wire, 3 May 2016, available online at https://www.scientificamerican.com/ article/japan-bets-on-a-hydrogen-fueled-future/. 14 “Kawasaki Heavy joins ‘hydrogen economy’ project,” Japan Times, 26 January 2016; Irfan, “Japan Bets.” 15 Irfan, “Japan Bets.” 16 Engler, “Is Japan a Leader in Combating Global Warming?” 17 Global Wind Energy Council, Global Wind Report: Annual Market Update 2015 (Brussels, 2015), 56–7. 18 J. Hofilena, “Japan wind power has capacity to replace nuclear, floating turbines tested near Fukushima,” Japan Daily Press, 9 November 2013, available online at http://japandailypress.com/japan-wind-power-

Notes to pages 164−9

19

20 21 22

23

24

25 26 27

28 29

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has-capacity-to-replace-nuclear-floating-turbines-tested-near -fukushima-0939244/. M. Masutani, “Japan hopes to blow ahead in renewables with floating wind farm,” Japan Times, 10 September 2013, available online at http:// www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/09/10/business/economy-business/ japan-hopes-to-blow-ahead-in-renewables-with-floating-wind-farm/ #.WJoezWczXIU. H. Nakata, “Japan takes leap into offshore wind power,” McClatchyTribune Business News, 25 October 2012. “Iterative Processes; Fusion Power,” Economist, 20 September 2014, 76. “Fusion Power – it is real, possible and important, and it’s time to get serious,” American Security Project, 11 December 2013, available online at http://www.americansecurityproject.org/fusion-power-it-is-real -possible-and-important-and-its-time-to-get-serious/. G. Templeton, “Japan’s 25-year plan to put a gigawatt solar power farm in space,” ExtremeTech, 28 April 2014, available online at https://www .extremetech.com/extreme/181389-japans-25-year-plan-to-put-a-gigawatt -solar-power-farm-in-space. M. Aoki, “Space-based power stations on the horizon,” Japan Times, 27 May 2014, available online at http://www.japantimes.co.jp/ news/2014/05/27/national/space-based-power-stations-horizon/. J. Coopersmith, “Affordable Access to Space,” Issues in Science and Technology 29, no. 1 (2012): 59. A. Pierce, “Japan to Build an Orbiting Electricity-Generating Station,” TechDirections 74, no. 1 (2014): 8–9. Tatsuhito Fujita, a JAXA engineer, proposes “fold[ing] solar panels into a rocket and have them unfold in space as one large panel”; quoted in Aoki, “Space-based power stations on the horizon.” Templeton, “Japan’s 25-year plan.” “Mitsubishi tests wireless power transmission technology for solar power,” Clean Technology Business Review, 13 March 2015, available online at http:// solar.cleantechnology-business-review.com/news/mitsubishi-tests-wireless -power-transmission-technology-for-solar-power-130315-4531879; see also E. Mack, “Japan takes a step towards beaming solar power from space to earth,” New Atlas, 13 March 2015, available online at http://newatlas.com/ japanese-breakthrough-in-wireless-power/36538/. J. Mankins, ed., Space Solar Power: The First International Assessment of Space Solar Power – Opportunities, Issues and Pathways Forward (Paris: International Academy of Astronautics, 2011). P. Tucker, “Solar Power from the Moon,” Futurist 45, no. 3 (2011): 36.

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Notes to pages 169−78

32 Shimizu Corporation, “Lunar Power Solar Generation – Luna Ring” ([Tokyo], 2017), available online at http://www.shimz.co.jp/english/ theme/dream/lunaring.html. 33 Ibid. 34 Tucker, “Solar Power from the Moon,” 34. 35 D. Criswell, “Why We Need the Moon for Solar Power on Earth,” Futurist 45, no. 3 (2011): 37. 36 T. Kishi, M. Takemura, and T. Kadohira, “Nanotechnology and Green Innovation in Japan,” Strength, Fracture and Complexity 7, no. 1 (2011): 5–12. 37 Ibid., 6. 38 Ibid., 9. 39 Ibid. 40 Shimizu Corporation, “The Environmental Island – Green Float” ([Tokyo], 2017), available online at http://www.shimz.co.jp/english/theme/ dream/greenfloat.html; author’s interviews with Shimizu Corporation Green Float staff, August 2014. 41 Author’s interviews with Shimizu Corporation Green Float staff, August 2014. 42 M. Takeuchi, Shimizu Corporation, quoted on DigInfotv, available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXbYRxl16SA. 43 “Seasteading: Cities on the Ocean,” Economist, 3 December 2011. 44 Author’s interviews with Shimizu Corporation Green Float staff, August 2014. 7. Japanese Economic Environmentalism in Review 1 C. Watanabe, “Japan Eyes Smart Meters, Fuel Cells to Tackle Climate Change,” Bloomberg Business, 23 December 2013, available online at http:// www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-27/japan-eyes-smart-meters -fuel-cells-to-tackle-climate-change. 2 P. Landers and M. Negishi, “In post-tsunami Japan homeowners pull away from grid,” Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2013. 3 H. Komiyama, Beyond the Limits to Growth: New Ideas for Sustainability from Japan (Tokyo: Springer Japan, 2014), ix. 4 “Banishing the Clouds,” Economist, 13 June 2015. 5 OECD, OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Japan, 2010, 51; italics in original. 6 Ibid. 7 “Banishing the Clouds,” Economist, 13 June 2015. 8 “Sunshine and Clouds,” Economist, 5 September 2015.

Notes to pages 178−91 9 10 11 12 13 14

223

Ibid. “Puffs of Hope,” Economist, 1 August 2015. “Banishing the Clouds,” Economist, 13 June 2015. DeWit, “Japan’s Bid,” 1. DeWit, “Japan’s Bid.” Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, “Renewables 2016 Japan Status Report, Summary” (Tokyo, October 2016), available online at http://www .isep.or.jp/en/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/JSR2016Summary-EN .pdf. 15 DeWit, “Japan’s Resilient.” 16 As it relates to Japan, see C. Holroyd and K. Coates, Innovation Nation: Science and Technology in 21st Century Japan (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), chap. 1.

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Index

Abe, Shinzō, 9, 128, 178; government of, 59, 64, 120, 179 Absolute Liability Law, 53 Abuja, 122 Accenture, 152 acetaldehyde, 48 actions, public, 53 Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 41, 63, 79–80, 171 Advanced Power Electronics Research Center, 79 Advanced Research Institute for Science, 145 advocacy, pollution victims, 53 Africa, 58 Agano River, 49 Aghion, Philippe, 23 Aichi World’s Fair, 6, 75, 119 aid: environmental, 58; foreign, 57; international, 36 airbags, 97–8 air conditioners, 91, 93, 96, 100, 102, 118, 127, 153, 179; Air Guide, 179; hydrocarbon-based refrigerant, 91; mobile, 91 airflow control robot, 179

Air Liquide, 162 air pollution, 47, 57, 149; asthmainducing, 132; technologies, 142 Air Pollution Control Law, 52–3 air quality, 52–3; measurement, 133; monitoring system, 47 aluminum oxide, 169 Amsden, Alice, 18 anti-pollution demands, 149 anti-pollution measures, 188 Aozora ga Hoshii, 143 appliances, 55, 79, 82, 96, 101, 146; domestic, 8; electric, 40, 94, 144, 149; energy-efficient, 101; friendly, 93; gas cooking, 103; lower efficiency, 103; recycled, 146; scrapped, 96; smart, 117; unused, 127 Aqua (Prius), 134, 179 Aragon region, 28 Asahi Kasei Corporation, 147 Asia, 58, 111, 113, 124–6, 128, 142, 147 Asian Green Camp, 124 Asian regional integration, 65 Asia-Pacific conference, 56 Asia-Pacific region, 63, 141 Aso Corporation, 147

248

Index

Astro Boy, 173 ATMOsphere Asia, 91 Australia, 101, 176, 178, 182 Austria, 180 automakers, 97–8 automobile recycling law penalties, 98 automobiles, 8, 11, 98, 121, 138, 145 automobile shredder residue, 97; recycling of, 97 Avenell, Simon, 46, 50, 53, 54 backcasting, 15, 33 backup generators, 39, 68 Bali, 4 Bangkok, 130 Basic Energy Plan, 67–8, 85, 95 Basic Environmental Law, 56, 133 batteries, 83–4, 98, 117, 134, 137, 139, 177, 180; advanced, 80; auto, 42; electric vehicle storage, 152; high-performance, 85; longerlasting, 118; next-generation, 139; rechargeable, 84, 137, 171, 189; stationary, 152 battery performance, 137 Beijing, 5 Bilateral Offset Credit Mechanism, 123 biofuels, 28, 66 biomass, 69–70, 109–10 Biomass Ethanol Japan Kansai Company, 141 biotechnology, 64 Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 16 Borghesis, S., 22 Botanical City, 171 bottles, 144–5 Brazil, 123

building energy management systems (BEMS), 99, 118, 152 Burma, 58 cadmium poisoning, 47–8, 132 Cambodia, 124 Canada, 6–7, 14, 19, 176, 180–2 Canon, 127 capacitors, 117 capacity, installed solar, 88 cap-and-trade program, 99; urban, 99 Capozza, Ivana, 34, 77 carbon, 26, 60, 112, 160, 171–2 carbon-based fuels, 8 carbon dioxide, 60, 91, 110, 161, 170, 172; air-conditioner system, 91; development, 91; emission rights, 172; emissions, 28, 31, 59, 90, 108, 110, 158, 161, 163, 166; emissions-reduction target, 115, 147; non-fluorinated refrigerator, 91; output, 121; production, 173; reduction, 74, 150; sequester, 179; supercritical, 91 carbon footprint, 92–3; labels, 93 carbon intensity, reducing, 27 carbon tax, 40, 65 cars: efficient, 27; limiting, 28; newenergy, 135; passenger, 101; public pollution patrol, 138; sharing program, 115; third-generation, 43 cell phones, 71, 84; recycled, 190 cells: circular, 171; compound PV, 90; dye-sensitized PV, 90; multijunction, 85; new, 171; solar, 88, 90, 136, 156–7, 169; thin film PV, 90 Center for Global Environmental Research, 56

Index 249 Center of Innovation (COI) Program, 66 chargers, 43, 117, 137 Chevrolet Volt, 135 Chiba, 52 Chikuho coalfields, 142 Chinese, 21, 84, 125; automakers, 135; cells, 89 Chisso Corporation, 48–49, 50 chlorofluorocarbons, 57 Chubu University, 179 Chugoku, 76 CityNet, 126 Clean Asia Initiative (CAI), 122 climate, economic, 149 climate change: anthropogenic, 22; combatting, 4, 13, 60, 64, 73, 133, 166, 175; equations, 172; global, 4, 107, 123, 176, 191; mitigating, 23; reversing, 184, 194; surrounding, 108; unchecked, 4; unpredictable, 157 Climate Group, 81 clusters, 75, 131, 139, 146, 151; commercial, 75; global manufacturing, 136; industrial, 18; regional, 76 CO2. See carbon dioxide coal, 33, 71, 108, 120; burning of, 143; lignite, 163 CO-DO30 initiative, 150 command-and-control regulations, 28 community energy management systems (CEMS), 152–3 competitiveness: industrial, 78, 158; technological, 14 competitive research funding, 62 compliance: mechanisms, 27, 43; targets, 99

Condominiums Program, 100 Conference of the Parties, 4, 57, 60, 74, 175 Conservation Collaboration Center, 122 conservation efforts, 71, 173, 185; enhanced, 175 Container and Packaging Recycling Law, 215 containers, throwaway, 150 contaminated: effluent, 49; fish, 48 Cool Biz, 127–8, 188 Cool Earth, 59–60, 104 cooling effect, 133 Copenhagen, 4 copying machines, 102 Council for Science and Technology Policy, 15 Cranfield University, 145 crisis prevention, 16–17 Criswell, David, 170 CSP, 170 Daiichi nuclear plant, 10 Daikin Industries, 91 Daimler, 135 Daini nuclear plant, 10 Dai Phong, 124 Dalian, 124–5, 146 Dalian Environmental Demonstration Zone, 125 damage: environmental, 12, 16, 28, 71, 173; pollution-related health, 52; typhoon, 5; world’s storm, 183 data: carbon footprint, 93; comparative performance, 92; evaluation, 84, 159; gathering, 159; management, 119; patent, 180–2 data centre, 111 Davos Forum, 21

250

Index

decarbonization, 26 Declaration on Green Growth, 20 deforestation, 123 deformities, 46, 48 Delphi Survey, 33, 157 Democratic Party of Japan, 37, 67, 109 demonstration projects: five-year, 86; large-scale smart city, 115; offshore floating wind turbine, 163; overseas, 117 Denmark, 5, 25, 58, 70, 131, 176, 181, 183, 194 densification, increased, 120 Dent, Christopher, 104 deposit refund systems, 28 developing countries, 16, 49, 56–7, 60, 63, 118, 121, 123, 125–6, 132, 141, 190 developmentalism, 104 development projects, 78; ecocommunity, 119; large-scale economic, 58 devices: battery storage, 8; digital, 178; electronic, 117, 190; higher efficiency, 103; high-precision printing, 139; medical, 145; semiconductor, 80 DeWit, Andrew, 4, 67, 120 Dietrich, William, 18 digital broadcasting, 103 digital cameras, 190 disaster, 10, 31, 49, 68, 114, 116, 120, 123, 184; addressing ecological, 73; industry-caused environmental, 45; nuclear, 68, 71, 123; resilience, 5, 12, 120, 131, 153, 182, 184; risk, 182 disease, 48–9; itai-itai, 48; respiratory, 47

dislocations, large-scale, 190 disruptions, potential power supply, 109 Dokai Bay, 46, 142–3 DVD recorders, 103 East Asia, 7 Eco2 cities, 148 Eco Action, 146 Eco Asia, 56 ECODRIVE Project, 24 eco-innovation, 21, 23–5, 29, 104–5 eco-labelling, 30 EcoLeaf, 92–3 ecological: awareness, 105; challenges, 132; change, 45, 193; despoliation, 45; diseconomies, 176; displacement, 36; fate, 194; footprint, 56, 104; improvements, 104, 191; nightmare, 175; obligations, 36; policies, 5, 145; protection, 194; redemption, 190; self-interest, 7; strategies, 6; targets, 175; technologies, 142; values, 139; variant, 191 Eco Mark, 92–3 eco-market niches, global, 131 Eco-Model city project, 112–13 economic planning, national, 61, 192 Economist, 19, 176–8 economy: bubble, 55, 59, 61; closed loop, 96; next, 173; post-industrial, 61; twentieth-century, 106; twentyfirst-century, 7, 15, 153 Eco-Points Program, 34, 40, 81, 93–4, 105, 111, 188 eco-technology, 131 Eco-Town, 145–6

Index 251 education: advanced, 106; postsecondary, 129; programs, 94; public, 26, 63, 77; technical, 107 efficiency: combustion, 82; dynamic, 28; facility, 172; increased, 120; materials, 170; resource, 26; targets, 101 Ekins, Paul, 25–6 electrical appliances, 93, 100, 102; energy-efficient, 100 electrical retailers, 96 electric carpooling projects, 138 electricity: baseload, 166; consumption, 94, 111; generation, 71; gigawatts of, 82, 164; markets, 71, 153, 178; minimal, 161; priced, 135; renewable, 140; total, 88; transmission, 116 electric vehicles, 43–4, 60, 84–5, 106, 114–15, 117, 134–9, 154, 160–1, 188; automotive eco-system, 135; cluster, 136; dischargeable, 152; EV Fit, 134; hybrid, 117; infrastructure, 135; Introduction Plan, 136; manufacturing, 135; motorbikes, 138; plug-in, 135; public transportation, 136; recharging infrastructure, 137; repair, 138; taxi experiment, 137, 189. See also vehicles electrolysis, 162 electrolyte membranes, highperformance, 83 electronics, 164; discarded, 190; energy-saving home, 111; recycling programs, 99 Elliott, Larry, 22 emergency, 31, 98, 131, 133 emissions: abatement and fuel efficiency, 181; charges, 30; control,

175; free source, 39; pricing, 23; reductions, 186; standards, 30, 51; targets, 112; trading, 65, 99 employment, 17, 22, 30, 65–6, 191–2 end-of-life vehicles (ELV), 96, 98; collectors, 98; recycling of, 97; recycling legislation and operations, 97–8 Ene-farm, 82–3, 159, 160 energy, 15–16, 26–8, 38–9, 69–70, 78– 9, 81, 83–5, 110–11, 113–16, 118–19, 147–8, 152–3, 165–73; alternative, 71; conservation, 33, 54, 79, 81, 100, 111, 122, 141, 172, 188; costs, 67, 83; distribution, 70; domestic, 89; electrical, 110; finance, 229; forecasts, 82; friendly, 151; green, 44; grid, 152; hydroelectric, 177; independence, 114; loss, 112; low, 66; low-carbon, 178; mix, 71; non-renewable, 71, 184; postnuclear, 40; replacing fossil fuel, 175; savings, 81, 150; share, 153; stable, 64 Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ), 54, 100, 122 Energy Conservation Law, 54, 100, 188 energy consumption, 45, 110, 129, 176; excessive, 4; final, 70; heating-related, 128; lowering, 114; monthly, 94; reducing, 110; visualization of, 99 energy demand: domestic, 71; peak, 152 energy economics, 41 energy efficiency, 16, 30, 38, 40, 54–5, 57, 59, 75, 100–1, 103, 111, 123, 152, 179; improvement of, 55, 102–3;

252

Index

metrics, 111; rankings, global, 30; targets, 101 energy-efficient: appliances, 93, 94, 187; buildings, 43; methods, 55; refrigeration, 91 Energy Frontier, 79 energy management: customer, 148; integrated, 128; local, 153; systems, 43, 111, 114, 152 energy policy, 68 energy-saving devices, 115, 123; promoting, 116 energy-saving technologies, 34, 43 energy security: increasing, 179; maintaining, 188 energy shocks, 9 energy sources: alternative, 7, 24, 40, 69; commercial, 159; encouraging off-source, 43; lower carbon, 64; renewable, 70, 176; unused, 113 energy technologies, renewable, 56 energy transmission accounts, 178 Engler, David, 32, 69 entrepreneurs, 157, 180, 190 environment: advanced, 65; living, 52; national, 5; natural, 100; new, 172; rural, 46; sustainable, 153; twenty-first-century, 17 environmental: abyss, 8; acceptability, 79; actions, collective, 128; adaptation, 130; assistance, 57–8; awakening, popular, 50; awareness, 71, 93, 107; growing, 72; businesses, local, 125; business missions, 142; catastrophe, 194; challenges, global, 78; characteristics, 95; condemnation, 59; conservation plans, 56; contribution, 217; cooperation, 56,

125; cooperation efforts, 57; costs, 8; demonstration zone, 125; education, increasing, 66; effects, potential, 92; excesses, 6; footprint, 20, 38, 55, 59, 131; goods, 16, 21, 25; ills, 45; initiatives, 4, 189; integrity, 27; interventions, 60; leader, 59; global, 56; measures, opposed, 50; movement, national, 54; necessity, 10; objectives, 28; outcomes, 39; pariah state, 59; pedigree, 59; policies, 19, 29, 38, 51, 53, 104; policy commentators, 35; policy developments, 47; policy elite, 67; policy instrument, 28; problems, 29, 51, 55, 57, 75, 125, 132, 157; products, new, 44; protection, 31, 33, 49, 56, 71, 79, 122, 132, 134, 144, 186, 194; protection survey teams, 57; reclamation, 142; regulations, 27, 77, 132, 143, 149; remediation efforts, 144; salvation, 12; savings, 128; services, 21; shifts, 4; spiral, 157; standards, 43, 52, 56; strategies, 4, 10, 131, 185, 190; sustainability, 8, 11, 62, 107; targets, 113, 183; technologies, 9–12, 15, 29–31, 33–5, 37–40, 75–6, 78, 104–5, 121, 142, 144, 156–7, 182–3, 188, 190–1, 193–4; technologies sector, 15–16, 76; technology markets, 44; technology sectors, 35, 62, 64, 121, 146, 156; threats, 173; waste management plan, 150; watchdogs, 53 Environmental Management Research Institute, 79 Environmental Performance Labelling for Condominiums Program, 100

Index 253 Environmental Pollution Control Bureau, 143 Environment Museum, 147 Environment Policy Research Centre, 21 environment-related global meetings, 56 Enviro-Technology Frontier, 156–7, 159, 161, 163, 165, 167, 169, 171, 173 Equal Co., 141 equipment, energy-inefficient, 92 Ernst & Young, 119 European Union, 49, 70, 97, 101, 165 evaluation: metrics, 13; methods, 84 evolutionary economics, 22 e-waste, 98–9 experiments: demand response, 152; microwave, 168; taxi, 189 extended producer responsibility, 96–7 externalities, environmental, 29 facilities: electric power, 39; energysaving home, 34; industrial, 151; large fusion science, 165; megasolar power generation, 139; natural gas production, 148; transportation infrastructure, 136 factories, 54, 100, 122, 138, 142, 149, 151, 175; air-pollution-producing, 46; automobile recycling, 122 Fallows, James, 18 Fankhauser, Samuel, 26 FCV Concept, 160 Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, 41 feed-in tariff, 28, 65, 67–8, 69, 108, 109, 140; implementing, 108; plan, 67, 88–9; regulations, 188

fees, deposited recycling, 97–8 financial disincentives, 24 Finland, 58, 176 fiscal stimulus program, 34 fishing, 58, 59 fishing zones, 164 FIT-supported renewables, 110 floating: cells, 171; cities, 11, 171; compact semi-submersible, 164; plants, 89; platforms, 163–4; wind turbines, 43, 164–5 fluorescent lights, 81, 144–5 fluorocarbons, 97–8 forecasting, 66 foreign aid investments, 36 forest restoration activities, 65, 148 forestry, 38, 58, 65 France, 117, 165, 180–2 Freeman, Chris, 14, 18 Freie Universität Berlin, 21 Friedman, Milton, 17 Friendship Treaty, 125 fuel, recycled, 141 fuel cells, 60, 78, 80, 82–4, 117, 158–61, 171, 175–7, 179; concept, 160; higher-efficiency, 82; industrial-size, 163; nextgeneration hydrogen, 159; polymer electrolyte, 82; residential, 83, 160; solid oxide, 83; stationary, 82 fuel cell vehicles, 82, 159–63; mass-produced, 84, 159 fuel mix, 28 fuel tax, 28 Fuji Electric, 117–18 Fujisawa City, 115 Fujisawa SST, 115–16 Fujitsu, 162 Fukuoka, 84, 159

254

Index

Fukuoka Prefecture General Research Center on Recycling, 145 Fukuoka University, 146; Graduate School of Engineering Recycling, 145; Institute for Resource Recycling, 145 Fukushima Daiichi, 164 Fukushima disaster, 4, 8–10, 39–40, 45, 68–9, 71, 88, 109, 113, 116, 137 Fukushima offshore wind consortium, 163 Fukushima prefecture, 70 Furman, Jeffrey, 18 Furukawa Electric, 164 fusion power, 165, 166 future-oriented industrial system, 133 G8, 63 garbage processing, 151 gas firms, 106, 159 gasification, 163 gas imports, 10 gas water heaters, 103 General Motors, 135 geothermal, 68–9, 108–9, 177 geo-thermal systems, advanced, 11 German National Research Center for Information Technology, 145 Germany, 19, 25, 30, 54, 58, 69–70, 87–8, 107, 109, 177–8, 180–3, 190, 194 Gerschenkron, Alexander, 18 Gfk Marketing Services, 81 GHG emissions. See greenhouse gas emissions Glaser, Peter, 166 Global Cloud Platform, 179 Global Environment Centre Foundation, 141

Global Environment Information Centre, 56 Global Research Center, 170 Global Sustainability Initiative, 111 Graham, Jeff, 57 Grant for Industrial Technology Research, 78 Green Aid Plan, 57, 63, 122 Green Building Program, 99–100 green cities, 130–1, 133, 135, 137, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155 green economy installations, 130 Greenery Expo, 75, 141 Green Float, 171–3 Green Frontier Plan, 147 Green Growth, 7–12, 15–17, 19–21, 23–5, 31–8, 40–5, 71–2, 105–8, 154, 173–6, 184–6, 188–94; policies, 26, 28, 74–5, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99; strategies, 7, 11–12, 20–1, 30, 34–6, 39–41, 61, 72, 153, 187, 190, 194 greenhouse gas emissions, 4, 10, 15–16, 22, 35, 57, 59, 65–7, 82, 85, 93, 99, 112–13, 122–3, 127, 133, 141, 147, 150–1, 188, 190; reducing, 19, 34, 123, 188, 191 Green ICT, 110, 147 green infrastructure, 106–7, 109, 111, 113, 115, 117, 119, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129 Greening Aid, 58 green innovation, 23, 25, 28–9, 33–4, 38, 64–6, 76–7, 79–80, 92, 100, 107, 116, 121 green jobs, 157 Green Leviathan, 53 green nanotechnology, 158, 170 green public procurement, 95, 105

Index 255 Green Stimulus Package, 40 green taxation, 179 green technologies, 6, 21, 27–9, 43, 64–5, 79, 151, 185 Green Transition, 16 Green Vehicle Purchasing Promotion Program, 94 grid: connection, 86, 88, 109; control systems, 118; electrical, 83; regional, 120; stability, 86, 88; utility, 152 gross domestic product (GDP), 19, 21 growth-at all-costs mentality, 49 Hama Wing, 150 Hashimoto, Tōru, 138 Hatoyama, Yukio, 12 Hawaii, 168, 178 Hayes, Richard, 18 hazardous substances, 48, 97, 98, 140 Health Damage Compensation Law, 52 heat, 113, 115, 133, 158, 165–6; factory by-product, 147 heating systems, 165; designed, 165; district, 179 heat pump chiller, high-efficiency, 60, 91 Hemous, David, 23 Hibiki Recycling Area, 144–6 Hicks, R., 58 high-capacity motors, 135 high-efficiency non-fluorinated refrigerants, 90 Hikari-no-Mori project, 139 Hino, 161 Hiroshi Komiyama, 176 Hiroshima, 39, 162 Hitachi, 67, 85, 86, 115, 127, 164

Hitachi Smart Industrial Town, 115 Hitachi Zosen, 141 Hokko Landfill Site, 139–40 Holland, Andrew, 166 Home Energy Management Systems, 117–18, 152 home insulation, 156 homes: solar-heated, 8; zeroemission, 118 home-use storage battery systems, 116 Honda, 134, 160–2 Honda R&D, 91 Hong Kong, 145, 183 Hong Kong Institute, 145 housing complexes, 151 Houston, 170 Huberty, M., 15, 23 hydrocarbon refrigerant, 91 hydroelectricity, 70, 85 hydrofluorocarbons, 90 hydrogen, 78, 82–3, 148, 158–63, 165, 169; availability of, 158; delivery of, 82; flammability of, 162; fuel cells, 139, 158; price of, 160; promoting, 158; release of, 83; supply chain, 161; technologies, 84, 159; zero-carbon emission of, 160 hydrogen engines, 117 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Strategy Council, 159 hydrogen-fuelled vehicles, 158, 160–3 hydrogen fuel suppliers, 83–4, 159 Hydrogen Highway Project, 159 Hydrogen Society, 84 Hydrogen Town Project, 148, 159 Ibaraki City Smart Community Project, 115

256

Index

Ibaraki Prefecture, 165 ICT. See information and communications technologies IES (Institute for Environmental Studies) report, 30 IGES (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies), 124 Iida, Tetsunari, 67, 70, 112 Ikeda, Hayato, 60 i-Miev, 180 India, 4, 7, 57–8, 74, 114, 118–19, 126, 165 Indonesia, 7, 57–8, 118, 123–4 industrial effluent, 48 industrialization, 63, 142, 145, 148 industrial pollution, 48, 50–1, 122, 149; cases, 47, 50, 52; points, 52; worst, 5 Industrial Technology Development Organization, 41, 55, 78, 116, 139, 159 industrial waste treatment facilities, 140 information and communications technologies, 23, 98, 108, 110, 112–14, 116, 145, 170 Information Technology Association, 111 information technology cluster, 17 infrastructure: hydrogen vehicle, 188; national, 107; technological, 197 innovation, 12, 15, 18–19, 23–5, 29–30, 34–5, 40, 64–5, 76, 107–8, 173–4, 185–6, 192–3; national, 10, 36, 106, 186 Institute for Environmental Studies (IES), 29, 41 Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP), 70–1, 179

insulation, 152; advanced, 8; increased thermal, 172 intellectual property rights, 27, 42, 107 Intelligent Multimode Transit System, 75 international cooperation, 20, 108, 133, 154; expanding, 25, 76, 121–2 International Institute of Sustainable Development, 23 International Social Survey Program (ISSP), 32 International Thermo-nuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), 165–6 international trade, 57, 59, 64, 107, 131 Internet, 71, 176; applications, 110; wireless, 192 investments, 6–7, 11–13, 15, 17, 23, 25, 27, 37–8, 40, 42, 44, 65, 75–7, 87–8, 104, 107–9, 142, 154, 167, 182, 185, 192–4 investment strategies, 105 investment subsidy program, 86 Ireland, 17 Israel, 7, 19, 194 Italy, 181–2 Iwasaki Electric, 81 Iwatani, 161–3 Jänicke, Martin, 16, 21, 24 Japan: eco-model cities, 147; energy mix, 31, 68, 70; government of, 11, 13, 42, 72, 75, 175, 185, 194; industry and, 63, 65, 79, 121; New Growth Strategy, 34; US occupation of, 148 Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 167

Index 257 Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 67 Japan Atomic Power Company, 67 Japan Business Federation, 171 Japan Electronics and Information Technology Association, 111 Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI), 92–3 Japan Environment Association, 92 Japan External Trade Organization, 41 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), 52, 122, 126, 141 Japan Patent Office, 41 Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association, 86 Japan Post, 135 Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, 69 Japan Smart Community 113, 119 Japan Space Systems (JSS), 168 JAXA, 167–9 Jessup, Phil, 81 Jinzu River, 47 Johnson, Chalmers, 18 Joint Crediting Mechanism, 123 Jono District Low-Carbon Advanced Model Area, 147 Jordan, Andrew, 26, 76 JX Nippon Oil, 162 Kaiho Sangyo Co., 122 Kakuno, S., 91 Kamikatsu, 112 Kanagawa prefectural government, 161 Kanazawa, 151, 153 Kaneka, 138 Kankyo Technos Co., 147 Kansai, 76, 142

Kansai Electric Power Co., 140 Kansai Science City, 115 Kansai University, 139 Karlenzig, Warren, 112 Kashiwagi, Takao, 119 Kato City, 89 Kawasaki City, 52 Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd and Iwatani Corp., 163 Kazumi Tanimoto, 79 Keihanshin region, 135 Keio University, 171 keiretsu, 60 Kelly, Geoff, 92, 101 Kenya, 14 Kerr, Alex, 5 Kimura, Osamu, 86 Kitakyushu, 9, 112–13, 115, 123–6, 132, 142–8, 151, 154, 159; Asian Center, 124; Eco-Model City Action Plan, 147; Eco-Premium Award, 146; Eco-Town Project, 144–6; Next Generation Park, 147; Smart City Project, 147–8 Kitakyushu International Technocooperative Association (KITA), 124, 144 Kitakyushu University, 145–6 Kōbe, 31, 131, 135, 137, 162–3 Kohoku New Town, 151 Koizumi, Junichiro, 63, 87, 127–8, 190 K-RIP, 146–7 Kumamoto, 49 Kyocera, 41, 86–7, 89, 138 Kyoto, 57, 112, 131, 135 Kyoto Protocol, 4, 9, 57, 59, 68, 75, 100, 122, 127; emissions-reduction targets, 10, 39, 96 Kyoto University’s Sunrise Project, 139

258

Index

Kyushu, 48, 69, 76, 142 Kyushu Electric Power Co., 147 Kyushu Institute, 145–6 Kyushu Laboratory, 145 Kyushu Recycle, 146 labelling programs, 28; environmental, 92 Lake Kasumigaura, 46 landfills, 96–7, 139 law: green purchasing, 95; new, 96 lawsuits, 48–9 LC-Net Japan, 170 learning-by-doing, 27 LEDs. See light-emitting diodes Liberal Democratic Party, 37, 70, 109, 185 Life Innovation, 64–5 light-emitting diodes, 81 lighting: domestic, 81; energyefficient, 177; international, 81; patent applications, 180; smart street, 115 liquefied hydrogen import hub, 163 lithium-ion batteries, 84, 118, 139 local governments, 70, 76, 109, 114–15, 119–20, 126, 131–2, 135, 138, 153, 188 low-carbon cities, 112–13 low-carbon economy and society, 6, 27, 34, 64, 112, 124, 147 Low Carbon Environmental Goods and Services (LCEGS), 16 Luna Ring, 158, 169 lunar solar power system, 170 lunar surface activity, 170 Lundval, Bengt-Åke, 14 Lyon, 117

Machiba, Tomoo, 24 magnets, super-conducting, 165 Maishima, 141 Malaga, 117 Malaysia, 18, 57–8, 119, 127 Manchester, 117 Marubeni, 163 Mason, Robert, 53, 55 materials: advanced, 164; battery, 84; common lunar, 170; radioactive, 39; semi-conducting, 80, 85; shredded, 210; structural, 169 Matsushita, 85 Maui, 117, 168 May Day rally, 50 Mayekawa Manufacturing Co., 91, 180 McKenna, Catherine, 6 megafloat pontoons, 172 megasolar project site, large-scale, 140 Meidensha, 152 Meiji era, 132 Meishin Expressway, 137 mercury poisoning, 46–9, 132 methane hydrates, 157 methanol, 179; carbon-dioxidederived, 179 Mexico, 183 Mexico City, 130 Middle East, 114 Middle Eastern oil, 33, 54 Mie prefecture, 47 Minamata, 47–9, 112 Minamata Convention, 49 Minato Mirai, 151 Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), 33–4, 67, 76, 78, 92–3, 114–15, 120, 122–3, 126, 134, 139–40, 147, 159–60, 163–4

Index 259 Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), 66, 170–1 Ministry of Finance (MOF), 39–40 Ministry of Health and Welfare (MoHW), 48, 51, 140 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 120, 136 Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), 51, 57, 60 Ministry of the Environment (MOE), 39, 95–6, 123, 124, 127 Mirai, 161 Mitsubishi Electric, 87, 91, 117, 138 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, 67, 91, 164, 168 Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, 152 Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle, 135 Mitsubishi Research Institute, 179 Mitsui & Co., 48, 144 Mitsui Chemical, 179 Mitsui Fudosan, 115 Mitsui Mining and Smelting, 47–8 Miyakojima, 112 Mizushima, 50 mobile phones, 81, 98, 137, 168, 185 Moe, Espen, 70 monitoring devices, 112 Moonlight Project, 54 Mt Fuji, 46 multiparty coalition, 109 Mumbai, 130 Munich, 5 Munich Reinsurance, 31 museums, 94, 134, 159 Nagasaki atomic bombing, 39 Nagoya, 84, 137, 159

Nairobi, 130 Naka Fusion Institute, 165 nano: biology, 170; chemistry, 171; devices, 170; electronics, 171; fluidics, 171; materials, 83; materials science, 170; technology, 64, 170 Narita airport, 52 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Agency), 166 National Bureau of Economic Research, 5 national industrial policies, 191 national innovation systems, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 18–19, 35–6, 76, 104, 129, 156, 191–2 National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 170–1 National Institute for Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP), 15, 33 National Space Security Office, 167 natural disasters, climate-changeinduced, 31 natural gas, 43, 82, 123, 158; liquefied, 149 natural refrigerants, 91 nature conservation, 53 NEC Corporation, 84 Netherlands, 29, 180 net-metering program, 86 network: commercializing nextgeneration transmission, 118; communications technology, 117; dense, 104; expensive, 106; global, 6; global fibre-optic, 6, 192 new energy, 10, 31, 34, 37, 41, 55, 78, 116, 139, 159, 173, 193; cluster support, 138 New Energy and Industrial Technology Development

260

Index

(NEDO), 55, 78–86, 88, 90, 116–19, 139, 159; fuel cell research by, 82; funded research programs and subsidies, 56 New Energy Development Organization, 31 New Energy Promotion Council, 114 New Growth Strategy, 34, 38, 65–6, 104, 116 New IT Reform Strategy, 111 New Japan Chisso Corporation, 48 New Mechanism, 123 New Mexico, 117 New Sunshine Project, 56, 86 New York, 5 Next Generation High-Performance Technology for Photovoltaic Power Generation Systems, 88 Neyagawa City, 140 NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, 32 Nigeria, 122 Niigata district, 47, 49 Nikkei Weekly, 99 Nippon Keidanren, 31, 34, 41, 60, 65–7, 171 Nippon Paint, 81 Nippon Signal, 81 Nippon Steel Company, 142, 144, 146–9; Yawata Works, 159 Nishinihon Kaden Recycle Corporation, 146 Nishi-Nippon PET-Bottle Recycle Co., 144 Nissan Motor Co., 11, 41, 134, 152, 162 nitrogen oxides, 28 Nobel laureates, 62 Nomura Securities, 171–2 non-fossil fuel sources, 85

non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 52, 54, 59, 122 North America, 32 Norway, 28, 165 NTT Communications, 117 nuclear accidents, 68 nuclear energy, 9–10, 40, 67–9, 85, 120, 131, 188 nuclear energy capacity off-line, 40 nuclear fission, 165 nuclear fusion, 11, 158, 165–6, 172, 189 nuclear industry, 68–9; lobby, 10, 67; regulators, 68 nuclear power, 10, 39–40, 67–9, 71, 85, 166, 184 nursing care allowances, 52 Obama, Barak, 21; administration of, 44 Obihiro, 112 ocean, equatorial, 171 ocean dumping, 59 ocean water, 89 ODA. See overseas development assistance OECD. See Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development office buildings, 99 offset, 61, 96, 123, 138, 168, 175 offshore, 158, 164; floating turbines, 164; moving manufacturing plants, 58; sustainable cities, 171; wind power, 163–4 oil, 10, 33, 54, 58, 103, 106, 123, 158, 176; canola, 93; consumed, 46; cooking, 145; crisis, 54, 85; peak, 157; prices, 134; refineries, 47; shocks, 31, 33, 45, 54, 184

Index 261 oil water heaters, 103 Okano-Heijmans, Maaike, 33, 121 Okayama, 50 Okinawa, 76 Okuda Vision, 34 Ontario, 17 OPEC. See Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries orbit, geostationary, 167 organic waste-composting program, 124 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 14–16, 20–1, 25–6, 34–5, 76–7, 104, 107–8, 177, 180–2; analysts, 25, 77; Environment Directorate points, 34; founding of, 22; recommendations, 77; research, 92; states, 100; strategy, 16 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 54 Osaka, 31–2, 46, 52, 84, 89, 132–42, 154, 159, 162; Eco-Town, 140; EV (Electronic Vehicles) Action Council, 135; EV Action Program, 135–6; EV efforts, 154; EV Taxi Experiment, 216; recharging infrastructure network, 137; roads, 137 Osaka City Bay Area, 140 Osaka prefectural government, 136–8 Osaka prefecture, 131, 135, 138, 141 Osaka Station North District development project, 140 Ota City, 88 overseas development assistance (ODA), 58, 121, 56–8, 59, 121 oxidization, 179

Panasonic, 11, 41, 62, 83, 87, 90–1, 109, 115–16, 152, 158, 179; automobile recharging infrastructure initiatives by, 116 panels: automotive instrument, 81; flexible, 90; half-sized, 179; large, 221; launching, 90; photovoltaic, 168, 170; same-sized, 89; square, 168 Papua New Guinea, 58 Paris, 4, 6, 60 Paris Accord, 4, 74, 123, 156; targets, 175 Patent Cooperation Treaty, 180–2 patent fields, selected, 180 patents, 18, 158, 180–1, 186, 188; environmental, 33; hydrogen fuel cell, 161 Peace and Friendship Treaty, 125 Penang, 127 Pham, Clarisse, 114, 119 Philippines, 57–8, 183 Phnom Penh, 124 photovoltaic (PV): cells, 85, 104, 178, 179; electricity, 87; installations, 88, 90, 109; market expansion, 86; module manufacturers, 104; power generation systems, 79–80, 85, 87–8, 152, 170, 189; PV2030, 87; PV2030+, 88; R&D projects, 87; residential systems, 86; submodule, 90; systems, 86–7 plants: chemical, 50; coking, 148; electric, 47, 149; food-processing, 83; industrial, 53, 142; largest solar cell, 89; largest water purification, 126; megasolar, 139; new coalburning, 194; petrochemical, 46, 50, 149; sewage treatment, 134 Plaza Accord, 121

262

Index

plug-in cars, 135 policies: demand-side, 25, 76; harmonizing, 111; industrial, 18, 23, 31, 33, 38; long-term, 64; market-creation, 86; non-marketbased, 27; pollution-monitoring, 52; tax, 34 political economy, 13, 17, 23, 35, 60 polluter-pays principle, 96 polluting industries, heavy, 36 pollution, 4, 8, 19, 24–6, 46–50, 52–5, 57–9, 127, 132, 143, 149–50; consumer, 53; control, 149; court cases, 47, 53; crimes, 53; damages, 52; disease outbreaks, 47, 50; export of, 36; limiting sulphur oxide, 47; global mercury, 49; management of, 26; measurement of, 133; monitoring of, 143; noise, 125; prevention, 50–1, 75, 132–3, 141, 143; problems, 46, 51, 143; protested, 50; reducing, 15, 36; reducing systems for fossil-fuel-using vehicles, 172; released cadmium, 47 pollution control: agreements, 149; domestic, 57; environmental, 51–3; instituted, 51; measures, 96; obligations for industry, 51; regulations, 149; technology, 149; trading systems, 28; trials, 49 Pollution Control Law, emissions standards, 52 polyethylene terephthalate, 144 polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), 82–3 population density, 137 Porter, Michael, 18, 75 Portugal, 165 prefectural, 49, 74, 119, 149, 185; local, 131

prefectures, 51, 99, 131, 139, 141 Prestowitz, Clyde, 18 price incentives, 24 pricing: mechanisms, 27; regimes, 178; variable, 116 procurement, 10, 95 product category rules, 93 products, energy-efficient, 111 Promotion Council of Low Carbon Cities, 112 pro-nuclear lobby, 10 public investment, 20, 27–8, 77, 121 public opinion polls, 32, 62 public transportation, 59, 94, 136 Qingdao, 124, 146 radioactive water, 68 radio frequency identification tags, 126 Rakuten, 17 rapid-charging stations, 136–7 rate: feed-in-tariff, 88; highest efficiency, 90; normal, 88; tariff, 109 raw materials, inexpensive, 22 reactors, nuclear, 10, 31, 67–8, 123, 164–5 Reagan, Ronald, 17 recharging time, 137 recyclable plastic, 75 recyclables, 144 recyclers, 98 recycling, 16, 31–2, 59, 96, 112, 125–6, 131, 133, 140–1, 145–6, 151, 173, 188, 190; aluminum, 141; business, 98, 122, 124, 145; city-wide, 132; deregulating, 66; exceptional, 8; factories, 144; fee, 97, 98; hub, 144; of home appliances, 215;

Index 263 organizations, 63; program, 127; promotion, 75, 99; rules, 98; strict, 188; technology, 144 recycling-based society, 96 Recycling Law, 95–6 recycling systems, 90, 97, 126, 145; community-based, 141; domestic, 125; new, 98; onsite, 75; watersaving, 78 refineries, 47, 58 refrigerant, 90–1 regional electrical monopolies, 67 regulations, 13, 15, 17, 34, 37–8, 50–1, 84, 86, 90, 95, 97, 100–1, 128–9, 183–4, 187 Reich, Michael, 51–2, 53 Rematec, 140 remediation, 44, 134 renewable energy, 9–10, 31, 33–4, 65, 68–71, 85, 108–9, 112, 114, 116, 151–2, 160, 177–9 Renewable Portfolio Standard, 69 renewable power sources, 15, 157 renewables boom, 178 research and development (R&D), 18, 29, 34, 54, 63, 66, 76–7, 79, 134, 144, 177, 189; achievements, 79; centres, 104; encouraging collaborative technological development, 42; environmentrelated, 28; facilities, 138; fundamental, 27; funding, 28, 63; high-risk, 66, 88; investment in, 33, 65; long-term, 187; management, 79; private, 28; subsidies, 23; support of, 23, 30 Research Institute for Ubiquitous Energy Devices, 79 Research Institute of Energy Frontier, 79

Ricoh Corporation, 144 risk exposure, 182 risk indices, 31 risks, 171 robotic arm, 169 robots: guided, 170; operating, 169 roofs, 133, 177; solar-panelled, 147 Russia, 165, 176 safety, 10, 79, 100, 162, 166 Saibu Gas Company Ltd, 147 Sakai, S., 112, 140 Sakishima islands district, 139 Sanden, 91 Sanyo, 41, 84, 86, 138, 179 São Paolo, 130 Sapporo Breweries, 83 SB Clean Energy, 41 SBSP, 167 Schreurs, Miranda, 35, 47, 51–2 Science and Technology Basic Laws, 75 seasteading, 172 sea transportation, 163 Second Stage Plan Area, 145 Second World War, 6, 45, 48, 56, 148 Sekisui House Ltd, 176 Sendai, 69 Seoul, 5, 154 sewage, 106, 117 Shannon, 17 Shimizu Corporation, 152, 169, 171–3 Shimokawa, 112 Shin-ryo, 144 Shizuoka prefecture, 50 shortages, raw material, 16–17, 184 Showa Denko, 49 Showa Shell Sekiyu’s Solar Frontier Company, 89 showcasing, technology, 114, 121

264

Index

Silicon Valley, 17 Singapore, 18, 154 smart cities, 43, 113–17, 119–20, 128, 148, 151, 188 Smart Community Development, 119 smart community projects, international, 118 smart energy technology, 136 Smart Grid Business Management Department, Toshiba Corporation, 118 smart grid demonstration projects, 117 smart grid power supply, 116 smart grids, 64–5, 67, 78, 112, 116–18, 128, 131, 151, 188 smart homes, 115, 118; solarpowered, 90 smart hydrogen station, 161 smart meters, 116, 118, 175 smart town, 115–16 Smith, Adam, 8 Smoke and Soot Control Law, 47 Smoke Capital, 46, 132 smokestacks, 48, 52, 143 Softbank, 69 software, 112; life cycle assessment, 93 solar, residential, 109 solar business, 109 solar collectors, 167 solar energy, 7, 69, 85, 166–8, 177 Solar Frontier, 90 solar glass, 90 solar incentives, 70 solar installations, 110; new, 87, 178; regular large, 89 solar panel industry, 185; integrated, 88

solar panels, 8, 86, 88, 90, 109, 115, 139, 148, 150, 158, 166, 169, 175–9, 187, 189; market for, 86, 87, 138; production of, 87; residential installations, 86 solar power, 29, 54, 70, 84, 86, 89, 104, 134, 138, 167, 170, 176–7; commercial, 87; excess, 67, 109; generation systems, 116; installations, 104, 138; power operators, 109; purchase excess, 88; residential, 88; satellite, 172; space-based, 158, 166–7, 172; station, one-gigawatt, 167 Solar Power Wireless Transmission Technology Development Project, 168 solar projects, 110 solar PV, 104 solar research, 86 solid oxide fuel cells, 83 Son, Masayoshi, 69 Sony, 11, 62, 84 South Asia, 123, 154 Southeast Asia, 36, 56, 58–9, 123, 154 South Korea, 7, 14, 18–19, 30, 56–7, 97, 144, 147, 165, 183 space-based: energy nodes, 8; solar power system, 166, 168 space heaters, 103 Space Systems Operations, 170 Spain, 28, 117 Spross, J., 183 standardization, international, 64 standards: energy consumption efficiency, 101; environmental quality, 143; fuel economy, 29; high-quality, 61; land treatment, 133; national, 40; setting minimum efficiency, 100; tighter, 51

Index 265 standards-based markets, 23 Stanley Electric, 81 stations, 162, 167; gasoline, 106, 137, 162; giant floating solar power, 89; ground-based power, 169; hydrogen fuel recharging, 161–3; hydrogen service, 162; new coalfired power, 71; regular powercharging, 137; vehicle recharging, 150 storage, 60, 82, 84, 116, 159–60, 177; stationary energy, 152 storage batteries, 42–3, 84, 114, 118, 161, 178 storage capacity, 42 storage cells, high-capacity, 118 storage systems, 84, 178; home energy, 84 strategies: carbon reduction, 67; futuristic, 11; green economic, 11 streetlights, 81 Styrene Foam Recycling Project, 145 subsea cable connectors, 164 subsidies: consumer, 87, 185; consumer solar panel, 188; fuel cell vehicle, 163; state-supported corporate, 193 subway, 55, 94, 131 Suga Bay, 46 sulphur dioxide, 47 Sumitomo Corporation, 89, 117, 139 Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd, 179 Sumitomo Finance, 89 Sumitomo Mitsui Finance, 139 Sunshine Policy, 87 Sunshine Program, 85 Sunshine Project, 54 Super Collaborative Graduate School, 171–2

super-conducting cables, installed, 180 Surabaya City, 124 surplus electricity, 52, 68, 89, 109; mini power plants feeding, 177 sustainable: development, 8, 23, 31, 35, 108, 147; growth, 20, 65, 148; incomes, 11; practices, 5; resources, 25; waste management system, 124 Suzuki, M., 86 Suzuki, Tatsujiro, 86, 94 Sweden, 7, 28, 70, 181 Swiss Reinsurance, 31 Taisei Industry, 141 Taiwan, 7, 14, 18, 97, 183 Taiwanese companies, 81, 87 targets: carbon dioxide reduction, 112; emissions-reduction, 99; energy-efficiency, 87; GHG emissions-reduction, 189; maximum pollution control, 149; new Basic Energy Plan’s, 179 tax breaks, 66 tax deduction, 88 taxi firms, 137 Team E-Kansai, 142 technologies: cleaner, 26, 30; electricity-generating, 116; electricity storage, 78; emerging, 40, 61, 173; energy-harvesting, 179; environmental remediation, 8; expensive solar panel, 86; fuel cell, 82; improved recycling, 66; innovative ceramic nano-filtration membrane, 126; installing pollution-control, 54, 149; nextgeneration, 83, 113, 172; space solar, 166; transferred water

266

Index

service management, 126; waste management, 177 Technology Agency, 41, 66 Technology Basic Laws, 75 technology transfer, 125, 147 TEPCO, 41, 68, 179 Tesla Motors, 135 Thailand, 7, 57, 119, 183 Thatcher, Margaret, 17 Tianjin, 124, 126, 146 Tobata Women’s Association, 143 Togawa, Kenichi, 97 Toho Gas Co., 162 Toho Zinc Corporation, 47 Tokuyama, 87 Tokyo, 31–2, 46, 89, 91, 130–1, 159–62, 164–5; Green Building Program targets, 99 Tokyo Bay, 167 Tokyo Electric Power Company, 68, 117, 131, 152 Tokyo Gas, 152, 162 Tokyo Institute of Technology, 171 Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 70, 99–100 Tokyo Olympics, 160, 163 Tokyo Solar Roof Registry, 109 Tokyu Railway Corporation, 94 Top Runner Program, 100–1, 103, 111, 187 Toshiba, 41, 62, 67, 83, 86, 90, 115, 118 Totman, Conrad, 46, 51 tourism, 39, 65, 120, 126, 136 tours, school, 141 towers, 171; traditional turbine, 164 townhouses, low-rise, 171 towns: small, 112; technologycentric, 115 toxic archipelago, 46 Toyama, 112

Toyama Prefectural Itai-itai Museum, 47 Toyota, 11, 127, 134–5, 158, 161–2; Prius, 134; Smart Insect, 179 Toyota City, 112, 115 Toyota NEC, 41 Toyota Smart Center, 179 transit: public, 32, 65; rapid, 8, 130 transportation: efficient, 172; lowcarbon, 134; next-generation, 152; services, 31; system, new, 136 Transportation Air Development, 91 Transportation Patent Applications, 181 triple bottom line, 12 Triple Helix, 35 Tsukuba, 170–1 Tsukuba Innovation Area, 171 tsunami, 39–40, 68, 184 Tsushima Island, 47 turbines, 164; accessible, 164; nonfloating, 164 typhoons, 164, 171 Ubiquitous Energy Devices, 79 UCL Energy Institute, 25 undersea cables, 164 UNESCO, 142 United Kingdom, 19, 29, 117, 131, 145, 178, 180–3, 194 United Nations Climate Change Conference, 4 United Nations Development Programme, 132 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 16, 21, 141 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 123 United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 124

Index 267 United States, 18–19, 21–2, 29–30, 33, 36, 97, 111, 114, 134–5, 156–8, 161, 166, 170, 180–3 University of Houston, 170 University of Tokyo, 164, 171 University of Tsukuba, 171 urban aggregations zones, 142 urban architecture, 155 urban development, 66, 113, 147, 154 urban electric vehicle infrastructure, 134 urban futures, 130 urban heat island effect, 133 US Department of Energy forecasts, 82 US Federal Reserve System, 22 utilities: electric, 70; monopoly, 109 utility operators, 109 vehicles: electronic, 179–80; energyconserving, 150; fuel-efficient, 55, 94; gasoline-powered, 82; hybrid, 85, 160–1; hydrogen-powered, 163; new fuel cell, 160; next-generation low-pollution, 78; thirdgeneration, 42; zero-emissions, 134 ventures, joint, 122, 162 verification, 64, 93, 136, 152; thirdparty, 93 Veugelers, R., 23 Victor, Peter, 22 videocassette recorders, 102 videoconferencing, 111 Vietnam, 57, 118, 124, 141, 183 vitality, long-term economic, 10 Volkswagen, 135 voltage surges, 178 voluntary instruments, 30 vulnerabilities, 4, 131, 184; historic, 4; natural, 184; unique ecological, 182

Wade, Robert, 18 Wakkanai, 88 WAO Global Trading Ltd, 122 Warm Biz, 128 Waseda University, 145–6, 171 waste, 19, 22, 26, 51, 59, 83, 96, 124, 133, 139–41, 144, 150–1, 172; disposal, 50, 59, 139, 141; divert, 96; global, 113; household, 112, 150; incinerators, 134; management, 16, 123–5, 133, 143; medical, 144; minimizing, 15; prevention, 96; reduction, 112, 133; sites, 148; solid, 26, 125; treatment, 119, 140, 146; zero, 112 waste heat, 151; recycling mobile air conditioning system, 91 Waste Management Patent Applications, 182 waste water, 16, 26, 48, 141, 143 Watanabe, Hiroshi, 118 water: capacity, 126; cleanup, 26; colour, 143; consumption, 127; control systems, 16; drinking, 48; electrolyzing, 161; facilities, 127; management, 210, 240; pollution, 50, 58, 92, 125, 126; quality, 46, 127; shortages, 16; treatment projects, 124 Waterloo (Ontario), 17 wave technologies, 172 West Nippon Expressway Company, 137 wind, 16, 68–70, 108–10, 116, 131, 161, 163–4, 171–2, 177–8; farms, 163, 165; paths, 133; power, 7, 69, 118, 145, 161, 163; speeds, high, 164 wind-tunnel test, 149 wind turbines, 148, 158, 164; 7-megawatt Mitsubishi oil

268

Index

pressure drive-type, 164; better, 156; offshore floating, 158, 163 World Bank, 16, 132, 148 World Capital of Sustainable Development, 147 World Economic Forum in Davos, 21 World Heritage sites, 142 World’s Fair, 6 World Wide Fund, 111 Wurzel, Rüdiger, 26, 76 Yawata Works, 143 Yellen, Janet, 22 yen, 58, 122, 162, 172 Yokkaichi, 47, 52 Yokkaichi asthma, 47 Yokohama, 9, 31, 51–2, 112–13, 115, 123, 126–7, 132, 148–52, 154; agreements, 149; Anti-Climate

Change Measure Regional Promotion Plan, 150; Climate Change Prevention Measure Action Plan, 150; Eco School, 151; Eco-Points, 94; Environmental Basic Charter, 150; G30 plan, 150; Green Valley, 151; population, 150; Smart Business Council, 152; Smart City, 151–2; University Medical Center, 153; Water Company, 126; Water Works Bureau, 126; Wind Power Plant, 150, 161 Yoshida, Tetsuji, 170 Yumeshima Megasolar, 89, 139 Zadek, Simon, 23, 24 Zito, Anthony, 26, 77 Zysman, J., 15, 23

Japan and Global Society

Japan as a “Normal Country”? A Nation in Search of Its Place in the World, edited by Yoshihide Soeya, Masayuki Tadokoro, and David A. Welch The Evolution of Japan’s Party System: Politics and Policy in an Era of Institutional Change, edited by Leonard J. Schoppa Tumultuous Decade: Empire, Society, and Diplomacy in 1930s Japan, edited by Masato Kimura and Tosh Minohara The Logic of Conformity: Japan’s Entry into International Society, Tomoko T. Okagaki Opening a Window to the West: The Foreign Concession at Kōbe, Japan, 1868–1899, Peter Ennals Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat, Seung Hyok Lee Ethical Capitalism: Shibusawa Eiichi and Business Leadership in Global Perspective, edited by Patrick Fridenson and Kikkawa Takeo Green Japan: Environmental Technologies, Innovation Policy, and the Pursuit of Green Growth, Carin Holroyd