Japan Trades in Suits, Cuts Carbon Emissions

186104 Resource 107524 107631 107631 1192126362849 1192142806458 Controlled To Reduce GHG Emissions, Japan Ups the Temperature in Offices

By easing up on air conditioning, and relaxing the strict dress code, Japan is lowering GHG emissions.

In a typically conservative business culture, asking men not to wear a suit and tie to work didn't go over well at first.  The reasoning was to <a title="NPR: Japan Trades in Suits" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14024250" target="_blank">ease up on the use of air conditioners</a> in office buildings, thereby reducing energy consumption and GHG emissions.  When the Cool Biz initiative was launched June 1, 2005, top government officials came to work without jackets and ties, overturning a decades-old tradition.Since then, air conditioners have been set to higher temperatures, and an 82-degree setting has been mandated in all of Japan's government buildings.  The first year of the program, half a million tons of CO2 that would have normally been released into the atmosphere, was not.  And last year the number of companies and numbers of businessmen who participated in the Cool Biz initiative expanded enormously, cutting about 1.4 million tons of CO2 emissions.That means that by easing up on the usage of air conditioners, Japan has reduced GHG emissions by as much as Tokyo emits in a month.  Sounds like a step in the right direction, especially for a country struggling to keep up with the Kyoto Protocol.Japan has pledged under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce its GHG emissions to 6% below 1990 levels. Instead, emissions have grown 8%. The Cool Biz savings amount to 0.1%.Would you be willing to sweat it out to reduce GHG emissions?  Let me know what you think.By Cassandra Darwin <a href="mailto:cdarwin@enviance.com">cdarwin@enviance.com</a> 9 application/xml false GHG emissions Japan Kyoto Protocol Japan Trades in Suits, Cuts Carbon Emissions Two years ago, the Japanese government - essentially with the stroke of a pen - instituted a new policy that has so far trimmed more than two million tons of GHG from the country's growing emissions. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14024250 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; InfoPath.1) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 cdarwin false true false false true 205814 false false true false false false true 107524 blog blogsite/Enviance/web