Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi Prefecture in the western part of Japan started providing the Household Environmental Accounting program on its website on March 11, 2004. The program calculates the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of each household.

By entering their utility consumption data of electricity, gas, water, kerosene, gasoline and light oil, users can learn the amount of CO2 emissions from their households. The emission data can be compared with the average of all users and of the families of the same size. To encourage the users to reduce their CO2 emissions, there is also an "eco-saving" section, where the users are able to visually compare their energy use with that of the average household.

To obtain their own ID, the users register their basic data, including their family structure, type of housing, the means of transportation for commuting and going shopping, and the use of air conditioners and of alternative energy.

Under the Shimonoseki City Global Warming Prevention Plan formulated in fiscal 1997, the city set a target to reduce the average annual CO2 emissions for the five year period of 2008 to 2012 by 15 percent from the 1990 levels. A printed version of Household Environmental Scorecard was released in 1998 to help the citizens calculate the CO2 emissions from their households. This March the city has made a revised version of this scorecard on the Web. The information collected from the users of the Web-version program will be used as basic data to estimate the total household CO2 emissions in the city.

The Household Environmental Scorecard program, initially prepared and advocated by Japan's Ministry of the Environment, is used by various local governments, business organizations and non-governmental organizations to boost environmentally friendly activities among citizens and company workers.


http://www.japanfs.org/en/public/resources.html

Posted: 2004/06/17 12:30:24 PM
Japanese version

TAG Energy , Global warming , Local government , NGO/Citizen , Other , Transportation