Cool Biz, a lighter summer businesswear campaign promoted by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment as a way to reduce air conditioning use and thus help curb global warming, gained popularity among office workers, the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living (HILL) reported on August 18, 2005. A survey by this think tank associated with Hakuhodo Inc., one of Japan's major advertising agencies, found that about half of businessmen and government employees came to work without ties or jackets.

HILL conducted the survey in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, the three largest cities in Japan, on August 1, 2005, when temperatures soared above 30 degrees Celsius. They checked the clothes of 52,801 office workers passing through wickets and other passages in railway stations located near government offices and business districts during the morning commuting (8:00-9:30) and early afternoon business hours (13:00-14:30) when many people move around.

According to results for these three cities, 45.2 percent of the people surveyed were without ties or jackets during both commuting and business hours. During the commuting hours alone the percentage was 49.2 percent. In government office districts, people without ties or jackets accounted for 60.5 percent, about four times as many as people with both ties and jackets on (16.4). The percentage of lightly dressed people in government office districts was much greater than the 38.2 percent observed in business districts with both large and smaller businesses.

Meanwhile, the results of a questionnaire about Cool Biz released on August 31 by the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) revealed that over 80 percent of responding companies started to call on their employees to regulate air-conditioning levels and wear lighter clothes. Nippon Keidanren conducted the survey from late July to early August by sending out questionnaires to 1,314 member companies. Among them 566 companies, or 43.1 percent, responded.


- Japanese Gov't Promotes Lighter Businesswear to Curb Global Warming (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/db/1032-e

Posted: 2006/01/13 11:54:51 AM
Japanese version

TAG Energy , Global warming , Government , Manufacturing industry , Non-manufacturing industry , University/Research institute