JAPAN'S GREEN PURCHASING LAW--DESCRIPTION AND ACHIEVEMENTS

In the December 2002 issue, we featured "Green Purchasing and Green Procurement in Motion in Japan."
(See http://www.japanfs.org/en/newsletter/200212.html)

To respond to requests from our readers about the Green Purchasing Law, we now introduce the law in more detail and the results of research by the Ministry of the Environment to determine the extent to which environmental impacts have been reduced and how much the market for green products has expanded due to the law.

As explained in the December issue, the Japanese government adopted a series of laws to address the pressing issue of waste disposal facilities being pushed to capacity in April 2000.

These laws include the Basic Law for Establishing the Recycling-based Society, the Law on Waste Disposal and Cleaning, the Law for Promoting Effective Utilization of Resources, the Law for Promotion of Sorted Collection and Recycling of Containers and Packaging, the Law for Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances, the Law on Construction Material Recycling, the Food Recycling Law, and the Law on Promoting Green Purchasing.
(Our JFS site has a pages of links for many of the environment-related laws in Japan.) http://www.japanfs.org/en/japan/laws.html

The laws on recycling were adopted to reduce the 400 million tonnes of industrial waste and 50 million tonnes of general waste generated annually, and to cut down on the volume of waste being sent to final disposal facilities. The Green Purchasing Law was enacted to promote recycling, so that recycled products would be better accepted in the market.

Link to the Green Purchasing Law: http://www.env.go.jp/en/lar/green/1.pdf The objectives of the Green Purchasing Law are to "promote and disseminate products and services (eco-friendly goods) that contribute to reducing the negative impact on the environment and to build a society with less burden on the environment and is sustainable." To that end, the law encourages the public sector, including the government, (1) to promote the procurement of eco-friendly goods, and to (2) provide information on such goods.

As early as January 2001, the government issued basic guidelines and a list of 101 designated procurement goods and their standards. In 2002, 50 more items were added to the list of designated procurement goods, and the government decided to add 17 items pertaining to public works activities. In February this year, 24 more items were added to the list of designated procurement goods.

The basic guidelines and other materials have been translated into English. (See http://www.env.go.jp/en/lar/green/index.html)

The categories of designated procurement goods include the following: paper, writing materials, fixtures and furniture (chairs, desks, shelves, coat hangers, umbrella stand, bulletin board, black board, white board, etc), office electric appliances (copying machines, personal computers, facsimile machines, etc), home electric appliances (refrigerators, television sets, video recorders), air-conditioners, lighting, automobiles, uniform/working cloth, interior (curtains, carpets, blankets, etc), working globes, textile product (tents, sheets, etc), facilities (solar power generation systems, solar heating systems, fuel cells and composing machines for kitchen garbage), public works (building materials, building machines, building methods, sophisticated pavement, rooftop greening), and services (energy saving diagnosis, printing, restaurants, recycling of car tires).

The Green Purchasing Law obliges national governmental bodies to formulate green procurement policies and to follow them. The law also requires the bodies to compile records of their purchasing and disclose this information publicly.

Have such initiatives taken by the government to promote green purchasing/procurement contributed to the objective of the law--to create a sustainable society with less environmental impact by shifting demand?

The Ministry of the Environment selected some of the designated procurement goods to calculate the effects in reduction of environmental impacts as well as the contribution to the creation/expansion of the market for green products.

Here is an example of copy paper. The criteria for copy paper to be "designated procurement good" is (1) 100 percent of material should be used paper and the paper whiteness should be about 70 percent or less, and (2) if coated, the amount of coating material should be less than 12 grams per square meter.

In fiscal 2001, 80,932 tonnes of copy paper were procured by national bodies under the Green Purchasing Law (parliament, courts, ministries and agencies, independent administrative institutions, and specially designated public corporations).

Since 92.6 percent of this amount, or 74,958 tonnes, consisted of products on the list of designated procurement goods, it is clear that national bodies have actively embraced the use of designated goods.

If those 74,958 tonnes of copy paper were made from 100-percent virgin pulp, 207,000 cubic meters of pulpwood would be required as raw material, suggesting that an equivalent of 292,999 trees (based on a diameter of 30 cm and height of 10 meters) were saved that year because of green procurement by national bodies.

In 2000, 11.6 percent of shipments of copy paper in Japan consisted of designated procurement goods. In 2001, the percentage increased to 23.6 percent, more than double the previous year. The breakdown of copy paper sales also indicates an increase of copy paper having a higher percentage of used-paper (such as 100-percent used-paper) and a decrease of copy paper containing a lower percentage of used-paper.

In 2001, 41.7 percent of the 179,860 tonnes of all domestic shipments of designated procurement goods in Japan was procured by national bodies. This indicates that green purchasing/procurement by national bodies has made a significant contribution to the creation or expansion of the market for designated procurement goods.

The Ministry of the Environment in the research calculated reductions, using plastic and standing tree equivalents as comparisons, due to the shift to designated procurement writing materials; reduced electricity consumption and CO2 emissions due to energy-saving copying machines, personal computers and television sets; and reduced NOx and CO2 emissions by shifting to low-emission vehicles. They also estimated the market-creating effects of such green purchasing activities.

The national and local governmental bodies account for 16.7 percent of final consumption expenditures in Japan. Of this, the purchases by local governments are three times those the national government. As green purchasing activities expand and spread to local governments across the country, it is expected that environmental impacts will be reduced further and the market for environmentally-friendly goods will be created and expanded.

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"Initiatives and Achievements of Local Government in Japan" Article Series: No.3 HINO CITY:
"WASTE REDUCED 50% IN TWO YEARS"

Hino City, located 40 minutes by train west from central Tokyo, is a small city stretching 6 kilometers north-to-south and 7.6 kilometers east-to-west, and has a population of approximately 170,000. As an agricultural area, the city has served as the "breadbasket of Tokyo," and it is also the home of industry, including vehicle manufacturer Hino Motors Limited. Hino City is also a bedroom community for the Tokyo metropolis.

The city's Basic Ordinance on the Environment, drafted in 1994 and approved in 1995 after direct petition from local residents, was "an ordinance by the citizens, for the citizens". Based on the ordinance, 109 citizens responded to a public invitation and spent 10 months to draft "a basic environmental plan" through discussions in five working groups that they organized. For Hino City, this was the first attempt to involve citizens in the drafting of such plans.

One driver of this active public participation was the decreasing amount of greenery in the city. Due to the worsening economy, developers were trying hard to sell land holdings to raise cash, and even sloped areas were cleared for housing construction. The loss of green space ignited a sense of crisis and pushed citizens to participate in the city government's planning process.

But if you make a plan, you then have responsibility and accountability. So even eight years after drafting, many citizens continue to monitor the implementation of the plan and take action to fulfill the citizens' role.

One example is the Hodokubo River, running through Hino City, which has had its banks reinforced with concrete to prevent erosion because the river's gradient is very steep. The citizens demanded the creation of openings in the bank to allow water to form pools. These spaces triggered a citizen interest in caring for fish, insects and small animals there, and are now wonderful play areas for kids to interact with nature.

Hino City started to work on a "garbage revolution" in October 2000, resulting in a reduction in waste collection of approximately 48 percent, and a tripling of resource-recovery. Because they reduced the waste volume sent to landfill, they have reduced the landfill usage fees and remaining capacity of the landfill has been extended.

Three years ago, however, the situation was different. Hino City was the worst among the neighboring 26 cities in terms of its recycling ratio and the amount of incombustible waste sent to landfills.

Hino City made its citizens aware of this negative status and proposed solutions. The city identified its trash bin collection method as the cause of the problem and decided to change its approach to waste collection.

The trash bin collection method used huge metal garbage bins, an approach that seemed efficient, because the contents of bins were loaded onto collection trucks by cranes. And it was convenient for citizens because they could throw their garbage into any bin at any time. The "garbage revolution" pushed people from this convenient trash bin collection method to a door-to-door collection method where citizens had to buy and use designated collection bags, making people more accountable for their own garbage.

The designated collection bags are the way to force people to pay for their waste. Hino City has raised 300 million yen from the sales of designated collection bags, but this profit has been offset by increased collection costs. The reduction of waste volume, however, has made the "garbage revolution" possible at a much lower cost than originally expected.

The total volume of waste has been cut by half. At present, kitchen waste accounts for 50 percent of waste to be incinerated, because this category of garbage has been reduced only slightly. The Basic Plan for the Environment proposed that waste sent to the incinerator could be reduced by 90 percent only if effective ways were devised to use organic waste. Today, the city is studying various ways to utilize organic waste, including composting and biogas generation.

The city publicly reported progress in waste reduction every month for six months after starting the new program, and since then once a year. The reports also discuss the remaining challenges and specific activities required to address them. They also provide information about the waste volume generated at the mayor's residence, in the belief that it is important to show leadership at the top and achievements made.

Before the reforms, as much as 80 percent of citizens were against removal of trash bins. After the reforms, however, 56 percent say the reforms were good and nearly 80 percent are supportive. Also, 56 percent of citizens say that the reforms triggered an interest in waste and other environmental problems. At present, 90 percent of the citizens say they are concerned about waste and other environmental issues. These results demonstrate that participation in garbage separation and waste reduction generate public concern and interest for the problem, and this concern, leads to action.

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