What We Have Learned through This Joint Project

Chairperson Saburo Kato, NPO, Japan Association of Environment and Society for the 21st Century
Executive Director, Konoe Fujimura

The Japan Association of Environment and Society for the 21st Century is a citizens'group that was established 12 years ago in September 1993. Our association was founded to contribute to social changes in Japan. The goals are to promote sustainable recycling and balance with respect to environmental, economic and social issues on a society-wide scale. With these goals in mind, we are trying to change the attitudes and values of citizens through environmental awareness activities and policy proposals based on our own research. We firmly believe that changes to economic mechanisms are of critical importance in improving sustainability in Japan. It is our hope that many companies, including NEC, will fully understand the importance of environmental issues, adjust their business activities in an environmentally conscious manner, and place environmental concerns at the core of their corporate strategies.

In light of our environmental concerns, we conducted research on how NGOs worked with enterprises in European countries such as Great Britain, Germany, and Holland six years ago in the fall of 1999. We learned that a British NGO had started working with corporations in the creation of environmental reports. I spoke with Mr. Koji Yamaguchi about this, who was then the director of the Environment Department. This led to cooperative efforts with NEC in the creation of an environmental report. Since then, we have collaborated to publish six NEC annual environmental reports, from 2000 to the present. Early on in our efforts, our discussions centered mostly on somewhat superficial aspects, such as the readability and clarity of the content, given the view from a consumer standpoint contrasted with our standing as an organization with extremely specialized knowledge and experience with respect to environmental issues. However, as our cooperative efforts continued, we also began discussing essential issues such as what environmental management is for NEC, what NEC envisions as a sustainable society, and what NEC can do to help achieve this kind of society. This was in addition to issues concerning the direct provision of environmental information. Though our standpoint is logically defined as a third-party opinion, we hope to play the role of what might be called a “1.5” party rather than a “3rd” party. In this way, we wish to highlight the fact that we worked with NEC to create these reports and established a dialog concerning crucial environmental issues through these cooperative efforts. Moreover, our work with NEC has helped to foster a trusting relationship with the NEC staff. This in turn has led to new joint programs, such as the key-player training program and the joint development of a debate-based e-learning program.

Maintaining the high quality of the previous environmental reports was a priority in this version of the report for 2005. However, the main difference in this year's report is that its structure and content focus more on Internet use than last year's report. This is because we believe that it is one of NEC's social obligations to take a leadership role in creating a Web-based environmental report as a company that promotes “Ecology through IT.”
Some hold the opinion that an environmental report should take the form of a thick book crammed full of facts. However, we hope that our alternative approach will be appreciated due to its merits not only in terms of the saving of paper, but also in that its format promotes the idea of the use of IT as an environmentally sound tool.
As an IT company, NEC must take the initiative in releasing information using IT. However, what is crucially important is to continue improving the material so that users will find the report to be both easy to use and easy to understand. We plan to continue to contribute to such efforts by NEC, while hopefully further expanding our own knowledge in the process.