This paper aims to clarify the relationship between well-being and economic growth: optimistic views on economic growth are critically reviewed from these two perspectives. Regarding the environmental and resource constraints on economic growth, environmental issues related to new scarcities, such as biodiversity and climate change, are more critical than resource constraints related to old scarcities, such as mineral resources, because there is no signaling mechanism for the society to evaluate new scarcities. Regarding the issue on what can be attained through economic growth, it should be emphasized that GDP is not an indicator of well-being, but an indicator of economic growth. Recent development in happiness research suggests the reinterpretation of the concept of well-being. The conclusion of this paper intends to raise the issue of clarifying the significance and usefulness of sustainable development for the maximization of social well-being.

Physical growth of an economy is not sustainable, due to the limitation of renewable ecosystem services and exhaustive resources. Facing these limitations, a new type of economic development is needed, in which the stocks of manmade capital, human capital, natural capital and social capital are soundly maintained. To achieve such economic development, the author proposes four kinds of policies, including an extended producer responsibility policy, a renewable energy policy, a “local cap” policy and a compact city policy.

The phrase “new publicness” is often used in Japan in order to identify the recent relationship between the public and local governments, even though the expression is not widely used in English. The subject of this article is a guide for the planning administration of a Japanese local government. It discusses how a local government should formulate its fundamental policy in regards to the recent trend of “new publicness,” which could be called a new public society focused on a partnership between the public and the government. This is a basic question of the article. In conclusion, a new guide is introduced in addition to an efficient new public management method based on a public-private sector relationship.

This paper discusses the role of plan in order to achieve prosperity without irreversible environmental damage. First, this paper reviews existing findings about environmental damage and the extended ramifications, which shows the necessity and possibility of achieving sufficient prosperity without critical environmental damage. Second, this paper suggests prosperity in our time has depended too much on economic growth, which makes it difficult to reduce the causes of environmental damage from our society. Third, this paper discusses how plans and planning can contribute to the realization of an environmentally sustainable society. Planning should manage society to achieve long-term goals to reduce environmental damage and integrate various policies and stakeholders to produce creative synergies. Moreover, plans should be made to provide various desirable future visions to motivate cooperation toward a sustainable and prosperous society.

In Japan, though an SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) Guideline was published in April 2007 from the Ministry of the Environment, some difficulties in introducing SEA are still recognized. Due to reluctancy in information disclosure, some agencies hesitate to involve the public in the early stages of their plan-making process. The agencies therefore, often prepare the EIA document after developing their plan, so that it justifies the decisions predetermined internally. With this Japanese background, we conducted a survey to analyze an advanced SEA system in Washington State, which has improved public involvement at an early stage. In Washington State, a Nonproject Review system, which is considered equivalent with SEA, has been established under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). Puget Sound Regional Council has developed their Growth Management Policy (VISION 2040) by concurrently integrating the Nonproject Review process into the plan-making process. Therefore, both environmental reviewing and public involvement have been initiated at an early stage of the process. We examine the whole VISION 2040 process, which interlinks the plan-making process and the environmental reviewing process, in order to clarify the method for an integrated approach of SEA.

In Japan, a guideline for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) was introduced in April 2007; some local governments seem to be making new progress in implementing the SEA system. The SEA concept has been adopted in the planning process of some public projects, but there is a lack of practical experience.

In this study, the “Project-Consultation System,” as used by Yokohama City when implementing SEA, was analyzed in order to describe the Environmental Consideration System employed in planning during the Public Involvement (PI) phase of transport plans.

As a result, the Project-Consultation System was found to be similar to an integrated-model of SEA, the main features were identified as: the selection of environmental considerations, no participation of the public or experts, and restrictive linkage to Environmental Impact Assessment. Concerning the system operations, timing of commencement for SEA process, environmental considerations, participation of the public and experts, and tiering with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) were analyzed using the case study of Kosoku-Yokohama Kanjyo-Hokuseisen Highway in Yokohama City.

This study aims to clarify the function of conservation agreements with NPOs and the historical change in this function in the case of the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), which is the NPO that conserves natural and historic heritage in Scotland. The study was conducted by researching data and documents provided by the NTS and by contrasting the conservation agreement with similar agreements in Japan. The findings obtained from the study are summarized as follows: before the 1970s, there were only a few voluntary conservation agreements. In the 1970s and 1980s, agreements that quite likely aimed to conserve natural heritage, such as coastal areas, increased in number, as did complementary agreements, when the NTS disposed of properties such as those under the Little Houses Improvement Scheme (LHIS). In and after the 1990s, most conservation agreements were made with disposals of crofting land. It is suggested that the conservation NPOs in Japan can make conservation activities more effective not only through acquisition, but also by using conservation agreements.