The concept of sustainable development has basically penetrated society as a political consensus. This concept, however, is still so vague as to be fragile. The surface of this consensus conceals possible serious conflict of interests centering on true and precise understandings of sustainability, involving the deep relationship between humans and nature. As resources and environmental constraints become more obvious, intergenerational equity issues and international security concerns will become more serious. J. S. Mill advocates that the increase of wealth is not boundless and progress is limited within the stationary state. The Club of Rome clarifies that “overshoot” cannot be resolved only by technologies and markets. Here, we are aware of getting rid of a growth-oriented society in favor of human life in sound communities, attaching importance to solidarity of the people, given decreasing population and accelerated aging. In the great transformation from the growth-oriented society, non-hierarchical mass-collaboration, to be encouraged by an advanced communication system, may initiate the formation of a new humanistic and co-creative community, where establishment of well-being indicators formulated by the people will play a basic role.

The East Japan Earthquake and tsunami once more showed the violence of nature to us. It is absolutely necessary to review the present policy of mutual coexistence with nature to establish a sustainable society in the affected areas. On the other hand, the nuclear power plant（NPP）accident following the earthquake and tsunami revealed that there is no absoluteness in science and technology. After 3.11, most of the Japanese people who had been deluded by the “Safety Myth” of NPPs realized that the area-wide social and economic damage caused by the accident would require long-term recovery efforts. It is important not to evaluate the disaster as being “beyond expectations.” From now on it is necessary to promote various social infrastructure developments to rebuild and re-construct the affected areas; the developments should be based on a grand-design, learning from the lessons of history. In this short report, some necessary conditions will be offered as policies to establish a sustainable society with consideration toward the environment and safety, based on actual issues recognized while visiting the affected areas.

The earthquake and tsunami experienced on March 11, 2011, in the East Kanto Area of Japan were explained as an “unprecedented event” caused by triple disasters, including the nuclear power plant accident. Now that we have reached the six-month mark, it is time to establish a clear vision of reconstruction of the devastated communities. In this short article, a scenario and program focusing on waste management of the affected areas is proposed, based on lessons learned from past history of tsunami disasters in the Tohoku area and also from the case studies of community construction in coastal areas of foreign countries.

The Happiness Index is now being utilized in Japan and other countries as a way to measure subjective well-being. Current nationwide research uses the index to understand how citizens experience happiness within a given social circumstance. This paper argues that cultural psychological research shows sizable cultural variations in quality of life as well as subjective well-being. In Japan, where interdependence and relationship-orientation is more dominant than independence or individualism, happiness tends to be defined by interpersonal connectedness or balance between self and others, even though Japanese people experience the shift to individualism as a result of globalization. In addition, a longitudinal survey conducted before and after the Great East Japan earthquake suggested that about half of the Japanese youth changed their life values after the earthquake, especially in terms of valuing social connectedness and ordinary life. People who were thinking about the earthquake when they completed the second survey became happier after the earthquake, showing that reflection on the earthquake prompted them to reevaluate their definition of global happiness. In the face of such immense disaster, social bonds and networks have helped those throughout Japanese society to rediscover their resilience.

After the revision of the Air Pollution Control Law was enacted in 2006 in Japan, industry began to promote their activities for reducing emissions of volatile organic compounds（VOC）. Even though the costs and method for reducing emissions of VOC vary throughout industry, VOC restrictions enforce all industries to work together. The objective of this study is to compare VOC emission-friendly productivity for 10 industries in the Japanese manufacturing sector using the Directional Distance Function and Luenberger Productivity Indicator. From the results, the VOC emission-friendly productivity of 10 industries increased from 2001 to 2008. Furthermore, we also infer that many industries improved their productivity without losing economic performance. The publishing industry has difficulty in achieving both productivity improvement and VOC emission reduction because it has special characteristics related to VOC emissions. This result implies policy makers need to consider industrial differences of available VOC emission abatement technology and cost.