How and to what extent should we manage those environmental risks caused by disasters (Disaster Caused Environmental Risks; DCER, hereinafter) under disaster situation, where humanitarian response actions and economic/social recovery efforts are also taking place？ This research aims to clarify the psychological structure of the citizens’ attitude on DCER management to help consider an appropriate environmental risk management strategy under disaster situation. An internet based questionnaire survey was undertaken to the victims of the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake, and the results were analyzed using multivariate analysis including structural equation modeling (SEM). The initial hypothesis used here was developed based on the theory of planned behavior. The results showed that the citizens’ priority on the management of environmental risks drops remarkably in disaster times. The SEM results suggested that risk acceptance was found to affect the attitude on the management of environmental risks related to amenity negatively. However, such relationship was not found for people at unhealthy state, which suggests that even during disasters, unhealthy people wish environmental risks related to amenity to be managed appropriately.

Tapioca is a starch extracted from cassava root. Major problems in the tapioca production are the reduction of cassava yield per hectare brought by the decrease in soil fertility and the huge emission of greenhouse gas from the lagoon treating tapioca mill effluent. Integrated biomass residue recycle system consists of beef cattle fattening by using solid biomass residue as a feed and methane fermentation of the mill effluent has a potential for solving those problems. Composted cattle manure can be used to increase the soil fertility of cassava field by increasing the organic content in the soil. Methane fermentation can supply energy for the tapioca mill and thus decrease the emission of green house gas from the lagoon. Information on material flow of biomass residue and wastewater in both recycle process and tapioca mill is needed to design the appropriate biomass residue and wastewater recycle system. Weight-base material flow analysis as well as carbon and nitrogen flow on tapioca mill and on the recycle process of biomass residue and wastewater have been carried out in Sumatra, Indonesia. It was clarified that 204 kg tapioca, which contained 71.6 kg organic carbon, was produced from 1 ton of cassava, which contained 164 kg organic carbon, in the small scale tapioca mill. From the tapioca mill 46.7 kg (28.5％) and 40.4 kg (24.6％) organic carbon contained in the cassava were discharged into the wastewater and the onggok, solid biomass residue, respectively. Carbon and nitrogen flow in the beef cattle fattening shows that the onggok discharged from 5 t cassava processing are needed to bring 200 kg weight gain of beef cattle, whereas additional corn and formula feed are required. The quantity of wastewater was 2.40 m³ per one ton of cassava and 6.93 m³ of methane was produced from the wastewater in the lagoon. The quantity of methane will be enough to supply energy for the electric power generation by engine generator in this small mill. 190 kg tapioca was produced from 1 ton of cassava in the large scale tapioca mill. 40.7％, 21.8％ and 20.5％ of organic carbon contained in the cassava were observed in the tapioca, the onggok and the wastewater, respectively. The quantity of wastewater was 3.25 m³ per one ton of cassava with average COD＝20,278 mg/L. Wastewater of tapioca mill was mixed with that of pineapple processing and treated by using UASB type methane fermentation reactor. Methane yield was as high as 280 L/kg-COD under the volumetric loading of 6.5 kg-COD/m³d of the reactor.

Tropical plantations are essential in order to meet the increasing global food demand. However, the yield per unit area of tropical plantations has been declining due to the decreasing soil quality. This has led researchers to focus on no-till farming, organic fertilization, and protection of bio-diversity. Furthermore, an efficient use of the large amounts of residue and biogas discharged from plantation factories has also been a major challenge. In this study, we assess the material and energy balance, and propose a mathematical model for describing the material and energy balance of plantation. We modeled the material and energy flows between two processes—plantation and factory—using material-, carbon- and energy-based variables. This model estimates the change in yield and environmental impacts, and the capacity of external biomass supply by using the relationship between each process and a feedback loop from a comprehensive point of view. Finally, we applied this model to biogas utilization in cassava factories. The results suggest that GHG emissions can be reduced by at least 60 percent.

In tropical areas, organic matter-rich surface soil has been rapidly lost in the conversion from forest to agricultural land. Soil microbial communities have a central role of soil ecological functions such as material cycling, hence it is fundamental to understand the dynamics of soil microbial communities responding to environmental changes and anthropogenic disturbances. However, it remains unclear how agricultural activities affect soil microbial community structure and functions. We reviewed studies investigating the effects of agricultural intensifications, such as tillage and fertilization, on soil microbial communities and consider the direction of future research for sustainable agricultural practices in tropical areas.

Conversion of tropical forests to crop lands leads decline of soil organic matter and then soil degradation. It is necessary to improve conservation management to establish both conservation of tropical forests and promotion of food production. Reduced tillage, mulching by organic matter and rotation cropping are increasingly recognized as promising method as conservation management of cropland soil. We established an experiment to compare production after introduction of conservation management in a sugarcane plantation in Lampung, Indonesia in 2010. Factorial combination of no-tillage and bagasse mulching were prepared, thus four treatments were compared. There was no significant difference in sugarcane biomass between the treatments, while sugar concentrations were higher in the no-tillage treatments in 2015. These results suggest that introduction of no-tillage and mulching are effective management options in tropical croplands.

Previous studies concerning environmental labels investigate consumers’ preference or consumption behavior toward labeled products. On the other hand, there have not been enough studies on environmental labels from the viewpoint of firm value. Therefore, our study examines whether Tobin’s q of a firm that attaches environmental labels to its products is higher than that of a firm that does not attach environmental labels. Although there are many types of environmental labels, we focus on those that feature third-party certification. Our sample includes listed Japanese manufacturing firms. To address endogeneity issues, we use the instrumental variable method in our estimation process. The results suggest that a firm that attaches environmental labels to its products has higher Tobin’s q than a firm that does not attach environmental labels.

In evaluating the value of the natural environment, subjective well-being index has gained attention. Using the subjective well-being index, we examined the value of natural capital in Japan. Specifically, we classified capital into four types: natural capital, physical capital, human capital and social capital. We constructed a micro data set on subjective well-being and other individual attributes by an internet survey from all over Japan. We matched natural capital and physical capital data at municipality level to the individual micro data. Regression analysis revealed that natural capital such as open water or plantation areas have a positive effect on the subjective well-being of local residents who are living near these areas. In order to improve the subjective well-being of the local residents, governments should adopt policies to preserve open water areas or plantations that provide the eco-system service for the use of the public.

In Japan, many industrial associations have drawn up voluntary action plans and worked on greenhouse gas emission reductions at their production phase since 1997. However, accumulation of research and investigation into effectiveness of such plans is limited despite of their long history. This deficiency is more significant at firm level, due to less availability of data. This paper investigates whether the rate of participation in the voluntary action plans matters when member firms evaluate their industry associations. The ordered probit model is applied and the results show that it actually matters for the small enterprises, and higher participation results in the higher evaluation. This indicates that an industrial association can easily collaborate with its member firms especially for small ones, if majority of member firms participate in the plan. It is also shown that in general larger enterprises give relatively higher evaluation to their associations compared to the small and medium sized enterprises. There are a variety of industries and potential participation of member firms differs as well. Therefore, it might be inappropriate to apply the voluntary action plans to all these industries. Rather, the government is better to choose sectors where such plans work well.

Recently, Japanese local governments have promoted climate policies. Notably, numerous provincial governments have adopted “Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emission Reduction Program (ERP)”. ERP requires facilities with a certain amount of GHG emission or more to make a plan to reduce GHG emission. Moreover, ERP mandates such facilities to report their GHG emissions annually. ERP, however, lacks of penalty for facilities failing to reduce GHG emissions. Thus, some criticize ERP due to the lack of the enforcement mechanism. This study empirically examines whether the introduction of ERP reduces GHG emission. Specifically, we collected GHG emission from 1990 to 2013 at provincial level together with the timing of ERP adoption for each provincial government. We conducted a panel data analysis and found that GHG emission per worker was reduced from 8 to 10 percent in the manufacturing sector. The estimation results hinted that ERP is effective in reducing GHG emissions in the manufacturing sector.

Indoor air pollution from the combustion of traditional cooking fuels causes millions of annual premature deaths in the developing world. This study examines the socio-economic and demographic factors that affect household choices of cooking fuels used in India. Survey data collected from 68 households in the rural areas of West Bengal were analyzed. The results of the regression analyses show that the location of the kitchen and the availability of free fuel affect the choice of clean cooking fuels. Furthermore, household income, age and education level of the household head are positively associated with clean fuel choices, while household size and distance to the nearest market are negatively associated with clean fuel choices.

It is widely known that the efficient emissions reduction (cost-minimizing emissions reduction) requires the equalization of marginal abatement cost across all emissions sources. Using a multi-sector static computable general equilibrium model for Japan, this paper quantitatively evaluates efficiency of emissions trading and voluntary action by firms. In particular, we compare emissions trading for all sectors and emissions trading for limited sectors and compare emissions trading and voluntary action by firms. Our main results are summarized as follows. First, we show that emissions trading for limited sectors is less efficient than emissions trading for all sectors. Second, we show that voluntary reduction by firms are less efficient than emissions trading for all sectors.

Recently, environmental disclosure has increased as a result of pressure from shareholders. The disclosure of valuable information has been in the form of mandatory and voluntary disclosure. Voluntary disclosure includes third party ratings conducted by organizations such as CDP (former Carbon Disclosure Project) and Nikkei Research. The information disclosed are commonly used to assess the performance of firms. However, mandatory and voluntary disclosure have shortcomings. For example, firms are not required to disclose information more than required by law/regulation, or may hide negative information when voluntarily disclosing information. Thus, the assessment conducted using mandatory and voluntary information may be biased. Firms have the incentive to conduct voluntary disclosure for various reasons: 1) increase in sales, 2) reducing capital costs, 3) gaining laborers etc. On the other hand, environmental disclosure incurs costs such as internal information gathering and approval from different departments within the firm. In addition, disclosure may damage the firms’ reputation if the third party assessment concludes that the firm is not performing well. In this paper, we check the hypothesis “the firm discloses information through the CDP report because the market rewards the disclosure.” Furthermore, we analyze if the market reacts to high disclosure scores reported in the CDP report. We find that there is no immediate impact of disclosure using the event study method.

The reduction in energy consumption has been one of the most important policy issues from the viewpoint of global warning problem and energy security in many countries. Although Japan has promoted energy-savings mainly in industrial sector, energy consumptions in residential sector notably keep increasing. Using the survey data before the Great East Japan Earthquake, this paper conducts an econometric analysis in order to examine how economic factors such as the perceived economic benefits affect energy conservation of households as well as the effect of accurate information of feasible economic benefits on household’s energy savings. Main result is twofold. First, in many energy saving activities, the impact of economic factors such as the perceived economic benefits on the promotion of household’s energy saving activities may be limited. Second, there seem to be no effect of the provision of the feasible the economic benefits on energy saving activity of households.