Published on October 1, 2019
Job titles and other details are as of the time of publication.
(The interview was conducted in Japanese and was thereafter translated into English.)

Offering policies based on material, monetary, and nonmarket factors

My expertise is in areas known as resource economics and environmental economics. With the keywords of “renewable” or “recycling” (as in the use of renewable resources and renewable energy, or the integration of resource recycling and economic recycling), I work on natural resource and environmental issues, the revitalization of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and regional economies, and other themes related to building a sustainable society at the regional level. In my research, economic activities are sorted into “material aspects (the world of goods)” and “monetary aspects (the world of money).” First of all, I examine the world of goods to see where the resources or waste items come from and where they go (“flow”), assessing where they accumulate (“stock”), quantitatively if possible, to gain a specific understanding of where and how problems with resources and the environment occur. I then analyze the “world of money” (“flow and stock of money”), which determines the flow of goods, to clarify the mechanisms that give rise to the problems. Since resource and environmental issues often involve aspects that cannot be assessed very well by the market, the legal system, the rights, and other nonmarket factors become the defining factors of the mechanisms. The goal of my research is to examine these factors and to offer prescriptions, or in other words, policies, towards solving resource and environmental problems. In the world of goods, I have been developing indicators to assess material recycling, which I then use to analyze international resource recycling. As an analysis of links between the world of goods and the world of money, I have looked at waste policies (especially the effects of the industrial waste tax), and the mechanism of international resource recycling and the cost-sharing system. Furthermore, in terms of renewable energy, I am currently conducting research into policies so that energy transition initiatives, which involve eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear power or promoting energy conservation and renewable energy, can contribute to regional sustainability.

Trying to provide solutions with technology alone may simply be delaying answers to the real problem

My interest in resources and the environment may be a trend particular to my generation.

I was born in 1973, the year of the first oil crisis in Japan. Obviously, I have no actual memory of what it was like at the time. But the 1960s to 1970s was an era when the issue of pollution had become very apparent in Japan. At school, textbooks for Japanese or social studies included stories of acid rain, or Tanaka Shozo, who played a prominent role in fighting the pollution from the Ashio copper mine. In my first year of junior high school, there was the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union. With all of these factors serving as a backdrop, by the time I graduated from junior high, my mind was made up. I wanted to be involved in initiatives tackling resource and environmental issues. 1992 was the year when I entered university. The Cold War had ended, and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) was held in Rio de Janeiro, making an appeal that environmental problems are global issues. It was a time when the world had begun to take a strong interest in the environment. When I was in junior high, I imagined we could reach solutions by approaching the issues with technology. Since arts and humanities were my weaker subjects and I was fascinated by cutting-edge technology, I believed that technological progress would be able to solve problems and make the world a better place. But then again, when I was in junior high, I also watched the Space Shuttle Challenger explode immediately after its launch, resulting in the death of its seven crew members. This put a huge question mark on my fascination for advanced technology, shifting my way of thinking towards the idea that perhaps we cannot completely assert that technological progress will make the world a better place, and that maybe trying to provide solutions with technology alone would simply be delaying answers to the real problem.

Choosing the science-adjacent field of economics out of the many social sciences

In order to solve a problem, policy recommendations are essential; and to make proposals specific and persuasive, it is necessary to make a systematic assessment of the mechanisms of how the world goes round. After studying science disciplines in high school and university, it was during my master’s program that I finally realized I could no longer avoid studying economics, and I began to study economics for my doctoral program. I chose economics out of the many social sciences because it makes extensive use of mathematical methods, and I felt it closer as a science major.

In my doctoral dissertation, I used my knowledge of economics to propose a shift from recycling waste items to building a recycling-oriented society. Using quantitative evidence, I presented simulations for, for example, how much tax should be imposed to reduce industrial waste. Let me explain further, along with my method of research.

Identifying bottlenecks in industrial waste recycling and developing the discussion of how we can change the system

If we try to describe the aforementioned world of goods in terms of the flow of waste recycling, it goes as follows: resources are procured → products are made → products are consumed → products are discarded, collected and recycled. This is how we understand the flow of goods. But what actually makes the goods flow? They flow because of humans. There are stakeholders in every part of the process above, and this is always accompanied by the exchange of money. Now, waste recycling has a distinct characteristic in that money flows in the opposite direction. Normally, you have to pay money when you want to buy something, but this is not what happens with waste. With waste, you pay money when you want someone to pick up the item that you no longer need. But even so, the amount of money exchanged can fluctuate, or the recipient may become the payer, depending on the value perceived by the recipient. In other words, if the recipient thinks that the thrown-out item is just garbage, the person who produces the garbage will pay money for the recipient to pick it up. On the other hand, if the recipient thinks the item has some value, it is not uncommon for them to pay money and buy the item. In fact, when plastic bottles first started to be recycled, people paid recyclers more than 70,000 yen per ton to have them picked up. But in recent years, recyclers have been buying plastic bottles for more than 30,000 yen. This is the world of money. An objective assessment of waste recycling also reveals that “exits” for exchanging consumed goods, as well as the “entrances” for procuring resources are points of congestion. For the next step in capturing the world of goods and the world of money, what I must do is consider why those areas are bottlenecks. Is it a stakeholder problem? Is there a problem with how money is exchanged between stakeholders? Or is there a problem with the system that regulates the exchanges? My research is to identify the reasons for the congestion, and to develop discussions of how this can be changed for the better.

Exploring the potentiality of renewable energy from the perspective of achieving locally initiated energy transition

In recent years, I published a book summarizing my research on renewable energy. I am particularly interested in the subject from the perspective of achieving locally initiated energy transition. The reason why I emphasize “locally initiated” is because I believe that, not only do we need to shift energy sources from nuclear power and fossil fuels to solar power, wind power, and other renewable energy, but we also need to decentralize energy supply systems like nuclear power and promote the energy independence of regional areas. The more I study the initiatives in Germany and other developed countries, the more I realize that achieving regional energy independence is crucial, and that it is possible for Japan to pursue this path. Based on this research, there are two basic conditions. First of all, the local residents need to select local energy sources for themselves, taking into account the local land use and other plans, as well as local characteristics including natural conditions. Secondly, to make it operational, local businesses need to take the lead as much as possible to raise funds locally, including investments from local residents and loans from regional financial institutions. These two conditions pave the way for the revitalization of the local economy and society through regional energy independence. There are also many other conditions that would help local people make their own decisions on issues including how to maintain and manage resources so that they can be used forever. Nevertheless, we are now seeing local governments – for example, Konan City of Shiga Prefecture and Iida City of Nagano Prefecture – begin to enact ordinances at the municipal level regarding the use of renewable energy. I believe we need to continue to pay attention to such developments.

Taking the “spiral approach” rather than a “T-shaped approach” to address problems

Such policy recommendations would have been difficult if I had tried to solve the problem with technology alone. I feel I made the right choice of adding economics to my bag of tools after witnessing the various negative events as a boy in junior high school and believing that the technology-only approach would simply delay solutions to real problems. Actually, when I was an undergraduate student, some people criticized me for having such a view. They told me I should establish my field of expertise as a researcher first, before attempting to study another field. But since I had chosen the environment as my theme, I felt it was impossible to proceed with the existing approach, and therefore chose to ignore their advice and started studying economics. If the research method of approaching another field after pursuing one field is described as “T-shaped,” then you could describe my method of gradually accumulating the tools necessary from other fields to solve problems as “spiral-shaped.” I hope to continue with my research through a spiral-shaped approach, and I hope this will also serve as some encouragement for students.