Thinking Towards Sustainable Life Style at the World Cultural Heritage, Shirakawago
In Japan, academic, industrial, and government sectors have been working together to reduce environmental burdens since the Kyoto Protocol was enacted in 1997. After a decade of commitment, an environmental efficiency of industrial products excelled. This advancement includes home electric and electronic appliances, automobiles, and architectures, expanding its effort to a wide variety of products.
These eco-products are gaining their momentum and doing great on the market. It is true that we have seen the advancement. But the fact is, though the Kyoto Protocol had promised Japan to reduce the emission of CO2 by 6% from the 1990 figure by 2010, the figure has rather increased 8%. An effective energy consumption by the expansion of eco-products is not fast enough.
This fact proves that in order to make a society more sustainable, a sole reliance on technology is not enough. What we need to focus now is to change our mass consumption-based life structure and social behavior. Even the core of design needs to shift from eco-design, where an environmental efficiency is emphasized, to sustainable design, where its design alters a value of our society and culture.
In order to achieve this goal, a workshop, the Destination 2007-2025 was held in Shirakawago, a small village, registered as the World Cultural Heritage. The venue attracted over 100 visitors from 8 different countries and during 3 days of intense workshops, it gathered numerous amounts of ideas.
Most of the idea is oriented to create low-carbon society without expanding consumptions. It is to learn from the “pre-westernized” Japanese society. Hopefully, the seeds of idea will take an initiative to create a new sustainable social model in Asia, where the region is expanding faster than ever. From westernized modernization to oriental modernization – Can Asian countries change the course of their direction to the way it is supposed to be?
These resources are to be analyzed and edited, and to be presented as a proposal at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit and at the Changing the Change Conference I Torino, in July 2008.
