[Grandpa Saw It!] Part 2: I took a look at the National Movement to create a new, affluent lifestyle that leads to decarbonization!?

My heart is Gen Z! My body is a Showa-era person past sixty! I am Grandpa, a Gen Z supporter!?

Well, this time I am looking at the website with the long-winded name of "National Movement to create a new, affluent lifestyle that leads to decarbonization" which is introduced on the top page of the Ministry of the Environment's website under the title of "National Movement".

This is the second part. Part 1 I would be happy if you could read it first.

✅ Let's take a look at the remaining three topics!?

In the first part, we saw that this national movement is a "nudge" policy, and that four contents are presented under the keyword "support" as topics.

Those four are as follows.
1) Support for work styles and lifestyles such as teleworksupport
2) Support through products and services that support an affluent lifestylesupport
3) Support for behavioral change through incentives and information disseminationsupport
4) Support for region-specific lifestylessupport

Since we looked at 1) in the first part, let's check 2) through 4).

I think the meaning of "support" includes the hope that each local government and company can standardize and horizontally deploy these many examples as best practices, rather than just individual optimization for each company or local government.

✅ Picked up from the materials prepared by the bureaucrats!

I have been giving my own commentary that this is a nudge policy, but let me pick up some materials to see how the bureaucrats explain it in the "National Movement to create a new, affluent lifestyle that leads to decarbonization" (Ministry of the Environment, Environmental Policy Bureau, Decarbonized Lifestyle Promotion Office, February 2023).

The bureaucrats expect excitement similar to Cool Biz.

Indeed, Cool Biz was a success as a national movement. The salaryman style where suits and ties were the norm changed to no-tie being the norm.

That must have been a huge resistance for the vested interests that manufacture and sell ties. However, perhaps because there were few affected industries and vested interests, the movement spread surprisingly smoothly.

However, this time, "decarbonization" is related to the country's fundamental energy policy, and it requires coordination with vested interests that cannot be compared to Cool Biz, so Japan's start was greatly delayed.

I think the fact that it has become easier to provide information to the public due to the progress of digital technology is a very big step forward for the administration as well.

Because of that, it is easy to roll out best practices (BP) horizontally, so I think it is very helpful for the administration.

It seems that a "New National Movement Public-Private Partnership Council" like the one in the diagram above will be formed.Won't it also be possible to reflect the opinions of you all as consumers?
Won't it also be possible to reflect the opinions of you all as consumers?

✅ Incentives for change agents!?

I have been writing this article from the perspective of whether this national movement is actually a "nudge policy"nudge policy, but I think it is about how important people's behavioral changes and shifts in thinking are.

In a Japan with no money, and with a guaranteed decline in the working-age population that will pay taxes from now on,nothing good will come from just complaining and thinking that the government will take care of everything like it used to.

However, as for general national literacy,there is a tendency to still think that "Japan is still amazing," "Japan is still first-class," and "Japan is still an economic powerhouse," and that "the government will take care of things."

It took this long for the My Number Card, which is convenient and saves administrative costs, to become widespread.A characteristic of Japan is that attention is only focused on the negative aspects, and there is strong peer pressure that hinders the transition toward change.

But that era of "the government will take care of it" has already come to an end.
From now on, if we don't help each other and create a good social system, Japan will run out of both money and human resources.

Please design a system that provides incentives to citizens and companies that are cooperative in promoting change.

Not by punishing those who are uncooperative with change, but by providing incentives to those who cooperate, and please have the government act as a command tower so that each local government can cooperate with overall optimization rather than individual optimization.

It is a snail's pace, but I feel like the world is gradually starting to change.

Go for it, Gen Z!
Wake up, Showa generation!

Thank you for reading until the end.
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