世論 What Japan Thinks

This headline will no doubt have most of my readers groaning, but more of that a couple of paragraphs further down. This was one of the curious results from a recent survey conducted by Japan Research Council into concerns about environmental problems.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 19th of November 2007 (before the aforementioned Japan Tobacco had a number of their China-made frozen gyoza laced with poison, a case that is still unresolved) 1,200 people were randomly selected from resident databases in 200 representative areas. From each of the locations 6 willing survey respondents were chosen for face-to-face interviews. 50.4% of the sample were female, 6.2% were in their teens, 15.2% in their twenties, 17.9% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 18.5% in their fifties, 15.9% in their sixties, and 11.1% in their seventies.

Although Toyota do produce a lot of fuel-efficient cars, with the Prius the star amongst them, and are not slow to blow their own trumpet on the topic, other cars in their range are not so great fuel-wise, and indeed as I mentioned before, their new Noah and Voxy have 10% worse fuel consumption than the old models! As for Japan Tobacco, this survey highlights how clever, evily clever, their advertising team are. Smoking outside has been changed from a health issue to litter and safety issues, with the dangers being poking children in the eyes with lighted ciggies or dropping butt ends rather than dying horribly from cancer or living out your twilight years dragging an oxygen bottle behind you. Also note that Japan Tobacco outranks Sharp, the world’s largest producer of solar panels.

This survey can be cross-referenced with another recent one on Warm Biz from the same company.

Research results

Q1: How concerned are you about environmental problems? (Sample size=1,200)

Extremely concerned (to SQ)	24.4%
Concerned to some degree (to SQ)	56.8%
Not very concerned	15.0%
Not concerned at all	3.0%
No answer	0.8%

By sex, men were just slightly more concerned overall, but about 15% more men were extremely concerned. By age, concern basically increased with age.

Q1SQ: Which environmental problems are you concerned about? (Sample size=975, multiple answer)

Global warming	87.1%
Unusual weather	56.1%
Ozone layer destruction	28.6%
Recycling	27.9%
Deforestation	18.9%
Atmospheric pollution	18.7%
Waste disposal	18.3%
Water pollution	9.0%
Ocean pollution	9.0%
Chemicals	6.3%

Q2: Which of the following environmental protection activities do you try to do in your daily life? (Sample size=1,200, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=595	Female N=605
Recycle, separate garbage	60.8%	53.1%	68.4%
Turn off taps when not needed	59.8%	53.8%	65.6%
Don’t pour used cooking oil down the drain	41.3%	27.6%	54.9%
Set heaters to 20 degrees, cooler to 28 degrees	40.6%	35.1%	46.0%
Use left-over bathwater for washing clothes	40.6%	32.1%	48.9%
Don’t leave the television on all the time	39.4%	33.6%	45.1%
Try not to create too much garbage	36.8%	29.1%	44.3%
Try not to accept plastic bags at the checkout	33.9%	23.7%	44.0%
Unplug unused electrical items	33.8%	26.1%	41.3%
Don’t re-wrap shopping	33.1%	23.2%	42.8%
Don’t brake hard, idle	31.6%	37.5%	25.8%
Set heated toilet seat to a cooler setting	22.3%	16.6%	27.9%

Q3: For the following industries, what degree of effort do you think they are putting into environmental problems? (Sample size=1,200, multiple answer)

	Extreme amount of effort	Some effort	Not much effort	No effort at all	No answer
Car makers	21.7%	59.3%	9.9%	2.8%	6.3%
Electrical makers	11.3%	51.7%	24.5%	4.5%	8.0%
Energy-related industry	10.1%	45.3%	28.3%	7.4%	9.0%
Drink manufacturers	4.0%	42.8%	40.2%	5.3%	7.8%
Food manufacturers	4.4%	40.7%	42.8%	5.1%	7.0%
Precision device manufacturers	5.4%	36.0%	41.9%	6.7%	10.0%
Transport	3.6%	33.0%	41.3%	13.5%	8.6%
Pharmacuticals	2.8%	31.7%	45.3%	11.5%	8.8%
Publishers, newspapers	2.6%	28.6%	46.4%	13.3%	9.1%
Textiles	2.0%	27.7%	48.4%	12.5%	9.4%
Steelmakers	2.9%	26.4%	45.8%	15.4%	9.4%
Information service companies	1.4%	26.8%	50.9%	10.7%	10.2%
Cosmetic makers	2.2%	25.7%	48.3%	15.1%	8.8%
Insurance	0.5%	11.3%	51.5%	27.4%	9.3%
Finance	0.5%	11.0%	51.9%	27.2%	9.4%

Q4: Which companies do you think are putting effort into addressing environmental issues? (Sample size=1,200, up to three free answers)

	Votes	Percentage
Toyota	409	34.1%
Honda	96	8.0%
Matsushita (Panasonic)	80	6.7%
Nissan	58	4.8%
Aeon (supermarket chain)	57	4.8%
Japan Tobacco	43	3.6%
Sharp	42	3.5%
Hitachi	30	2.5%
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)	23	1.9%
Sony	18	1.5%
Chubu Electric Power	17	1.4%
Kirin Beer	17	1.4%
Kansai Electric Power Co Ltd	13	1.1%
Japanese Consumers’ Co-Operative Union (JCCU)	12	1.0%
Nippon Steel Corporation	10	0.8%