世論 What Japan Thinks

I think the above is the take-away from this survey by the fast fashion retailer Uniqlo into Cool Biz and Super Cool Biz, who used this survey as an excuse to promote this year’s Super Cool Biz line of clothes.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 13th of May 2013 200 men and women in full employment living within Tokyo and aged between 20 and 59 completed an internet-based questionnaire.

I don’t really go much for Cool Biz, but I’m always relatively casual at work. I have heard other people say that wearing a vest or T-shirt under a normal shirt helps no end on sweaty Japanese summer days, so perhaps I’ll pick up a couple of Uniqlo T-shirts and give them a go.
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This year sees the fourth year of Cool Biz, an initiative started by the Japanese government to persuade businesses and homes to set air conditioners to 28°C in the summer and to wear lighter clothes and no ties. To see how it has been progressing, Cabinet Office Japan looked at awareness of Cool Biz.

Demographics

Between the 28th of May and the 7th of June 2009 of the 3,000 people selected at random from all over Japan, 2,054 people (or 68.5%) completed a questionnaire conducted via face-to-face interviews.

Looking at the details on occupation, it’s interesting that the government still has only a “housewife” category, not a gender-neutral “homemaker” or a “/househusband”.

I most often feel the air-conditioner is too strong in trains, although so far this year it’s been a bit more gentle than usual. Although my employer makes a big fuss about supporting Cool Biz and selling Eco Ideas, my office this year too is 23°C or 24°C, cold on my skin in short sleeves.
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Another survey that MyVoice performed at the start of July was on environmental issues and MOTTAINAI. 12,326 members of their MyVoice monitor community successfully completed a private internet questionnaire; 54% of the sample was female, 3% in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

MOTTAINAI, or to translate, “what a waste”, is a Japanese word cleverly adopted by Wangari Muta Maathai and her Greenbelt Movement, and clumsily, in my opinion, adopted by Japanese businesses in order to flog more tat or to appear green. It may be worth pointing out that another environmental campaign, Cool Biz, has, I fear, dropped out of the public awareness as a real measure, and has become merely lipservice towards environmentalism. One of the train companies I use during my commute, for instance, said in their fortnightly free paper that the company would be supporting Cool Biz by setting the air conditioner to 26°C in most carriages, and 27°C in the lightly air-conditioned carriages. However, it’s cold enough most mornings and evenings to give me goose-pimples in shirt sleeves, and in fact last weekend I checked an in-carriage thermometer and it was reading 20°C in the lightly air-conditioned carriage. MOTTAINAI indeed!
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There’s been a survey of opinions on “Warm Biz“, the new initiative after Cool Biz this summer. Cool Biz was to set air conditioners to 28°C and wear short sleeves and no tie, an initiative supported and strongly promoted by Prime Minister Jun-chan. Warm Biz is basically the opposite, to wear thermal undies and set office thermostats to 20°C for the winter. The company I work for supports Cool Biz in theory, but our air conditioners are not very subtle at all, so if they are on they are using blowing out 24°C or 25°C air, which is rather cold on my bare arms. If they are off, like right now, there is no moving air in the office at all so it gets hopelessly stuffy. Note that with Warm Biz they hope to save almost 2.5 times as much energy as with Cool Biz. However, I discovered that Cool Biz saved just a few percentage points of the forecast amount.

The survey took place on the home page for Club BBQ for 24 hours over the 25th and 26th of August, where there were 2,321 self-selecting respondents, 70.8% male, 29.2% female. The sex balance may seem off, but Warm Biz is mainly aimed at businessmen, I feel, so it is not too much of a problem, at least not compared with it being a self-selecting survey.

First up, 78.0% said they supported Warm Biz. Conversely, only 56.7% said they wanted Cool Biz to continue next year.

Perhaps people find it easier to add another layer than take one off. The number of people I see wearing T-shirts under their shirts is quite amazing – I wonder if this is another example of Japanese folk wisdom?

67.3% of those surveyed had heard of Warm Biz, with this perhaps due to the aftereffects of Cool Biz permeating throughout the population.

With 78.0% saying they support Warm Biz, though, where did the extra 10% or so come from? Perhaps this survey was done after reading an article regarding Warm Biz? Over 90% had heard of Cool Biz, however.

Reasons for supporting it included people advocating it themselves (perhaps their office is usually too hot in winter?) and that it will save money on heating. On the other hand, just like for Cool Biz, the most popular dissenting opinion was it being too difficult to work under these conditions.

Regarding Warm Biz becoming established, only 31.4% agreed. 35.9% discounted Warm Biz as just a reaction from Cool Biz, and 48.7% reckoned that there wouldn’t be much difference from last year, indicating many people think it’s just a passing fad.

Back to Cool Biz, 56.7% thought it has been a success this year, although it is supposed to keep running until the end of September.

Looks like still quite a bit of work to do before the public warms to Warm Biz!