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Examples of the Best Practice
FY 2007 (the Grand Prize winner)
Area
Kyoto City in Kyoto Prefecture
Let’s reduce “wood mileage” by using local trees
Forest Research Course, Kyoto prefectural Participants about 100 people (Students, Teachers)
Kita-kuwata High School
Budget−¾ The Kitayama area of Kyoto City has supplied wood andtimber for building purposes to Heian-Kyo, the ancient
capital of Japan for 1200 years. However in recent
times, due to the inflow of imported timber and thedepression, local forestry and timber industry are indecline.
¾ Since 1993 this school has promoted the use of local
timber by building furniture and log houses using
coniferous wood raised in Kyoto City.
¾ In 2005, following the enforcement of Kyoto Protocol, thepromotion of proper management of artificial forests (absorptionof CO2) and consumption of local timber (reduction of woodmileage) were focused upon as means for the reduction of CO2
emission.
¾ In 2006 the initiative was recognized as “Local timber usingbusiness” (first among schools) and achieved the certificationof “Wood Mileage accreditation system” by the Kyoto
Prefecture. Also implemented a PR campaign that explained
CO2 reductions to the buyer during the sale of local wood products.
¾ In 2007, a model house was built using J-pod system (A new building method that promotes theeffective usage of thinned wood) developed by Kyoto University and usage of thinned wood as abuilding material is being evaluated and proposed.
http://www1.kyoto-be.ne.jp/kitakuwada-hs/

FY 2007 (the Gold Prize winner)
Area
Tsuru City in Yamanashi Prefecture
Small-scale hydroelectric power plant financed woth publicly offered bondTsuru City
Participants 34,429 Citizens , 161 Creditors(local governmental body )Budget150,000 Yen Annual¾ Tsuru city ,which is blessed with a rich water resource, had
a hydro electicity power station from 1903 to 1953 thatused river water for power generation and was the one of
the first areas within the prefecture supplied by electricity.
¾ In this background, the “Tsuru City Regional New Energy
Vision ” (2002) focused on hydroelectricity generation as apriority policy and started to investigate the possibility ofimplementation.
¾ In 2004 which was the 50th anniversary for the City, it wasdecided to build a small scale hydroelectric power plant.
Considering the visual impact and the contribution toenvironmental education, the facility was located in a place easily
accesible to the public (in front of the city office building, next to a
primary school) and in the shape of an open wooden wheel and has
been operating since 2006.
¾ About 40% of the installation cost was supplied by a publicly offered
Local Government Bonds prepared for the construction of thehydroelectric power plant.
¾ The electricity produced in the power plant is used in the city officebuilding and is contributing not only to the reduction of CO2 emision
but also to the reduction of electricity bill for the city office¾ The “Small scale hydro electricity town (Aqua valley - TSURU) promotion policy” which wasformulated in 2006 , is evaluating the potential sites for installment off small scale hydro electricity
plants and the potential users for the electricity produced”.
http://www.city.tsuru.yamanashi.jp/forms/info/info.aspx?info_id=2681

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2007 (the Silver Prize winner)
Area
Toyama City in Toyama Prefecture
Transformation of the Toyama port line to LRT (Light Rail Transit)
Participants −Toyama city
(local governmental body)
Budget−¾ Increase in the usage of private cars and thescattering of city areas in Toyama City has let to theweakening of the public transport and the Toyama
Port line operated by JR-West also has seen a large
reduction in the number of users raising questions
about its existence.
¾ In response to an aging society and to movetowards a low carbon society, Toyama city decided
to reactivate its public transport and centralize theurban infrastructure to construct a compact citywhere one can live without depending on cars.
¾ As the first project, the Toyama port line opened as a LRT in April
2006 and managed to greatly increase the convenience to thepublic by improving the service level.
¾ In terms of operation, the number of trains operating during theday ( 1hour interval to 15 minutes interval) ,and the time of the lasttrain (9 PM to 11 PM) was improved. In terms of installation, all thetrains were changed to ones with a low floor and a barrier freeenvironment was created in the platforms by getting rid of steps.
¾ The number of users of the Toyama Light Rail increased by about 2.1 times in weekdays and by 4.6
times in holidays compared with old Toyama Port Line. Out of the total number of users, 12% werepeople who actually started using train and stopped using their own cars.
http://www.t-lr.co.jp/

2007 (the Bronze Prize winner)
Area
Numata town in Hokkaido
Usage of cold energy from snow as a local resource
Numata Town
Participants 3,934 people(local governmental body)
BudgetAnnual 1,000,000 Yen¾ Numata town has an annual snowfall level of 10m and has agriculture
as the main industry. Snow, which used to be a nuisance, is now being
used for the storage for agricultural products.
¾ In 1996, a rice storage facility using snow (“Snow Cool Rice Factory”)
was constructed which had an adequate environment for the storageof rice (temperature of 5 degrees celcius and a humidity of 70%). The
rice sold from here was branded as “Setchumai” (rice in the snow).
¾ After the success of this facility, interest in the usage of snow greatlyincreased and various facilities started using the cold energy fromsnow.
・ Public facilities (educational facilities, aged care facility, snowmuseum etc) using snow cooling・ Cooling of cattle shed, cultivation experiment of agricultural
products and flowers
・ In the Snow Museum, the snow room has been made available tothe public for free which can be used for storing agricultural products.
・ Several cases are seen where residential houses and shops havestarted using snow cooling.
¾ Following “Setchumai”, various products have been designed on theconcept of utilization of the local agri products and storage/maturation
using snow, including Japanese sake, miso (fermented soy bean paste) and noodles.
¾ At present, an initiative where snow thrown out from roads is collected at one place as a giant snow
mountain and used in the next summer (Snow Mountain Centre project) is being investigated. The
concept visualizes creating a snow mountain of 5000 tons in 2008 and of 100,000 tons in the future.
http://www.town.numata.hokkaido.jp/

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FY 2008 (the Grand Prize winner)
Area
Kyoto City in Kyoto Prefecture
Reduction of CO2 from classroom by 80% by using wood heating
Kyoto municipal Kumogahata junior high Participants 35 people
schoolBudget18,000Yen¾ The Kumogahata area of the Kyoto City lies in a forest area
which preserves water resources for the Yodo river which
supplies water to Kyoto and Osaka. However, in this area theusage of firewood has become very rare and the co-relation
with the forest has become very weak.
¾ From FY 2004, as a part of environmental education, the usageof wood stove was started as an experiment. The usage ofstoves was increased and in FY 2007 all the classrooms usedwooden stoves for heating which saved the usage of 1,350
liters of kerosene.
¾ Activities such as tree thinning, logging, wood splitting are
carried out by the students and the teachers along with thefamilies of the students and university students. The number ofstudents in this school is only 8 but about 70 people participatedin this activity in FY 2008.
¾ The students started measuring the room temperature sinceusing the wooden stoves and found that the temperature wasquite different between the floor and the ceiling. From thisobservation, a fan (using electricity from solar sources) wasused to mix the air in the room and hence use the heat more
effectively in the room.
¾ Using the solar panel which the students installed themselves in the roof, activities such as sprinklingwater in the roof, using fans are being carried out to stop using air conditioning during summer.
http://www.edu.city.kyoto.jp/hp/kumogahata-c/

FY 2008 (the Gold Prize winner)
AreaOjiya City in Niigata Prefecture
Build in snow room, A house where snow from the winter is used for cooling in summer
Study Group on Snow Country Housing Participants 28people(Voluntary group of architect and builders)
Budget420,000 Yen Annual¾ Ojiya City has heavy snowfall with snow accumulation of
2m in average winter. The Study Group on Snow Country
Housing was formed in 1989 and has been carrying out
research work relating to houses suitable to the climate ofareas with heavy snow.
¾ In FY 2005, with the support of Niigata Prefecture, houses
with snow aided air conditioning was proposed to people
who had lost their homes due to the earthquake of
September 2004. Houses with built-in snow rooms
completed in April 2006.
¾ The usage of snow in these houses is as shown below
・ A room in the ground floor of a 3 storey house is made as a “snow room”
and used for storing snow that slips down from the roof.
・ The stored snow (about 30 tons) is used for cooling 3 rooms. 30 tons ofsnow is sufficient to cool an area equivalent to about 35 square meters forone summer.
・ A small freezer room (about 6 square meters) is located next to the snowroom where rice, sake and vegetables can be stored at 5C.
¾ The snow air conditioning system is very simple and hence the consumptionof electricity is very little (electricity bill is only about 1000 yen for the wholesummer). Additional benefit is that dust etc from the air gets attached to thesnow helping clean the air.
http://www.yukidaruma.or.jp/experiment/

http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~yukiken/

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FY 2008 (the Silver Prize winner)
Area
Geisei Village in Kochi Prefecture
Implementation of a low carbon agriculture by using wood pellets as fuels for greenhouse cultivation
Participants 10 people
Kochi Biomass Farm
BudgetAnnual amount of 10million yen¾ Greenhouse cultivation, which is one of the main industry of
Kochi prefecture, has a high consumption of diesel for heating
during the cultivation of vegetables and flowers in winter. It isestimated that CO2 emission from greenhouse cultivation
amount to about 5% of the total emission in Kochi Prefecture.
¾ The proponent of this project is a group consisting horticultural
farmers involved in the cultivation of green pepper, egg plantand flowers. In winter (November to April) diesel for themembers’ greenhouse amounted for CO2 emission equivalent
to 870 tons in a season.
¾ In FY 2007, cooperation was given to an experiment involving
heaters using wooden pellets. In FY 2008, all the members started using 1or 2 heaters using wooden pellets. From next year onwards, it is intended toincrease the number of there heaters and subsequently substitute all thediesel heaters with the ones using wooden pellets.
¾ It was possible to obtain a subsidy for using the heaters under the “voluntarynational emission trading scheme” operated by the Ministry of Environment.
It was promised that during 2005 to 2007, a reduction of CO2 by 300t (from870 t-CO2) would be obtained.
¾ Heating is being done without any problem by using wood pellets. At
present, pellets from other prefectures are being used but in the future if afactory is available inside the prefecture, local product from the prefecture
will be given preference.
http://www.jccca.org/daisakusen/area3/kouchi/index.html
FY 2008 (the Bronze Prize winner)
Area
Miyakojima City in Okinawa Prefecture
Japanese buckwheat cultivation (double-cropping with sugarcane) project in the Coral Island
Environmental Study Group, Okinawa Participants 6 People
prefectural Miyako vocational high school
BudgetAnnual 40,000 yen¾ Miyakojima, which is an island made of uplifted coral, has
no rivers and depends on groundwater for drinking water.
The biggest challenge is the contamination of groundwaterby chemical fertilizers.
¾ Sugarcane, which is the main agricultural product of
Miyakojima, has a high CO2 fixing capacity and is being
focused as the raw material for bio-ethanol. However,cultivation of sugarcane only is not sufficient for people
from economic point of view
¾ The usage of the Idle land after harvesting of sugarcane
was investigated and it was concluded that it was suitableto grow Japanese soba (buckwheat), which had neverbeen cultivated in Okinawa.
・ Additional income to farmers engaging in sugarcane cultivation ensuringthat the production of sugarcane can become economically sustainable
・ Very good for nitrogen intake capacity from the soil and also contributes tothe preservation of groundwater・ Buckwheat grows so fast, that it can be harvested before the start of thetyphoon season.
・ After harvesting, leaves and stems can be used as fertilizers in thecultivation of sugarcane.
・ Contribution to the reduction of food mileage by the consumption of localproduct.
¾ In 2008, Japanese soba was cultivated in a field equivalent to 25 ares and250 kg was harvested. The quality of the soba powder received a very good
review from experts.
http://www.miyasou-h.open.ed.jp/