But raw materials for an expanding consumer culture were still required. Japan would provide the management technologies and the cash. Mr. Kira Tatsuo, director of the Lake Biwa Research Institute, proclaimed the need to find fast-growing species of tropical trees and make them grow even faster. The business world, academic circles, and government, it concluded, must pool their resources to create innovative technologies for preserving the environment, conserving energy and cutting back on resource consumption. Official Guidelines exhort companies to care for the ecosystem, conserve resources, appoint executives and create organizations.
Many companies already have environmental offices or the like - but to no obvious avail.
For, quite predictably, nowhere is there a hint that corporations might do much more for the earth by producing less . Technofix must satisfy the need for conservation without lowering production. So the only way to cut consumption of resources and energy is with technological breakthroughs. That s the theory, anyway. The Japanese auto industry is making great efforts to come up with new lean-burn engines and other technological innovations.