## 2 Background
### Green Policymaking in Japanese Municipalities  
Japan is a unitary state with three administration levels: national, prefectures, and municipalities. As of January 2023, there are 47 prefectures, 1724 municipalities, and 20 so-called \"designated cities\" (i.e., Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, Kawasaki, Kyoto, Saitama, Hiroshima, Sendai, Chiba, Kitakyushu, Sakai, Niigata, Hamamatsu, Kumamoto, Sagamihara, Okayama, and Shizuoka). These cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants have a special status that makes them equivalent to prefectures. They can perform many of the functions that are normally performed by prefectural governments.  
Obviously, there are various interpretations of green policymaking in local governments. Green policymaking in Japanese municipalities can focus on GPP [14] as presented in Section 2.1, but also on urban regeneration [16], renewable energy [17], emissions [18], public transport [19], and bicycle planning [20], to mention a few. Therefore, it is important to discuss local green policymaking as interpreted within the scope of this study. More generally, the present study reports on green policymaking initiatives that are included in the examined MOEJ dataset. This survey collects data on municipalities' establishment and publication of green plans and GPP policies.  
In contrast to national institutions, municipalities have no obligations under the 2001 Green Purchasing Law. However, green procurement is strongly promoted across local governments [21]. The MOEJ, in collaboration with the non-governmental Green Purchasing Network (GPN), have undertaken several initiatives for local governments. This support includes training for green procurement staff and assistance in formulating and reviewing GPP policies [14].  
Besides the establishment of a GPP policy, Japanese municipalities also undertake less demanding, but still environmentally beneficial, initiatives. These actions include the establishment of: (1) a \"basic environmental plan\" (i.e., the basis of environmental policies), (2) an environmental management system (EMS), (3) a \"climate change prevention action plan\" (i.e., to prevent climate change), and/or (4) a \"circular society promotion plan\" (i.e., to promote a circular society). Although these initiatives are less challenging than implementing a GPP policy, establishing green plans is regarded as an important step in the process of improving environmental performance. The general idea is that after raising awareness and motivation (e.g., [22]), plans should be established (e.g., [23]), which leads to the development of key performance indicators (e.g., [24]), followed by further implementation and evaluation steps (e.g., [25]).  
Another important dimension in green policymaking is transparency. Similar to corporate greenwashing [26], local government greenwashing is extremely harmful, as the public might lose confidence in environmental protection [27]. Citizens have a crucial role, as they will conceivably sense the difference between reality and the publicity of municipalities [27]. To enhance social supervision, local governments are strongly advised to make information about their green policymaking initiatives publicly available [28]. Moreover, research has shown that increased transparency through online publication leads to a stronger environmental performance of cities [29].  
In summary, the examined local green policymaking initiatives in this study include the establishment of green plans and the subsequent implementation in the form of GPP policies. Moreover, the publication of the green plans and GPP policies are also taken into consideration. We further elaborate on these dimensions in Section 4, where we present the research model, dataset, hypotheses, and variables.