Japan’s NGO sector has gone about its business without much fuss, but is beginning to campaign more openly

Japan’s NGO sector has gone about its business without much fuss, but is beginning to campaign more openlyThe NGO sector in Japan is still relatively underdeveloped and business associations tend to be conservative. There are some signs of this changing, but the long-term effects on corporate behaviour of a shift to a more progressive activist sector are not yet clear.

If you look for large, influential NGOs in Japan, you will struggle to find one, at least as defined in western terms. According to the Japanese NGO Center for International Cooperation (Janic), the top three NGOs by revenue operating in 2006 were all based outside Japan: Plan Japan (with revenues of $49m), World Vision ($29m), and Médecins Sans Frontières ($18m). The biggest Japanese NGOs are Peace Wins Japan ($16m) and Oisca ($12m).

During the Meiji period in Japan (1868-1912), philanthropic activities came to be administered by the government under civil law. In the modern day, this means government philanthropic organisations such as the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Red Feather Community Chest Movement are able to raise millions of yen from school and community fundraising activities. However, there is no culture of donations when it comes to other community-based NGOs.

One NGO manager points out: “NGOs with effective lobbying power are virtually non-existent in Japan – with just a few exceptions such as Peace Wins and Janic.”
Setsu Mori of Alterna magazine echoes this concern, adding that Japan’s NGOs suffer from a lack of cash. He says: “Out of 30,000-40,000 non-profit organisations in Japan, 99% might be financially fragile.”

Cool campaigning

The role of NGOs in Japan has been low key. There have been some attempts in the past for NGOs to confront business and change individual sectors – but with very limited success.

One famous example is the campaign by Greenpeace Japan in the late 1990s about the use of CFCs in refrigerators. Greenpeace first confronted and then worked with Panasonic (then Matsushita Electric) to bring non-CFC refrigerators to market. Panasonic developed refrigerators and started selling them, with other companies then following suit.

Unfortunately, this remains a rare example of NGO-corporate collaboration in Japan. This is partly to do with the nature of Japanese culture to avoid confrontation. “When NGOs engage a company, the company feels attacked and just shuts itself off,” says consultant Peter Pedersen.

“From a westerner’s perspective, ‘activism’ seems to be much milder here – you don’t see people chaining themselves to a tree or a nuclear power plant, for example,” adds Luke Poliszcuk of eQualC Sustainability Communications.

But does this mean NGOs and civil society will play only a very limited role in the future? Not necessarily.

In fact, there are areas where Japanese civil society may have an edge, especially when it comes to the non-confrontational, engagement approach. For example, the Earth Day movement is flourishing in Japan. Each year, the number of visitors to the two-day Earth Day event in Tokyo far exceeds 100,000, and it is considered to be one of the largest events of its kind in the world.

In addition, the three-day Eco Products Exhibition, held every December at the Tokyo Big Sight international exhibition centre, has steadily grown to more than 180,000 visitors.

The Candle Night movement, a pioneering version of Earth Hour where people turn off the electricity and enjoy the night with candles at the summer and winter solstices, has also become a mainstream movement. Each year, more NGOs and companies participate in these events. The events are entirely non-confrontational, and everybody can support a cause and enjoy themselves.

There are also established networks of sustainability-minded professionals. “In Tokyo alone, there are hundreds of smaller green business learning and networking events such as the Green Leaders Forum at the British Council, Green Drinks Tokyo and Green Mondays. Each event may have up to 100 people and interest is very high, especially for young entrepreneurs, business people and students,” Poliszcuk says.

Collaboration between NGOs and companies continues to progress, although relatively slowly, supported by rising social and environmental awareness. This is being helped by recognition of international environmental and social product labels such as those of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is also starting to be recognised among general consumers. Aeon, one of the largest supermarkets in Japan, now promotes MSC certified fish products.

Carbon offsets

Another example is Carbon Offset Japan, a non-profit organisation, which was launched in 2007 to promote carbon offsets and is now supported by 138 member companies.

However, despite these non-confrontational events and collaborative projects, progressive corporate responsibility managers are still frustrated with the lack of pressure from civil society and consumers.

According to a 2008 study from the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, which examined lifestyles in eight world cities, 88% of residents in Tokyo “feel an increasing risk of climate change”. This number is eight points higher than the average among all the cities surveyed.

However, only 47% “actually purchase products from companies working proactively on environmental issues”. This number is the lowest among the cities, which include London and Moscow. “The ethical consumer base is still weak,” admits one environmental manager.

A positive development is that, in February this year, Japan’s prime minister Yukio Hatoyama announced the government will discuss ways to support individual donations to NGOs by making them tax deductible.

There is also a move to revise the current companies act, where the board of directors is responsible only to shareholders and there is no mention or consideration of other stakeholders. This would make a difference, and bring the duties of directors closer to those in the UK, for example, where the primary responsibility is also to shareholders, but, importantly, there is also a duty to consider other stakeholders.

Currently, there is a discussion going on within Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan to create a “public companies act”. One of the key points being discussed is to expand this responsibility of boards of directors to consider other stakeholders.

There are also signs of change from business associations. For traditional business associations, such as the Keidanren (Japan Federation of Economic Organisations), progress is slow, however. This is because, as many companies in these associations work to come to a consensus, there is a tendency to agree only on “the lowest common denominator”, Peter Pedersen says. The primary role these associations have played is to raise minimum standards, such as through promoting environmental management systems and communications.

Recently there have been movements to form new types of business associations such as the Japan Climate Leaders’ Partnership (Japan-CLP) and Alterna Business Community (ABC). Japan-CLP is a business network set up in 2009 by a few leading companies, including Ricoh, Aeon and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, for the purpose of leading the transition and to promote strategic initiatives towards a low-carbon sustainable economy.

ABC is just being launched, with a vision to be an “alternative Keidanren”. According to Setsuo Mori, its founder, it currently has about 100 member companies including regional SMEs, and will look to start making policy proposals within two or three years. Although still in their infancy, these organisations represent progressive companies that are raising the bar.

There are also signs of change from established professional organisations such as the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In May 2009, the institute issued a “basic policy on sustainability”. This includes contributing to sustainability through improving disclosure of corporate sustainability information; increasing trust in sustainability information; and supporting sustainability policies by, for example, designing cap-and-trade policies and utilising market mechanisms. The policy is intended to guide the institute and public accountants on their work.

Public concerns

But the problem of getting all sectors of the Japanese public on side and energised about sustainability issues remains. “In highly congested cities like Tokyo, people tend to develop very limited spheres of awareness as a defence mechanism and this may influence Japanese consumers’ sphere of influence,” Poliszcuk says. That might be why when a prohibition on the trade of bluefin tuna was debated at a global conference in March, the Japanese consumer response was weak compared with that in Europe, for example.

But as the global civil society develops, these trends will change. As traditional organisations and social models prove ineffective, there are signs of small changes from many different sections of society. This is a challenge for each individual, to create an active civil sector, whether it be through activism, non-confrontational events or partnerships.