A Study of New Lifestyles for Sustainable-Consumption Society : Applications of Environmental Household Account Using Input-Output Table

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Our whole study consists of three parts. In the first study, we focus on the environmental administration of local government and the environmental activities of consumers. First, using the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure for the City of Yokohama, we analyze the existing consumption activities of citizens and the associated CO_2 emissions. Next, we calculated CO_2 emissions by utilizing the CO_2 emission factor which is equivalent to the carbon-footprint for each expense item. Finally, we estimate price elasticities for each item and simulate the effect of environmental policies, such as the promotion of organic farming, the eco-point system, and price changes for electricity and fuels. This study shows that the role of local government is essential in carrying out environmental policies. This especially holds true for policies affecting consumers. Local governments can ascertain the current status of individual households much better than the national government can, … More so they will have a more important role in creating a sustainable consumption society.In the second study, some social changes, such as increment of occupied female population or aged population, effect on households' dietary habit. In general, menus with small number of dishes or using more home-meal replacement become to be more popular than before. The environmental impacts of such changes, however, has not been clear in previous studies. In this paper we inquired about actual condition of households' dietary habit and estimated environmental impacts of 12 "representative menus" which reflect usual consumers' everyday eating habit. The final goal of our research is to evaluate LCA effects of households' dietary habit caused by social reasons as mentioned above. Using the results of LCA impacts from the representative menus, we estimated the change of CO_2 emission induced by dietary habit which occurs when occupied female population or aged population will grow. To avoid increasing emission of CO_2 induced by dietary habit, it will be effective to use home meal replacement or restaurant service appropriately as well as to reduce cooking energy.The third study has two objectives. The first is the performance of a Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions using three representative restaurant menus (Japanese, American, and Chinese style dishes), based on the amount and price of ingredients provided by Skylark Co., Ltd. The second objective involved evaluating the sustainable usage of restaurant services. We evaluated the GHG emissions of restaurant customers through the use of a questionnaire which asked respondees which method of transportation they used when visiting restaurants, and which type of restaurant they tended to visit. Our calculation of GHG emissions from three menus pioneers the approach of assessing carbon footprint (CFP) of services, because restaurants are one of the biggest service industries. Our result shows that there are many external GHG emitting sources associated with restaurant service production, like company headquarters and maintenance operations. Therefore, in calculating GHG emissions based upon restaurants menus, we must carefully determine which processes must be included in the final tally. In regards the second objective, a number of suggestions can be made to improve the sustainable use of restaurant services. Reducing the use of disposable chopsticks, and reducing the use of personal vehicles when traveling to restaurants, are two examples of effective methods that would lower GHG emissions and make for more sustainable food services. Less