Resources for International Cooperation

  • Evaluation
    • In the 1990s, Japan's environmental legislation was further developed. Regulations are strict, well enforced and based on strong monitoring capacities.
    • Strict standard setting and financial support for research and development on new environmental technologies and treatment methods have had a positive technology-forcing effect, which has helped assure timely implementation of stringent regulations.
    • The present system also has some cost-effectiveness advantages: nationwide emission or discharge limits are made more stringent at regional and/or local level when needed, often through agreements negotiated by prefectures and municipalities with industry.
    • Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is systematically applied to major projects, and consultation of the public and of regional and local authorities has improved. Japanese industry has been proactive in establishing environmental management and reporting systems, and several branches have taken initiatives to reduce their environmental "footprint".
    • User and pollution charges and environmental taxes are not sufficiently used to internalise environmental costs. Financial assistance programmes are widely used to implement environmental policy, and their cost effectiveness is not systematically evaluated.
    • Application of the polluter pays and user pays principles is still incomplete, particularly concerning wastewater and waste services. Japan has made encouraging progress with user charges to cover the cost of wastewater services, but for household waste services, there is still a long way to go to achieve full cost recovery.
    • With the exception of agricultural land contamination, management of soil contamination lacks a legal framework and liability is often unclear.
  • Recommendations
    It is recommended to:
    • strengthen and extend the use of economic instruments (e.g. taxes and charges) to implement environmental policy in more environmentally effective and economically efficient ways and to progress towards sustainable production and consumption;
    • continue to assure appropriate enforcement of regulatory measures;
    • ensure that voluntary agreements become more transparent, effective and efficient;
    • extend environmental legislation and policy attention to cover all types of contaminated sites;
    • review financial assistance programmes used to implement environmental policy, assessing their environmental and economic effectiveness and their compatibility with the polluter pays principle (as proposed in the 1994 EPR);
    • increase economic analysis of environmental policy measures, with the aim of achieving environmental objectives more cost -effectively.