October 28, 2005
The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) has widely encouraged business and public in general to set air conditioning at offices to around 28 degrees C during summer, aiming to prevent global warming. As a part of the campaign, MOE has been promoting summer business style "Cool Biz" to encourage business people to wear cool and comfortable clothes to work efficiently in the offices where thermostats are set at around 28 degrees C.
MOE has conducted a web-based questionnaire survey on the current situation of "Cool Biz" campaign, on September 30, 2005, covering approximately 1,200 men and women randomly extracted from "internet panel" owned by a research company. The result of the survey shows that 95.8% of the respondents knew "Cool Biz" and 32.7% of 562 respondents answered that their offices set air conditioner higher than previous years. Based on the result, estimated reduction of CO2 was approximately 460 thousand tons-CO2, which is equivalent to the amount of CO2 emitted from approximately one million households for one month.
MOE will continuously encourage people to set air conditioning in offices at 28 degrees C along with further dissemination of "Cool Biz".