The 3rd 'Top Eco-City' Contest Held in Japan by the National Eco-City Contest Network

JFS Newsletter No.25 (September 2004)

Outline of Japan's Top Eco-City Contest

Japan's Top Eco-City Contest was first held in 2001, and ranks eco-friendly municipalities from the viewpoint of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It was modeled on a similar German eco-city contest that was held for ten years - from 1989 to 1998 - and which focused on nature and environmental protection. The German contest encouraged municipalities to compete with each other and undertake environmental protection activities, and resulted in increased national public awareness about the need for a sustainable society.

A number of German cities were awarded title of "Top Eco-City," such as Erlangen in 1989, Freiburg in 1992 and Heidelburg in 1996, and many Japanese people have visited these cities to study their environmental programs.

The Japanese contest organizer, the Environmental Organization Network, also plans to hold its Top Eco-City Contest for ten years, from 2001 to 2010. When municipalities are awarded the honor of qualifying as an eco-city through this contest, other municipalities will be stimulated to follow suit and work on creating a sustainable society.

Contest rankings are based on responses to a questionnaire containing about 80 questions divided into 15 sections. The title of Top Eco-City is awarded to the municipality which scores highest on this questionnaire, and which also meets other strict standards. One of these standards is a score of 70% or more on the questionnaire, and so far even the highest-scoring municipalities have not been able to meet this and other standards, so none have been awarded the Top Eco-City title.

The Top Eco-City Contest is organized and judged by the National Eco-City Contest Network, which as of 2004 consists of 11 NGOs (non-governmental organizations) under the leadership of the Citizens Environmental Foundation, an incorporated non-profit organization (NPO). Creating the questionnaire was a hard task, because the team did not want the contest to end up ranking local governments simply on the basis of what environmental protection programs they had on their agendas.

To create a questionnaire appropriate for Japan's circumstances, the team conducted a five-year survey of environmentally advanced municipalities in Germany, Scandinavia and Japan. As part of this survey, the Network invited the coordinators of "Deutsche Umwelthife e.V.," the organizer NGO of Germany's Eco-City Contest, and municipal environmental department officials from German Eco-City contest winners. A pre-contest was held in spring 2001 with the participation of 45 local governments across Japan. Based on these preparations, the first Top Eco-City Contest was held in the same year.

The contest awards not only the Top Eco-City, but also the ten top scoring municipalities. The top two municipalities selected at each population level also receive a prize. There are also two category awards at each population level: a global warming prevention award and a resident involvement award. Every year details of the contest results are described in a report so that participating municipalities can review their environmental activities and plan future measures by referring to other cities' efforts.

In the first contest in 2001, major cities occupied the top five spots, so in the second contest in 2002, the structure of the questions and score allocations were reconsidered to prevent the ranking from being affected by population size. The questionnaire was improved further in the third contest by aiming for better evaluation of the content of measures and plans and their actual implementation.

Results of the 3rd Top Eco-City Contest

In March 2004, the results of the third contest were made public. Eighty-three (83) local governments participated, about half of which participated in all three contests.

Evaluation items for the FY2003 contest were categorized as follows:

A: Local government Agenda 21, basic environmental statutes and ordinances, basic environmental plan (8 questions, 100 points)
B: Establishment of environmental management system (4 questions, 50 points)
C: Information disclosure, check and balance system with citizen participation (5 questions, 55 points)
D: Initiatives for energy conservation and eco-office program implementation (9 questions, 60 points)
E: Exchanges with other domestic and overseas local governments (4 questions, 40 points)
F: Programs for improving staff quality and policy-making ability, integration of environmental departments, and budget allocations for environmental projects (4 questions, 95 points)
G: Citizen empowerment and partnerships (5 questions, 80 points)
H: Environmental education (5 questions, 80 points)
I: Conservation and restoration of natural environments (9 questions, 70 points)
J: Healthy water environments (5 questions, 40 points)
K: Creation of landscape and parks that match the original climate and terrain (7 questions, 50 points)
L: Ecological transportation policy (3-5 questions, 55 points)
M: Policy for global warming and energy (9 questions, 75 points)
N: Waste reduction (4 questions, 60 points)
O: Promotion of environment-friendly industries (3 questions, 60 points)

In addition to the 970 points for the above 15 items, a maximum of 30 points are given to participants that submit a brief report about their environmental programs (ten points per program and a maximum of three reports).) and 20 extra points for implementing a pilot project, making 1,020 points the potential top score.

In addition to the evaluation based on the questionnaire, results based on observations and interviews during visits to participating cities by contest organizers are incorporated into a comprehensive evaluation. Although it turned out that no local government qualifiedas a Top Eco-City in FY2003, the City of Tajimi (Gifu Prefecture, population 106,000) scored the highest.

The top ten local governments were as follows:
1. City of Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture
2. City of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture
3. City of Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture
4. City of Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture
5. City of Iida, Nagano Prefecture
6. City of Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture
7. Itabashi Ward in Tokyo
8. City of Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture
9. City of Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture
10. City of Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture

http://www.kankyoshimin.org/jp/mission/ecocity/ecocap/past/2003kekka.html (Available in Japanese only)

Some common characteristics were identified among the top ranking municipalities. One was that their chief executive and staff had made efforts to improve their policy-making ability and job performance, and to establish a system to remove the negative effects of bureaucratic sectionalism.

The City of Tajimi, which was ranked top in the overall score, established a system of policy-making hearings to discuss priorities and budget allocations for city projects so that the city's environmental basic plan would be reflected in its projects and programs. Results included countermeasures against sick building syndrome, and the introduction by nurseries and schools of environment-friendly measures such as a solar thermal systems, rooftop gardens, and rainwater recycling systems.

Another characteristic of top-ranking municipalities was active promotion of full involvement by residents in municipal projects and programs. Examples include the Citizen Council for Mitaka Plan 21 Project, Mitaka City (Tokyo); the Shiki Citizen Committee, Shiki City (Saitama Prefecture); and the Ordinance for Promoting Citizen Activities to Create a New Public Community, Yamato City (Kanagawa Prefecture). Each system is devised so that citizens' suggestions are reflected in the form of projects incorporated into the local government budget.

Lessons from the 3rd Top Eco-City Contest

The contest organizers have identified three promising results from the past three contests:
1. The objectives of the contest have been accepted by municipalities that are trying to become environment-friendly, and the contest has also been gradually accorded attention by local NPOs, media, and universities.
2. An increasing number of local governments have set winning the Top Eco-City contest as a target. Some municipal leaders have declared their determination to make their city a Top Eco-City, and other municipalities have decided to use the contest as an indicator or a target for their environmental master plans.
3. The results of the interviews, etc., and responses to the questionnaire show that many municipalities have already started to make more advanced and more active efforts than the organizers had originally expected.

Entry information for the 4th Top Eco-City Contest has been sent to all municipalities nationwide in September 2004. A current trend in Japan is that many smaller municipalities are considering consolidation with neighboring municipalities, a policy that has the support of the national government, and which may cause considerable change in the framework of local governments. It is hoped that the Eco-City contest will accord high appreciation to the pioneering efforts of small municipalities, and that these efforts will be continued and expanded throughout newly consolidated municipalities.

In the case of the Eco-City Contest in Germany, many contest entrants noted that their prime motivation for entering was to clarify the strong and weak points of their own environmental measures and to compare them with those of other municipalities, rather than to win the title of Top Eco-City or achieve a high ranking. Expectations are high that the existence of the Top Eco-City Contest in Japan will accelerate environmental innovation in Japanese society as well.

(Staff Writer Kazumi Yagi)