Minoru Fujii

National Institute for Environmental Studies · Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research

Extreme temperature exposure can have a considerable impact on the health of older adults. China, which has entered a deeply aging society, may be obviously threatened by extreme weather. Based on data obtained from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we apply a panel fixed effect model to investigate the impact of extreme...

Forest biomass is expected to remain a key part of the national energy portfolio mix, yet residual forest biomass is currently underused. This study aimed to estimate the potential availability of waste woody biomass in the Aizu region and its energy potential for local bioelectricity generation as a sustainable strategy. The results showed that th...

Objectives To verify the appropriateness of applying uniform heat safety thresholds (HSTs) in sports club activities at Japanese junior high and high schools, and to propose the flexible application of HSTs according to the conditions of the activity. Methods A case-crossover study was conducted using 2011–2019 heat illness incident data from Japa...

Wind power is a promising renewable energy source that is rapidly expanding in the global electricity mix. This study explored suitable locations for onshore wind turbines, and estimated the wind power potential in Fujian Province, China. We also analyzed the resource occupancy of 100 years of potential wind turbine operation in terms of the materi...

Thermal safety guidelines with upper thresholds aim to protect athletes' health, yet evidence based sport-specific thresholds remain unestablished. Experimenting with athletes in severely hot conditions raises ethical concerns, so we used a thermo-physiological model to validate the thresholds of guidelines for outdoor sports. First, the reproducib...

Small hydropower has attracted extensive interest as a clean technology. This study first identified possible sites of small hydropower plants with estimated capacity, and then utilized resources time footprint as a novel way to evaluate the impact of small hydropower plants on the aspects of materials, CO2, labor, and land. Resources time footprin...

Objectives: To validate the upper thresholds of the thermal safety guidelines for multiple outdoor sports in terms of heat illness risk. Methods: The reproducibility of the joint system thermoregulation model (JOS-3) of core temperature has been validated for 18 sports experiments (n=213) and 11 general exercise experiments (n=121) using the Bland–...

The increasing generation of solid waste, varying waste compositions, and inefficient waste recovery processes have limited the performance of traditional approaches. It is urgent to collect a virtual special issue (VSI) that consolidates research on efficient models and better treatment technologies to break up the current system limitations. Rece...

With the progression of climate change, there are concerns about the effects of heat on sporting events, including the Summer Olympic Games. In this study, we evaluated the heat impacts and adaptation measures for the Summer Olympic Games under climate change in cities worldwide, focusing on nine outdoor sports for which heat guidelines with explic...

Tracking decarbonization effects requires a model for the identification of spatial energy demands on city facilities. However, most developing countries lack detailed discrete time and device-specific energy demand data. In this study, we installed multiple energy demand monitoring systems that could observe electricity demands at the device level...

Global warming mitigation requires worldwide action in a wide range of fields, including waste treatment and management. In Japan, demands to transform waste into energy as a greenhouse gas emissions reduction strategy are increasing. The use of steam generated from waste treatment plants as a source of energy in industries is a promising energy re...

Appropriate municipal solid waste management transition should be promoted for developing Asian countries. Thus, we established a life-cycle assessment model to assess the environmental impact of waste recycling, composting, incineration, and landfill with gas recovery (LFG) for 34 capital cities in Indonesia by 2025. Scenarios A (12.5% recycling +...

To reduce fossil–fuel consumption and improve the efficiency of renewable energy usage in the manufacturing industry, several studies have investigated the environmental and economic impacts of integrated energy systems under various optimization scenarios. To analyze the cost–effectiveness of heat supply scenarios for a typical manufacturing indus...

Food waste treatment and utilization is important in sustainable waste management. Unlike most existing studies on environmental impact analysis of food waste treatment technologies, this study conducted both environmental impacts and economic cost analysis of food waste treatment technologies using life cycle assessment and life cycle cost methods...

There are concerns about the impact of climate change on Olympic Games, especially endurance events, such as marathons. In recent competitions, many marathon runners dropped out of their races due to extreme heat, and it is expected that more areas will be unable to host the Games due to climate change. Here, we show the feasibility of the Olympic...

In recent years, there has been concern about the increase in flood risks due to climate change, and the revision of flood control plans towards climate change has become a severe challenge. In this study, in order to understand the changes in the risk that have already occurred, we quantitatively analyzed the trends of changes in heavy rainfall le...

This study contributes to developing the existing knowledge regarding data-driven sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) indicators under industrial disruption and ambidexterity. SSCM is a type of information flow management that facilitates cooperation and collaboration among supply chain players and stakeholders while considering economic, so...

This study contributes by identifying a set of factors serving as barriers and facilitators to the adoption of renewable energy sources under uncertainty to provide an understanding of renewable energy sources in Indonesia. Previous studies have neglected to identify the factors serving as barriers to the adoption of renewable energy sources throug...

There are concerns about the impact of climate change on Olympic Games, especially endurance events, such as marathons. In recent competitions, many marathon runners dropped out of their races due to extreme heat, and it is expected that more areas will be unable to host the Olympic Games due to climate change. Here, we show the feasibility of the...

Waste-to-energy treatment is an efficient energy recovery method and an important countermeasure against global warming. The supply of steam from waste treatment plants to industrial sectors presents a higher energy recovery efficiency than traditional waste-to-energy methods. However, its technical potential and economic benefits are not fully und...

This study establishes a valid set of circular supply chain management enablers in Vietnam under uncertainties. Circular supply chain management optimises resource utilisation and minimises waste in achieving competitive advantage; however, prior studies failed to build enablers for industrial improvement under qualitative information. This study a...

Because of increased heavy rainfall that is occurring along with climate change, some concern exists that damage caused by river flooding will spread. Countermeasures against damage are urgently needed. However, increased heavy rainfall along with climate change and the degree of current countermeasures differ depending on the river. The necessity...

This study aims to identify the consumer-centered attributes that influence consumer willingness-to-pay value for a sustainable consumption transition model. The Indonesian food industry has contributed to an increasing trend of waste generation in the landfill due to irresponsible consumer behaviors resulting a failure in a consumption transition...

The potential of the Polar Silk Road (PSR) to accelerate the shipping trade is gaining importance because sea ice is currently melting in the Arctic region. Economic growth generates negative environmental and social impacts (TBL aspects); however, only a few studies have discussed the opportunities and threats in balancing TBL aspects. To fill thi...

The field of waste and resource recycling still requires a deeper focus on certain aspects, including further promotion of the 3Rs, improvement of resource efficiency, response to the labor shortage, ensuring of occupational safety, and improvement of the working environment for that purpose. This paper introduces the study project being carried ou...

The identification of CO2 emissions in megacities is vitally important to promote a transition to low-carbon city. This study aims to analyze the CO2 emission characteristics and spatial distribution in megacities among different countries, which is important for climate change mitigation. In this study, 12 megacities from China, Japan, and South K...

Waste management has been one of the urgent environmental issues due to the rapid urbanization in China. There is a huge potential to improve the energy recovery efficiency of the current waste treatment system. This study aims to propose an efficient waste management system to reduce the landfill amount and improve the energy recovery rate (ERE) o...

Under the trend of decarbonization, the formation of local CES with steam Eco Industrial Park (EIP) projects between multiple industries has become a critical issue. In this paper, based on industrial symbiosis research and the intensive survey with expert interviews, the barriers to the establishment of the steam EIP projects, the motives for brea...

The proliferation of renewable energies requires more rapid progression in promoting local initiatives in elemental technology development and policy implementation. This study takes a mountainous area named Mishima Town in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, in which each village is assumed to be a unit for decision making in optimizing energy system des...

Fast urbanization and economic prosperity generate huge amount of municipal solid waste (MSW). It is therefore critical to identify the determinants of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from MSW treatment and prepare potential GHG mitigation measures. A combined System Dynamics - Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index model is developed to identify the drivin...

District heating is thought as an important part of future energy system because of the easier accessibility to renewables and waste heat sources. Despite facing the problems such as rapid efficiency improvement in individual heating and energy-saving activities, the overall energy efficiency of district heating is higher than individual heating. W...

With the rapid industrialization, increasing of fossil fuel consumption and the environmental impact, it is an inevitable trend to develop clean energy and renewable energy. Hydrogen, for its renewable and pollution-free characteristics, has become an important potential energy carrier. Hydrogen is regarded as a promising alternative fuel for fossi...

Global land-cover products play an important role in assisting the understanding of climate-related changes and the assessment of progress in the implementation of international initiatives for the mitigation of, and adaption to, climate change. However, concerns over the accuracies of land-cover products remain, due to the issue of validation data...

It is important to promote energy saving and resource conservation in cities to promote sustainable development. Urban-industrial symbiosis (UIS) strategy is one of the effective ways to reduce resource consumption and carbon emission in the city. However, rather few studies focusing on both the cost benefit of waste treatment optimization and the...

Waste-to-energy (WtE) is a key issue of a waste management system. From the perspective of the energy system, WtE will contribute to the development of a low-carbon society. However, due to the lack of reviews of the historical and evolutionary aspects, studies related to WtE have not been comprehensively summarized from either a quantitative or qu...

Cities and human settlements will be the keys to achieving global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). All cities aim to increase prosperity, enhance resilience and environmental sustainability, especially in developing countries. While how to promote the low carbon city transition and achieve the SDGs targets are the emerging challenges. Few rese...

In response to requests for wide-area treatment plans that promote restrictions on plant location and energy recovery such as power generation and heat utilization, it is necessary to construct a comprehensive evaluation system that expands collection and transportation within the waste management field. However, the conventional Grid City Model th...

The efficient use of waste, a substitute for fossil fuels, can play a significant role in promoting the mitigation of climate change. In Japan, power generation at incinerators has been the mainstream way of recovering energy from waste. However, particularly at an incinerator for municipal waste, power generation efficiency is limited to around 20...

Efficient energy recovery from burnable solid waste is considered an important component in a low-carbon society. Herein, we discuss the optimization of energy recovery from waste and how to reduce the environmental load of waste. First, we introduce the concept of upgrading waste-to-energy (WtE) processes to improve the exergy efficiency of societ...

On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku earthquake caused major damage to almost all public infrastructures including energy and water facilities in Fukushima Prefecture. Following the nuclear disaster, which lead to a shortage of energy, the government of Japan enacted new policy measures to redefine its energy-mix after its earlier commitment to the Copenh...

As a means of converting waste to energy, improvement of energy recovery efficiency from municipal solid waste (MSW) has taken on great importance and necessity. Previous studies have focused on the waste-to-energy potential from the viewpoints of technology, such as waste power generation (WPG); however, there is large room for improvement in WPG...

District heating systems using cogeneration technology and renewable resources are considered as an effective approach to resources conservation and reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, wide-spread ageing and depopulation problems, as well as the popularization of energy-saving technologies in buildings, are estimated to greatly de...

Waste management is becoming a crucial issue in modern society owing to rapid urbanization and the increasing generation of municipal solid waste (MSW). This paper evaluates the carbon footprint of the waste management sector to identify direct and indirect carbon emissions, waste recycling carbon emission using a hybrid life cycle assessment and i...

Efficient energy recovery from burnable waste is an important challenge related to the mitigation of climate change. At the same time, the promotion of streamlining labor in the waste sector is also becoming a necessity, due to Japan’s shrinking labor force due to a growing population of aging citizens and a declining birthrate. Under such circumst...

The Paris Agreement calls for maintaining a global temperature less than 2°C above the pre-industrial level and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5°C. To realize this objective and promote a low-carbon society, and because energy production and use is the largest source of global greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, it...

The Paris Agreement, which entered into effect in 2016, emphasizes a definite timeline for communicating and maintaining successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it plans to achieve in addressing climate change. This calls for the development of a measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system and a Capacity-building Initiat...

In order to improve the overall sustainability of industrial parks, it is necessary to understand the development characteristics of industrial parks so that appropriate management measures can be raised. Under such a circumstance, this study analyzes the changes in the environmental performance of Shenyang Economic and Technology Development Zone...

Due to the recent changes in social and economic circumstances, the design of energy systems has been recognized as a regional issue. In this study, we modeled the design process of a distributed energy system in the perspective of mathematical optimization problems. In a case of energy supply to basic facilities (hot bath facilities) in a hilly an...

Energy conservation is critical for promoting urban low-carbon and sustainable development. Because a large amount of heat energy is wasted during energy conversion and transportation, the recovery of waste heat and its cascading use would substantially save resources and reduce CO2 emissions. As a typical case of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, direc...

Measures for energy saving and de-carbonization in industrial sector is of great importance to realize a low-carbon society. In Indonesia, promoting “Green Industry” is a critical policy carried out by national government which focuses on reducing energy consumption in industrial sector. However, the current difficulty in accurately measuring energ...

Abstract Energy depletion and global climate change have stimulated the Korean government to strengthen energy saving and efficiency measures in all sectors. However, in industrial sector where huge energy is consumed, only small portions of the high-grade waste heat from industrial processes have been utilized by another process through industrial...

With fast development, it is not easy for China to achieve carbon reduction targets only by traditional command and control measures (e.g., the measures for energy-efficiency). Carbon tax is advocated as one effective complementary measure and has high possibility to be implemented for China’s future low carbon development. Under such a circumstanc...

Developing economies are rapidly pursuing urbanization and industrialization, and the con-sumption of fossil-fuel-based energy is increasing. Thus, the greenhouse gas emissions of these countries are also expected to increase. Fujitsu is collaborating with the National Institute for Environmental Studies of Japan, Bogor Agricultural University, and...

Resource efficiency and sustainable resource management is critical to transitional economies to forward their pathway to sustainable development. To date, material flows analysis (MFA) and its database has become mature tools to diagnose the national resource utilization and efficiency, but still, few attentions and systematical analysis have been...

Urban sustainable development has been one of the most important issues in the global society, wherein industrial sector plays a critical role who not only contributes in mitigating global climate change but also promoting continuous economic growth so as to deal with the challenges of ageing and depopulation. The emerging methodology named Industr...

Industrial symbiosis (IS) exchanges have been recognized to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, though methods for quantification of GHG emissions in IS exchanges are varied, and no standardized methods are available. This article proposes a practical approach to quantify total and allocated GHG emissions from IS exchanges by integrating the GHG...

In order to realize a low-carbon society, there is a need to promote energy conservation or de-carbonization measures at a city or a regional level. For this, a more detailed data on energy consumption is required which then can be used to develop a de-carbonization plan from the viewpoint of a city or region, encompassing demand control or power s...

Chinese government promotes ecological civilization in the "13th five year planning" (2016-2020) period. As a result, ecological impacts become highlight in the national circular economy practices. To apply the eco-industrial development strategy to address the intertwined industrial and regional economic development, as well as related environment...

Innovative and efficient use of municipal solid waste as a source of energy is an important way to promote the transition to low-carbon cities. One key strategy to improve energy efficiency is to create a network of multiple sectors that can produce and utilize energy from waste. This mechanism has already been adopted at the urban scale in several...

Chinese government promotes ecological civilization in the "13th five year planning" (2016-2020) period. As a result, ecological impacts become highlight in the national circular economy practices. To apply the eco-industrial development strategy to address the intertwined industrial and regional economic development, as well as related environment...

Detailed assessments of the effects of biomass production on ecosystems were carried out in the eastern region of Japan using geographical statistics and statistical methods. Ecosystems that might be used as a source of energy-related biomass already provide a variety of goods and services for humans widely known as ecosystem services. Various indi...

As a method to recover energy efficiently from urban waste, symbiotic method with industries are mainly discussed in this report. The hybrid industry on their raw material and fuel, which utilizes waste as much as possible as substitute for fossil resources would contribute both the maximization of energy recovery from waste and the promotion of lo...

From the viewpoint of efficient use of limited resources and energy, distributed district energy system is attracting great attention, which enables efficient use of both electricity and heat by promoting the utilization of local resources and taking advantage of the proximity between supply and demand. In comparison with the large-scale centralize...

After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, energy shortage and global climate change has become a dilemma that disturbs world economy and sustainable development. As one solution supported by Industrial and Urban Symbiosis (I-US), District Heating System (DHS) using waste heat has been indicated in many practice that could reduce both the fuel...

Japan has faced with multiple challenges of energy system transformation and social de-carbonization in the post-Fukushima era. In revitalization area from the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, it is a crucial argument to develop sustainable and low-carbon regional systems which will provide carbon and economic efficient systems for the present...

Effective and efficient matching of supply and demand of materials and energy with consideration of spatial allocation is essential to realize low-carbon city planning with high material- and energy-use efficiency. Implementing real-time action management can contribute to smart system designs in a long-term plan. Integrated databases will need to...

Industry plays as a double-edged sword that can contribute to both GDP and pollutions, thus the concept of eco-industrial development which emphasize the environmental cleanness in economy development has received more and more attentions recently. Different from the traditional development mode which merely relocating industries outside of the cit...

To develop appropriate recycling industries, EID practices should be based not only on technologies but also on user practices, regulations, infrastructure, and social norms especially policy. The Ministry of Environment, Japan (MOEJ) has attempted to promote the effectiveness of recycling activities in Eco-Towns and improve recycling activity by i...

Energy and resource consumption has been expanding quickly with the rapid growth of Asian cities, which has resulted in increased greenhouse gas emission and waste generation. The promotion of low-carbon industries is an urgent global issue that extends to Asia as well. To reduce carbon dioxide emission substantially, industries must not only intro...

With fast economic development, industrialization and urbanization, China faces increasing pressures on carbon emission reduction, and especially on air pollutants (SO2, NOx, PM) reduction, particularly the notorious haze issue caused by air pollution in recent years. Pursuing co-benefits is an effective approach to simultaneously respond to both c...

The forestry process in Japan, from plantation stage to wood biomass production, was assessed using a process-based ecological model, forestry cost calculation model, and an ecological footprint-like index. In order to estimate ecosystem dynamics under various forest management practices, the ecosystem model simulated material cycles. The cost calc...

Measuring consumption may not be the best method of determining whether society is progressing toward sustainability. We have been developing an indicator, the resource occupancy to capacity ratio (ROC ratio), that uses the concept of “resource occupancy” of important multidimensional aspects related to sustainability such as materials, land use, p...

A cost-effective and robust waste treatment and recycling system is a requisite of a sustainable society. In our previous study, we proposed a “smart recycling system” that utilizes existing industrial facilities with higher energy efficiency so that a cost-effective and robust recycling system for treating municipal wastes can be established. In t...

Objective. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of GHG accounting for each sector by industrial and urban symbiosis system. GHG accounting to calculate Scope 1,2,3 is a buzz word in the field of LCA, but accounting method of recycling system have not been discussed fully. We designed non-recycling scenario and industrial and urban s...

This article discusses some challenges and possible adaptations of transition theory as a framework for analyzing the prospects for environmentally more sustainable development of urban land use and transport infrastructure. Rather than depending first and foremost on niche innovations, a transition toward sustainable urban development is a matter...

Eco-industrial development is widely considered as an effective policy and a business concept to realize sustainable circularization through collaborative networks among industries. Japanese government has accumulated practices as its national Eco Town Program in 26 cities since 1997. The operation of facilities and policy implementation have provi...

It is a siginificant issue on creating a low carbon society to establish industrial and urban symbiotic network among entities in addition to individual facilities' efficiency improvement. This paper proposed an evaluation system to analyze the actual synergy network in a industrial city and to estimate low carbon effect on future scenario that hea...

Efficiency improvement of the resources circulation and energy system is essential for developing sustainable region and city. For this purpose, it is necessary to construct a system that can supply resources and energy with impact on the environment as less as possible while reducing the consumption of resources and energy in each district that ma...

Under the pressures of rapid industrialization and urbanization, many Asian countries are facing the challenge of reducing air pollution and CO2 emissions simultaneously while maintaining their economic growth. Under such a circumstance, a growing attention is focused on successful implementation of co-benefit policies that are designed to reduce b...