Yosuke Shigetomi

• PhD (Energy Science)
• Professor (Associate) at Ritsumeikan University

In 2015, in response to the Paris Agreement for mitigating an increase in global temperatures, the Japanese government committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 26% below 2013 levels by 2030. In the same year, the government also committed itself to overcoming the barriers to economic growth imposed by an aging society with a l...

Modern lifestyles demand a number of products derived from petroleum-based sources that eventually cause carbon emissions. The quantification of lifestyle and household consumption impacts upon carbon emissions from both the embodied CO2 (EC) and materially retained carbon (MRC) viewpoints is critical to deriving amelioration policies and meeting e...

The aim of this research is to address the challenge of achieving more equitable social outcomes through a reduction and fairer allocation of environmental burdens, and in doing so, contributing to national sustainable development policy. This novel study demonstrates the nature of societal outcomes through the lens of inequity with respect to life...

We explored the intricate quantitative structure of household food waste and their corresponding life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from raw materials to retail utilizing a combination of household- and food-related economic statistics and life cycle assessment in Japan. Given Japan’s status as a nation heavily impacted by an aging population, thi...

Decarbonizing materials production presents a major challenge to achieving a carbon-neutral society. The current carbon-neutral roadmap for materials generally assumes an uncertain dissemination of innovative production technologies, making the changes in material flows required for a carbon-neutral society unclear. This study introduces three mate...

The intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and tourism has significantly influenced emissions from supply chains, highlighting a complex dynamic between tourism and climate change. Although the pandemic represents a unique event within a specific timeframe, analyzing its impact on tourism provides valuable insights into the characteristics of touris...

Demographic aging has emerged as a global societal concern, posing a challenge to decarbonization efforts. This study investigates the impact of demographic aging on household decarbonization by first quantifying age-bracket-specific household carbon footprints (HCF) in the United States (U.S.), and comparing them to Japan, a country facing the mos...

EcoBalance 2022 took place in Fukuoka, Japan between 30 October and 2 November 2022. This report presents a brief summary of the conference including plenary talks, organized sessions, oral sessions, and EcoBalance awards. An overview and a future prospect of the conference are also mentioned.

This study examined the COVID-19 crisis’ impact on household carbon footprints (CFs) in Japan associated with consumption changes from 2020 to 2021, focusing on the employment industries of household heads. We emphasized the influence of associated lifestyle shifts on inter-household emission inequalities, as indicated by the CF-Gini coefficient. M...

This study investigates the impact of people’s demographics, preferred working arrangements and utilization of their free time on environmental consciousness. Such an investigation is timely because of the changing expectations around working, and the rising popularity of work-from-home arrangements leading to increased flexibility. Although the li...

Urban regions are responsible for a significant proportion of carbon emissions. The carbon footprint (CF) is a practical measure to identify the responsibility of individuals, cities, or nations in climate change. Numerous CF studies have focused on national accounts, and a few combined consumer consumption and global supply chains to estimate addi...

As urbanization accelerates worldwide, substantial energy and services are required to meet the demand from cities, making cities major contributors to adverse environmental consequences. To bridge the knowledge gap in the absence of fine-grained city-level climate protection measures due to data availability and accuracy, this study provides a det...

When countries transition to renewable energy, why do some countries benefit in terms of social equity outcomes more than others? This study examines the effects of technology, policy toolkits and path dependence on countries' changing social equity outcomes, against alternative explanations including development, quality of governance, and demogra...

Affected by income level, household type, and other socioeconomic factors, carbon inequality among households substantially differs across prefectures in Japan, thereby profoundly affecting the country's sustainable development. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the carbon footprint of different households on the basis of systematically grouped...

Small islands are often hotspots of diversity, confronting various vulnerable issues. Numerous studies have investigated possible pathways for achieving sustainable development within the closed boundaries of small islands. Among about 600 small islands of Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, we shed light on the Goto Islands with the most population. The S...

This research investigates the differences in awareness and preference of racial groups toward the types of energy that they would like to see incorporated into the future energy system. Based on a national survey of 3000 respondents conducted in 2020, we analyze the differences in awareness, preferences and attitudes among racial groups in the US,...

Urban household consumption contributes substantially to global greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. Urban household emissions encompass both direct and indirect emissions, with the former associated with the direct use of fossil fuels and the latter with the emissions embodied in the consumed goods and services. However, there is a lack of consisten...

This research examines the societal impacts of varying energy policy approaches and the progress of the energy transition toward a low carbon energy-based regime internationally. Using indicators relevant to energy policy and the energy transition, five critical social equity impacts of environmental improvement, health, employment, participation,...

Cultural diversity is increasing in the US, which is likely to have an impact on preferences toward future energy policy. This research investigates people’s lived experience and preferences through a nationally representative survey (n = 3000) regarding the energy system, and how these relate to cultural group and other demographics. Our study hig...

Numerous studies have investigated the hotspots for reducing carbon emissions associated with household consumption, including reducing household carbon footprints and greener lifestyle choices, such as living car-free, eating less meat, and having one less child. However, estimating the effect of each of these actions requires the simultaneous con...

This research aims to develop a social equity conscious policy making framework, cognizant of lifestyle, consumption, demographics, proactiveness and the distribution of costs and benefits across society. The proposed framework is applicable in multiple jurisdictions, wherever consumption, environmental footprint intensity, and basic societal demog...

Abstract Rapid growth in the international demand for palm oil has triggered considerable global concern because oil palm plantations deteriorate the environment where they are developed, resulting in complex environmental impacts in the producer nations. Here, we illustrate the historical trends in the structure of Indonesian palm oil supply chain...

Given that national pledges are likely insufficient to meet Paris GHG reduction targets, increasingly actors at the city and state level are looking for options on how local government can contribute to reducing GHG emissions. For a typical city only one third to half of their full Scope 3 carbon footprint (CF) is emitted within the jurisdiction, w...

This research qualitatively reviews literature regarding energy system modeling in Japan specific to the future hydrogen economy, leveraging quantitative model outcomes to establish the potential future deployment of hydrogen in Japan. The analysis focuses on the four key sectors of storage, supplementing the gas grid, power generation, and transpo...

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 drastically changed the energy consumption pattern of Japan. Not being able to rely on nuclear energy, the country turned to fossil fuels and attempted to increase the share of renewable energy in its electricity generation mix. This paper will explore why geothermal energy is stagnating in Japan, despit...

Many studies, including the EAT-Lancet Commission report, have argued that changing diets—in particular, shifting away from beef in favor of white meat and vegetables—can substantially reduce household carbon footprints (CFs). This argument implies that households with high CFs consume more meat than low-CF households. An observation of diet and CF...

The road transport sector accounted for 18.8% of global CO2 emissions in 2016. Regional efforts are indispensable for reducing automobile emissions, especially considering the diversity in regional transportation systems. Existing studies of automobile emissions have focused on nationwide transportation systems or differences in city size without c...

This study investigates, at the country level, the adverse effects of changes in metal inputs on the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). It also highlights the relationships between metals use and various socioeconomic consequences that urgently require decoupling in order to achieve the SDGs. We performed panel data analysis to ev...

We examine the effect of forest cover change on agricultural productivity using household panel data and remote sensing data on forest change. The focus of the study is rural Indonesia, where deforestation is causing intensive biodiversity loss while agriculture is the main industry. We estimate an agricultural pro- duction function and find that f...

Sustainable development is an important United Nations agenda, and the determination of which of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) should be prioritized is left up to each participating nation. Stakeholder engagement including all members of society can engender a nationally representative priority SDG set. This research investigates inclusi...

This study investigates how our lifestyles can cause societal issue including a reduction in social equity due to the consumption of natural resources. Based on a range of household environmental footprints and their application to a quantitative social equity evaluation framework, a methodology is proposed which identifies the creation and origin...

An investigation of the public bads generated from household lifestyle-based consumption. Combining the EEIOA and EPSEF methodologies to identify public bad creation and the allocation of societal burden.

Public bads, which detract from social equity, are created by household consumption because our lifestyles lead to the consumption of limited resources, resulting in the generation of various social-environmental burdens. However, these burdens are not necessarily distributed equally among households despite the fact that income and consumption lev...

Against the scene of the Paris Agreement and recent arguments of consumption-based accounting, this chapter provides a review of previous studies related to carbon footprints of Japanese consumption using input-output analysis. Through the review, we confirm an importance of Japanese climate policy considering carbon footprints with respect to dete...

This study seeks to understand the role of primary processing, i.e. the first post-mining stage, in supply risk, by means of a case study on three critical metals (neodymium, cobalt, and platinum) in the context of Japan. Applying the ‘footprint’ concept with a multiregional input–output model, we have quantified the direct and indirect vulnerabili...

This study simultaneously analyzed the carbon and material footprints for three critical metals (neodymium, cobalt, and platinum) in Japanese households with different income levels. These metals are critical for new energy technologies, such as electric vehicles and rechargeable batteries, and are thus central to carbon footprint reductions. The p...

This study adopts the concept of material footprint (MF), an indicator for consumption-based material extraction via international trade, and identifies the relationship between the MFs of critical metals for low-carbon technologies – neodymium, cobalt, and platinum – and Japanese household consumption through a multiregional input–output approach...

Meeting the 2-degree global warming target requires wide adoption of low-carbon energy technologies. Many such technologies rely on the use of precious metals, however, increasing the dependence of national economies on these resources. Among such metals, those with supply security concerns are referred to as critical metals. Using the Policy Poten...

This study, encompassing 231 countries and regions, quantifies the global transfer of three critical metals (neodymium, cobalt and platinum) considered vital for low-carbon technologies by means of material flow analysis (MFA), using trade data (BACI) and the metal contents of trade commodities, resolving the optimization problem to ensure the mate...

We have been measuring several air pollutants such as total odd nitrogen species (NOy), ammonium (NH4 +), sulfate (SO4 = HSO4- + SO42-), organic aerosol (Org), carbon monoxide (CO) and PM2.5 at Cape Hedo, Okinawa, focusing on the long-range transport of air pollutants from the Asian continent. Yearly variations of their concentrations were analyzed...