Kiyoko Hagihara’s research while affiliated with Tokyo Metropolitan University and other places

The challenges of a super-aging society with a decreasing population must be addressed if regional sustainability is to be ensured. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development lists 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) covering a broad range of challenges. While education is the focus of one of the SDGs, the targets and indicators only take formal school-based education into account. A range of other facilities within cities may contribute to sustainability by providing educational experiences and these contributions need to be better assessed. Many social systems and services rely on urban facilities that support their activities. Urban facilities often have broad functions as shared property in a community, in addition to their intended functions. Questionnaire surveys of water treatment facilities and waste treatment facilities showed that many facilities play crucial roles in promotion of education. Urban facilities have been shown to function in ways similar to museums, and the significance of such museum-like functions is as follows: (1) they serve as venue for disaster prevention education and environmental education for citizens; (2) they convey local memories and lessons learned from ancestors and history; (3) they provide a place and context for communication between citizens and urban facility managers.

Social enterprises can be regarded as a new model of modern non-profit organisations (NPOs). They are working to challenge and untangle the various social obstacles we face today, such as issues relating to the environment, well-being, inequality of educational opportunities, and disparity in income distribution. Although prompt action must be taken to overcome these challenges, governments alone cannot find answers in a satisfactory manner, so social enterprises have recently stepped in and are shifting the boundaries. To accomplish their various targets from the viewpoint of sustainability, they need to earn money by generating their own business. They also need to receive contributions or investments to continue their activities. Many start-up social enterprises struggle to obtain resources such as manpower, contributions, and grants. As a support organisation for fundraising, non-profit organisations and commercial organisations can be considered. The former includes NPO banks, Shinkin Banks, community banks, etc., and the latter crowdfunding, etc. In addition, analysis support using financial data from the viewpoint of management is also necessary to improve the business management capacity of supporting organisations. In this chapter, we examine the function of the intermediate support organisation on fundraising. Social finance utilises private capital and contributes to solving social and environmental issues. In considering cases of venture philanthropy in Japan and issues of sustainable management for citizen funds, hints taken from the idea of actors and tools by Salamon’s proposal, diversification of fund procurement sources, and ingenuity to procurement methods are important. How to build empathy for the mission of social enterprises and fund providers is an issue that needs to be solved. For future intermediate support organisations in Japan, it is necessary to enhance and strengthen the function to support not only the current function—but also intermediary functions—and to foster and develop social enterprises.

This chapter investigates the possibility of ex-post risk management for local governments facing the risk of tap water pollution; this is still required to deal with the difficulty of prediction and urgency, even after the ex-ante risk management method has been introduced into the tap water quality management system. In Sect. 2.1, we categorize three ex-post risk management methods. In Sect. 2.2, we analyse the efficiency of risk sharing using insurance contracts. Then, based on the implications of the analysis in Sect. 2.2, the applicability of insurance risk sharing in tap water pollution is discussed in Sect. 2.3. By investigating the applicability of insurance by the agency theory, we showed that the subsidy-based risk sharing system is promising as an ex-post management system of water pollution risk. However, distortions in resource allocation due to the subsidy system are not negligible problems; it is necessary that a comprehensive comparison of the applicability of an ordinary private insurance system is conducted, which can better enjoy the efficiency of the market mechanism. The benefits of creating an integrated insurance system for comprehensive environmental risks including air pollution or soil pollution is discussed, which will bring benefits of risk pooling and lower insurance premium in the case that the insurance applicability fails because the water pollution risk from tap water alone has no marketability for small-sized businesses.

Regional sustainability is an urgent issue in Japan, where population decline is rapidly progressing. An area cannot be maintained without urban facilities that support various activities. It is very difficult for an area with a population decline to maintain urban facilities because of the insufficient budget. However, needless to say, a budget is required to maintain urban facilities, but citizens’ understanding and cooperation are also important. For example, in order to maintain a waste disposal system, it is necessary for people to properly separate garbage and make efforts to reduce waste. Furthermore, it is necessary to provide a budget for maintaining the system from waste collection to the final disposal. These are maintained by the understanding and cooperation of citizens who are the waste generators, taxpayers, voters involved in decision-making, and finally as residents accepting facility locations that are often regarded as so-called nuisance facilities. Urban facilities have multi-functions. They have not only their original functions but also wider functions, which are significantly important for the community, such as symbolizing the wisdom and hardship of the ancestors, cultural assets and local characteristic features. They make up the local landscape and convey the local memories. The questionnaire surveys of water treatment facilities and waste treatment facilities showed that many of them play an educational role in the area. There is a significant correlation between these functions and the amount of effort and the number of collaborations. We think that urban facilities have museum-like functions. The sustainability of the region, including population migration, population composition, and socio-economic activities, depends on “people”. Urban facilities contribute to the sustainability of the community through efforts to work on “people” in addition to their original functions. The significance of the museum-like functions of city facilities is as follows. The first is the role of disaster prevention education and environmental education for a wide range of citizens. The second is to convey local memories and lessons learned from ancestors and history. The third role is to provide a place for communication between citizens and city facility managers. Education is emphasized in some sustainability assessment, indicators such as the SDGs, but the evaluation index is based only on school education. The contribution of urban facilities to local sustainability should be appropriately assessed by sustainability indicators. We need to consider assessing the contribution of urban facilities to local sustainability through museum-like functions. JEL Classifications:H41, H49, I29

This chapter surveys the performance of social enterprises and examines how they solve various social problems. Social enterprises can be regarded as a new model of modern non-profit organisations (NPOs). They are working to challenge and untangle the various social obstacles we face today, such as issues relating to the environment and well-being, the inequality of educational opportunities, and the disparity in income distribution.

The process for realizing sustainability must be carefully considered. Equity, vulnerability and well-being are important factors. Concepts in sustainability and vulnerability are complementary and closely related; mitigating the vulnerability of the human-environment system can increase its resilience or sustainability. First, sustainable development necessarily requires the integration of social, economic and environmental goals. Integration begins with the recognition that the environment and society are closely linked. There are three layers of environment that are relevant, that is, the Geo-environment, the Eco-environment and the Socio-environment. Second, well-being consists of multiple factors and is defined as hierarchical in this study. Third, sustainability is considered from the perspective of the fundamental theory of welfare economics. Fourth, a social-environmental analysis in Bangladesh is shown regarding vulnerability. Finally, the results of the social-environmental analysis demonstrate that it is necessary to take the diverse character of the social environment in different areas into account.

Japan has experienced a number of large-scale natural disasters, and social demand for effective infrastructure to manage risks related to these disasters is increasing under the constraint of public financial drought. In practice, benefits under risk only account for the expected value of the physical and human damages, and therefore, the integration of the idea of ‘risk premium’ and ‘vulnerability’ into cost-benefit analysis needs to be addressed.

In this study the authors aim to clarify the role of environmental valuation in public policymaking through a case study of valuing the waterside along a river in an urban area. First, it is indicated that the role of urban waterside has dual aspects: one role is to mitigate damages from various disasters such as earthquakes and fires, and the other role is to provide a comfortable environment for residents along the river. Then, in order to identify residents’ demands concerning the waterside in particular from the viewpoint of their daily life, a discrete choice model is set up. The model is then applied to a case study. Not only revealed preference data but also stated preference data are used in the case study. Finally, the limited role of the value of the waterside environment that is obtained from the model is shown.

Social enterprises can be regarded as a new model of modern non-profit organisations （NPOs）. They are working to challenge and untangle the various social obstacles we face today, such as issues relating to the environment and well-being, the inequality of educational opportunities, and the disparity in income distribution. Although prompt action must be taken to overcome these challenges, governments alone cannot find an answer to them in a satisfactory manner, so social enterprises have recently stepped in and are shifting the boundaries. From the viewpoint of sustainability, to accomplish their various targets, they need to earn money by generating their own business. They also need to receive contributions or investments to continue their activities. Many start-up social enterprises are struggling to obtain resources such as manpower, contributions, and grants. As a support organization for fund-raising, non-profit organizations and commercial organizations can be considered. The former, there are NPO banks, Shinkin Banks, community banks, etc. The latter there are crowdfunding, etc. In addition, analysis support using financial data from the viewpoint of management will also be necessary to improve the business management capacity of the supporting organizations. In this paper, we examined the function of the intermediate support organization on the fundraising. Social finance utilizes private capital and contributes to solving social and environmental issues. In considering cases of venture philanthropy in Japan and issues of sustainable management of citizen funds, hints are taken on the idea of actors and tools by Salamon’s proposal, diversification of fund procurement sources and ingenuity to procurement methods would be important. How to build empathy for mission of social enterprises and mission with fund provider is an issue to be solved. For future intermediate support organizations in Japan, it is necessary to enhance and strengthen the function to support not only the current function but also intermediary functions and to foster and develop social enterprises. JEL Classifications:D63, H44, M14

This paper aims to survey the performance of organizations that support social enterprises and examine how they find their supporters. Social enterprises work to solve various challenges and social problems, such as issues related to the environment, social well-being, inequality in educational opportunities and disparity in income distributions. Prompt action must be taken to overcome these problems, but the reasons for financial restrictions cannot be satisfactorily resolved by the government. Hence social enterprises have recently stepped in and are changing the boundaries to cope with various social problems. These efforts can be regarded as new models of modern nonprofit organizations to accomplish various targets. Therefore, they need supporters, such as volunteers, contributions, and investments. Many start-up social enterprises struggle to obtain resources such as manpower, contributions and grants. The success stories of these social enterprises can impact various fields, but they must struggle with tough experiences to obtain business know-how. Especially infrastructure organizations can powerfully support activities to support other members. We focus on three Non-Profit Organizations;Japan NPO Center, Osaka NPO Center and Community Support Center KOBE. These centers were established in 1996 after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995 and certified as specified nonprofit corporations by the Act on Promotion of Specified Non-profit Activities in 1998. Their reports show us suggestions for various solutions to social problems. Support organizations can be considered for fund-raising from non-profit organizations such as NPO banks and community banks, and commercial organizations such as crowdfunding, Shinkin Banks, etc. JEL Classification:D63, H44, M14