28Jul/091
The Truth Behind Cool Biz
Bloomberg posted an article about Takashi Kadokura, then an economist for Daichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo, who claims that 'Cool Biz' has reduced the economic growth of Japan in 2008 by 653 billion yen ($6.9 billion USD). He arrived at those numbers using Shinichi Tanabe's, a professor of Architecture and Environmental Engineering at Waseda University in Tokyo, research that revealed a worker's productivity drops by 1.9% for each degree above 25 Celsius. 'Cool Biz' is something Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi introduced in 2005 in order to help cut down the use of air conditioners to lower greenhouse gas emissions.