The government’s annual Cool Biz energy-saving campaign for late spring and summer kicked off across Japan on Friday.
Cool Biz, which will last until Sept 30, is being held for the 16th straight year. It encourages workers to dress down, ditching their suits and ties for open-necked, short-sleeved shirts in their offices. It also suggests office air conditioners be set at 28 degrees Celsius.
Most government offices were sparsely staffed as many employees are teleworking due to the coronavirus. Some employees who were in the Environment Ministry office wore Okinawa's kariyushi summer shirts, Kyodo News reported.
Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi urged people working at home to also take part in the Cool Biz campaign and not set the air conditioning lower than 28 degrees.
The temperature in Tokyo reached 25.2 degrees at 2 p.m. on Friday afternoon.
Cool Biz was started in 2005 by then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions and electricity use. It started on June 1 each year until 2011 when it was brought forward by a month in a bid to conserve electricity after worries that there would be a power shortage following the March 11 disaster.
© Japan Today
24 Comments
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Derek Grebe
Cool Biz? I've not had my trousers on for a month.
Chip Star
Adults don’t need the government to tell them how to dress at what temperature to keep a room.
savethegaijin
@Chip Star
Adults don’t need the government to tell them how to dress at what temperature to keep a room.
You'd certainly think so
shogun36
Until shorts are allowed in cool biz, it isn't "cool biz."
3RENSHO
Not set the air conditioning lower than 28 degrees?
I don't think so!
Speed
People working at home should dress as lightly as possible anyway. Shorts and a light shirt.
At offices, open up every damn window and door. Helps prevent that pesky virus going around too.
Hopefully, this lockdown will persuade everyone to ditch the 1940s dress code culture after it's all over.
Dango bong
I always take my fashion advice from crusty Japanese ojisans
kurisupisu
Cool Biz?
There ain’t any ‘biz’ going on!
Jacek Adamczyk
Ha, what a noob. I have been teleworking naked here for a month and will continue so till end of May at the very least.
Ta
The last CoolBiz may dress up business person in Japan with mask and T-shirts.
KnowBetter
Nine years later and they still carry on this cool-biz non-sense? What have they done in nine years to make sure we won't be playing this silly 'sweat-biz' game for another nine more years?
They sure did pull out all the stops to make the 2020 Olympics 'almost' happen. Where's half that effort to restore power generation to the country? Where I work, anything above 23c and you end up soaked in your own clothes with minor effort. Before March 2011, it was set to 21c and only the office ladies complained.
drlucifer
What is the cool-biz budget for this year?
Bureaucrats do always find a means to waste our taxes, shelling it out to special interest and amakudari outlets.
Luddite
The virus means rooms need to be ventilated, air conditioned rooms mean windows and doors are closed.
nothisrealname
25 is a much better number, in my opinion. And, holding off as long as you can to turn on the air-conditioning is what my workplace does. That works for me. They tried it the first year at 28, and everyone sweated and complained. They changed it to 25, and that still seems much better than people going in and lowering it to 20 or below.
Kobe White Bar Owner
Is it ground hog day already!
Mirai Hayashi
They sure do need to them to stay home or run the risk of spreading a deadly and highly contagious virus though.
gogogo
Shesh
bearandrodent
There’s much bigger issues out there right now than to waste time and resources, squander taxpayer money and people’s attention span on this useless initiative.
sir_bentley28
Speak for yourself! Can anyone tell me what to wear today?
kyushubill
Mirai Hayashi "They sure do need to them to stay home or run the risk of spreading a deadly and highly contagious virus though."
Wrong. Adults realize that is paramount to house arrest without due process. Healthy adults do not need to be quarantined. It has never happened in history before and adults realize it should not be the case now.
Jimizo
The average age in my department is over 40. No shorts in the office, please. Most legs should be covered up and almost all legs over 40 shouldn’t see the light of day.
No Aloha shirts either. A public eyesore.