Rapidly expanding environmental equipment market swells around 2003

Rapidly expanding environmental equipment market swells around 2003

Around 2003, Japan was emerging from a long period of stagnation following the collapse of the bubble economy, and capital investment was beginning to recover, particularly in the manufacturing industry. In addition, the tightening of environmental regulations that had been in place since the late 1990s, such as the Law Concerning Special Measures against Dioxin and stricter industrial waste treatment standards, was in full swing, forcing local governments and companies to upgrade their existing incinerators and exhaust gas treatment facilities. The combination of these policy pressures and demand for equipment upgrades led to an expansion of the environmental equipment market.

The market was boosted by orders for large melting furnaces, which led to an unprecedented 92% year-on-year increase in total orders for environmental equipment in February 2003, to 865.5 billion yen. The large-scale melting furnaces introduced by Nippon Steel Corporation for shredder dust processing and the gasification melting furnaces ordered by EBARA for Malaysia are in line with policy trends that call for the detoxification of difficult-to-process materials and the reduction of final disposal volume, and have increased the presence of the environmental equipment industry.

Air pollution control equipment and water pollution control equipment increased by 27% and 5%, respectively, due to the renewal of domestic facilities and the expansion of demand for Japanese-made environmental equipment as industrialization in Asia progressed. On the other hand, the sharp drop in sales of noise control equipment, down 65%, reflected a decrease in sales of noise control equipment for roads and railroads due to the downsizing of public works projects.

The rapid growth of the environmental equipment market during this period was the result of the simultaneous effects of three trends: stricter regulations, more sophisticated waste treatment, and growing demand in the Asian market, and was a sign that environmental technology was becoming an essential part of the industrial infrastructure.