From the Tree-Free Forest"-The Non-Wood Paper Movement and the Japan Environment Foundation (September 1998)

From the Tree-Free Forest"-The Non-Wood Paper Movement and the Japan Environment Foundation (September 1998)

In the late 1990s, Japan was in the midst of its "lost decade" following the collapse of the bubble economy, yet civic movements and environmental awareness were conversely steadily taking root. It was around this time that the term "environmental NGO" began to permeate society, as people became increasingly oriented toward recycling, eco-friendly products, and sustainable lifestyles.

In these times, there was a growing movement to substitute non-wood resources such as kenaf and bagasse (sugarcane pomace) for paper, instead of relying on wood as a raw material. This movement was driven by a strong concern about global deforestation, especially in tropical rainforests, and citizens were beginning to reflect on the fact that they were indirectly contributing to the destruction of these forests through the mass consumption of paper.

At the core of this non-wood paper movement was a citizens' group called the Treefree Club, which emerged in 1994 out of the Japanese Association of Citizens for Recycling Movement, founded in 1977. They worked with printers and other companies to develop non-wood paper materials, and the commercialized paper was named "tree-free paper" in an effort to promote its use.

In April 1998, the club's activities were recognized as being in the public interest, and it was reorganized as the Japan Environment Foundation. As a public interest corporation under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Agency (now the Ministry of the Environment), the foundation was able to reach out more broadly to society. This is a symbolic event in which a citizen's movement gained institutional recognition.

Of particular note is the "Tree Free Fund" program. The fund is made up of a 1% surcharge on the price of non-wood paper, which is accumulated as a fund. This system of using the fund to subsidize afforestation projects and environmental NGOs was extremely innovative at the time. In other words, the concept of "offsetting the environmental burden created by consumption through consumption" was institutionalized. The selection of grant recipients was also civil, with 10 to 20 organizations selected each year and about 500,000 yen provided per grantee.

This movement is an example of how the concept of "green consumer" was finally gaining ground in Japan in the 1990s, and how it pioneered the value system that consumption itself contributes to environmental improvement. At a time when Japan was moving away from mass consumption and beginning to demand lifecycle thinking about how to make, use, and return products, the non-wood paper movement was supporting this thinking from the grassroots.

Moreover, the foundation's efforts were not merely about alternative materials for paper, but were also linked to philosophical questions about the relationship between forests and human society. How to reconcile the tension between the convenience gained by cutting down trees and the ethics of protecting the forests? The tree-free movement was not merely a technological solution, but also a device to promote a value shift in society as a whole.