Greenwashing Vs. Local Climate and Sustainable Integrity: In the Case of the 2011 Tsunami Reconstruction Projects

Greenwashing vs. local climate and sustainable integrity focuses on the conflicts related to the national government's planning reconstruction projects in the tsunami-dictated areas in Japan. On May 10, 2011, two months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the government's "the Great East Japan Earthquake Reconstruction Planning Council" announced "the Seven Principles for Reconstruction Planning" under the slogan of "the creative recovery." Principle 2 states that the basic principle is community-based reconstruction. Principle 4 states that renewable energy for local climate protection will promote the construction of regions. However, Higashimatsushima City is the only disaster-stricken area in Miyagi Prefecture that promotes the utilization of solar energy. All seven principles of recovery seem to have been empty, especially the "community-based reconstruction," such as greenwashing.

Overall, the national government and the prefecture have led the reconstruction process, which included the construction of giant sea walls and rising roads, relocation to higher ground, group-relocation promotion projects, and land readjustment projects. The reconstruction was dependent on large public works projects by major construction companies. The scope of municipalities' initiatives could have been more extensive. These principles did not include the words and phrases of affected citizens or sufferers. Their points of view are responsible for keeping real, local, sustainable integrity.

Principle 5 strangely stresses aiming for simultaneous recovery from the great earthquake and revitalizing the Japanese economy. It seems unclear why recovering the affected local area can promote the revitalization of the macroeconomy of the whole of Japan and vice versa. As it turned out, this principle triggered the use of the reconstruction budget for other purposes in non-disaster-affected areas. The slogan "the creative recovery" has functioned as a magical phrase and a kind of greenwashing to use the reconstruction budget arbitrarily.