Take the “Slow life” route to sustainable development

thought you might be interested in this item from the Japan for Sustainability organisation. It contains within it the seeds of an excuse when anything is late, but might also be of real interest in the cause of sustainability.



“Do you feel restless when you’re not busy? Do you feel uneasy when you’re not working hard? You don’t have to live that way!” This is the unexpected message on the back of business cards of employees at the Iwate Prefectural Office. Iwate Prefecture issued a “Take-It-Easy Declaration” in 2001 to launch a movement away from the prevailing ethos of economic efficiency. Iwate’s case is explained below.



“Let’s make our life in the new century more human, more natural, and more simple”-these ideas indicate Iwate’s ideal, epitomised by its “take-it-easy” slogan. For example, Iwate’s approach to buildings is to conserve traditional wooden houses that stand in harmony with nature, rather than to cut forests to make way for state-of-the-art buildings. Such a sense of harmonious coexistence between nature and humans is highly valued in Iwate’s take-it-easy movement.



In Japan, the words “gambaru” (meaning ‘I’ll work hard’) and “gambare” (meaning ‘You work hard’) are often used in daily life. Surprisingly, Iwate has chosen a negative form, “gambaranai” (meaning ‘take-it-easy’), for the Declaration. “The expression ‘working hard’ has been a symbol of the high economic growth period in Japan,” said Governor Hiroya Masuda of Iwate Prefecture. “Iwate’s Take-It-Easy Declaration might appear to encourage laziness, but in fact it does not. Rather, it symbolizes our intention to live a more natural life.”



Iwate tried to reach a larger audience by placing national newspaper advertisements for its “Take-It-Easy Declaration.” The slogan, encouraging an intentional shift away from contemporary values emphasizing economic efficiency, has been well received by people across the nation. Not only Iwate but also other local governments are campaigning for a more relaxed and comfortable lifestyle instead of the current lifestyle characterized by efficiency and speed. In the last couple of years, increasing numbers of municipalities have joined this movement, for example, by adopting “Slow Life” as their slogan and by assigning a “Slow Life Month” for special events to raise residents’ awareness of slower lifestyles. A remarkable effort by one of the pioneer municipalities, Kakegawa City in Shizuoka Prefecture, has been described in a previous JFS article.



Kakegawa City, which adopted the nation’s first “City Declaration of Lifelong Learning” in 1979, has been actively promoting the development of human and community resources through lifelong learning. The city’s twenty-year experience with this endeavour has culminated in the creation of a new vision fittingly called “Slow Life.” Mayor Junichi Shinmura was reelected after advocating Slow Life in his campaign during the most recent municipal elections. Let’s look at the city’s declaration, which was adopted in 2002.



“Slow Life Declaration in Kakegawa”(excerpt) “In the late twentieth century, Japan valued and pursued the “fast, cheap, convenient, and efficient” life that brought us economic prosperity. However, it also caused problems such as dehumanization, social ills, and environmental pollution. We would like to move forward, with the slogan “Slow Life,” to achieve “slow, relaxed and comfortable” lifestyles, and shift from a society of mass production and mass consumption, to a society that is not hectic and does cherish our possessions and things of the heart.”



“Humans live about 700,800 hours (assuming an average life expectancy of 80 years), of which we spend about 70,000 hours working (assuming we work for 40 years). The remaining 630,000 hours are spent on other activities, such as eating, studying, and leisure, including 230,000 hours sleeping. Until now, people often focused their lives on these 70,000 hours<