Ideas more important than aid

March 13, 2015

EDITORIAL: Tsunami-hit areas need business ideas more than aid

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201503130029

Nobuaki Sasaki is looking for companies that can provide business-based support to help rebuild his disaster-hit hometown, Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture.

In a get-to-know-you meeting held in Tokyo in December last year, Sasaki said, “We are grateful for the support we have received so far, and we now need a business partner.”

The meeting was organized by the Iwate prefectural government to give local nonprofit organizations an opportunity to talk with companies in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Sasaki heads Save Takata, an incorporated association set up to heal and regenerate Rikuzentakata. The coastal city was devastated by the towering tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake, which hit the Tohoku region in March 2011.

Sasaki immediately started an activity to help people affected by the disaster, and it has since grown into a project focused on building a new future for the city.

Sasaki wants to help increase production of apples in the city by establishing a full-fledged business that sells jam and juice made from the fruit.

A unique feature of Sasaki’s business plan is employing young people, especially so-called NEETs (not in education, employment or training), from outside the prefecture.

This approach, he thinks, will help NEETs restart their careers while increasing the young population in the city, which is graying and shrinking, a trend accelerated by the March 11 disaster.

DEPENDENCE ON AID HAS ITS LIMIT

Sasaki thinks companies are no longer very responsive to simple calls for help from disaster-hit areas. His proposal is based on the hope that even companies that are not linked to Rikuzentakata may be interested in a project that is designed to tackle both the challenge of revitalizing the local economy and Japan’s social challenge of supporting NEETs.

Four years after the calamity, public works to elevate low-lying land to build houses on higher ground are under way in wide areas along the Pacific coast in the Tohoku region, mainly in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures.

The land-zoning project, which is the central element of the overall regional redevelopment plan, covers more than 1,400 hectares in 50 districts, an area equivalent to 300 Tokyo Domes. But the project is nothing but a first step in the long process of reviving local communities.

Since the earthquake and tsunami left more than 18,000 people dead or missing, most of the 40-plus hardest-hit municipalities have seen huge and accelerating outflows of residents. The total population of these municipalities has declined by nearly 7 percent from the pre-disaster level. In 10 towns and cities, the population has plunged by a double-digit rate.

Regenerating local communities under such circumstances requires new industries. Cooperation with companies that know how to maintain and expand profitable businesses is essential.

Members of the business community, mainly large companies, have been making various efforts to support affected areas, such as providing donations, dispatching volunteers and buying products made in these areas, as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Four years on, however, it is hard to deny that their interest in supporting Tohoku has waned. It is especially difficult for companies to continue with costly and purely social contributions because they need to consider the interests of their shareholders.

Companies should change their approaches by finding business opportunities that support the region while generating profits for themselves.

Disaster-stricken areas with declining populations may not qualify as attractive markets. Still, companies should boldly start new businesses in these areas.

They should regard expansion in ravaged areas as investments for future opportunities to change themselves. Business operations in these areas could help the companies develop new ways of thinking through talks with local governments, other companies and NPOs about specific revitalization measures. Through these discussions, the companies could come up with ideas for new businesses by shaking the mind-set of stability-oriented employees.

CSR-BASED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

In fact, some companies have already started unique activities in Tohoku under such a strategy.

In 2012, a year after the disaster, major cosmetics maker Shiseido Co., which celebrated its 140th anniversary then, pondered ways to support the region through a project related to “tsubaki” (Camellia japonica), which is the company’s trademark.

Shiseido learned that the city of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, whose symbol flower is tsubaki, has a traditional culture of using oil pressed from Camellia seeds for hair care and other purposes. The city had actually started making efforts to use tsubaki to re-energize the local economy before the disaster.

Shiseido rolled out an aid project designed to increase tsubaki in the city to heighten its attraction as a tourist destination and increase production of tsubaki oil to lay the foundation for the development of tsubaki industries.

The project, using the slogan “Urban development for the future 10 years from now,” involved rather low-profile efforts, such as planting tsubaki and holding events to make the flower familiar to consumers.

Last autumn, Shiseido brought the CSR project into the stage of actual business operations.

The company collected the fragrance of what is said to be the nation’s oldest “yabutsubaki” (Camellia japonica var. japonica), which is in Ofunato, and reproduced the fragrance at its lab.

Shiseido developed a perfume based on the fragrance and put the product on the market.

Part of the sales of the perfume is donated to rebuilding efforts. The business grew out of a fact-finding survey of evacuees living in temporary housing. The company decided to develop a perfume to help people relax after hearing many evacuees complain about difficulties in trying to sleep.

The originally planned 5,000 units of the perfume have been sold out, and the company is now working to make more.

There should be similar attempts to help disaster-affected areas.

Onagawa, a fishing town in eastern Miyagi Prefecture located at the root of the Oshika Peninsula, which juts out into the Pacific, is calling on companies to use the town for business experiences.

IDEAS RATHER THAN FACTORIES

The town’s population has decreased by nearly 30 percent in the past four years, the worst demographic decline among all affected municipalities.

Onagawa has led the pack in carrying out infrastructure projects, including elevating land for new housing. In late March, the town will declare its rebirth to mark the resumption of operations of a Japan Railway line and JR Onagawa Station. But local residents are deeply worried about the future of the town.

A Future Center will be opened soon ahead of the scheduled reopening of the shopping district near the station. The center is designed as an open public facility for meetings and discussions among people, both residents of the town and outsiders, to create new businesses.

Asuenokibou (hope for tomorrow), an NPO, operates the center to serve as a mediator between the public and private sectors.

“We want to see companies come here to find seeds of profits,” says Yosuke Komatsu, who heads the NPO. “We need ideas more than factories.”

Efforts to rebuild local communities shattered by the 2011 disaster will pick up speed in the coming years. There are certain types of contribution that only businesses can make.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 13