Changing the subject, I attended an international forum of Asian countries held in Taipei, Taiwan from November 20th (Tue) to 24th (Sat) 2001. The title of the forum was Green Productivity through B2B Cooperation on E2 Commerce. It means "environmentally friendly productivity through business cooperation in eco & e-commerce".

This forum was sponsored by an international organization, Asian Productivity Organization（APO,Homepage address: http://www.apo-tokyo.org/). Attendees were about 110 people from 15 countries in Asia (19 experts, 43 participants, and 32 observers and 16 staffs from the organizer). I participated as one of two participants from Japan. We discussed the current situation, problems, application, and implementation of "B2B (between business) cooperation in E2 (electronic/environmental transaction) with environment and productivity in mind" together with those from the public and private sectors.

At this forum, 7 Japanese large companies from electrical, communication, computer and peripheral device manufacturing sectors joined with the companies from India, Singapore, etc. to gave presentations. All the participants were divided into several groups and had group discussions based on the information given by the presentations.

　All large company from Japan reported the environmentally friendly production activities such as recycling and reuse, zero emission (poison and waste), green procurement, etc. But unfortunately, there were no words in their reports to open up environmentally friendly technologies to Asian countries. Feeling embarrassed as a Japanese, I suggested that technologies related to the environment and life should be released at an early stage without monopolizing them.

　Although this kind of idea of free technology transfer may be uncommon and minor, I hope the advanced environmental production technologies from Japan will be transferred as soon as possible so that many people in the world can appreciate them.

My impressions on this forum are

1) Almost all business activities require careful action with consideration for the environment (ecology), and Japan can play an important role in EMS (environmental management) for companies, organizations and groups around the world.

2) There are a number of countries that are immediately interested in KEC's Setsuden-mushi (a profit-making device), and it is necessary to keep in touch with them in the future. (Free technology transfer).  (KEC has now changed its company name into KTK OFFICE.)

3) I realized once again that activities that ignore the environment and ecosystem are becoming more difficult on the earth, and I decided the direction of my future work and made myself even more eager to be any help for others. (Along ISO 14000)

4) I reconfirmed that the direction of energy saving and power saving device development promoted by KEC is correct and it is not only profit for one company, but it is a socially beneficial business in the "zero waste" era.

5) Large companies may be able to recycle/reuse, to carry out zero emissions (poison, waste) and green procurement, but I hope that this is not pressure on subcontractors.

6) Consumers must practice refusing and patience, and they must also actively work on recycling and reuse.