Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
As described in Chap. 1, the thinking underpinning the environmental leader
programs was that Japan's leading role in environmental standards and technology
would also create business in helping Asia and Africa develop more sustainably.
However such 'win-win' scenarios are not inevitable and governments still need to
decide between environment and economic priorities in many areas. As one recent
example, we refer to measures to avoid 'locking in' developing economies to a high
carbon future in the way they install new power sources. From 2013, the World
Bank, the European Development Bank and other international lenders, together
with the USA, UK and other national aid programs, stated that they would no longer
fund coal-fired power generation in developing country projects and instead favour
renewable or low carbon alternatives. Japan, as the world's largest funder of coal-
fired power stations
2
has the power to reinforce these policy shifts or undermine
such global efforts to reduce emissions; a conflict between the global environment
and the economic interests of companies producing equipment for coal-fired power
stations and coal mining. Such issues are perhaps beyond the likely role of envi-
ronmental leaders from the JST ELTP, but illustrate that environmental leaders are
not just required in the research laboratory but in management and political fields
as well.
System failures, continued tension between economics and the environment, and
the lack of environmental leadership at the political level all act as barriers to a
more sustainable society and make applying environmental leadership skills more
of a challenge! Against this background, let us now consider how far the ELTP has
contributed to meeting this challenge.
15.3
Overall Assessment of the ELTP
Features of the ELTP have been assessed against the above theoretical leadership
criteria (Norton et al.
2014
). The inclusion of active (or problem-based) learning
in courses helped in exploring ideas, gathering knowledge and forming person-
al judgements. This helped increase personal motivation, deepen understanding,
develop critical thinking, and develop reflexive abilities (MacVaugh and Norton
2011
). Some of the active learning projects directly addressed the above theoreti-
cal needs (visions of the future). Others placed the emphasis on finding solutions
to strengthen students' 'approach goals' (sustainable innovation proposals; evalu-
ation of leading examples of corporate sustainability), while presentations and de-
bates strengthen the inter-personal skills required to persuade and motivate others,
and promote the 'diversity in leadership' and 'inherent creativity' in environmental
leadership theory outlined above.
2
Japan has been the largest investor in overseas coal projects since 2007 ($ 19.7 billion), followed
by the U.S. ($ 8.9 billion), Germany ($ 6.0 billion), and South Korea ($ 3.1 billion).
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