Are Environmental Friendliness and Good Service Mutually Exclusive in Japan?

In his recent world travels, the author has gotten used to the idea of having to ask for bags when he goes shopping.  In the US, for instance, plastic bags are no longer free, so shoppers are expected to either do without them, bring their own reusable ones, or pay a fairly expensive price for one.  In more politically aggressive places like Rwanda, the very idea of using plastic bags have become obsolete as plastic bags themselves are completely banned from the country.  To those not used to having to carry around their own bags, it is a bit of nuisance, to say the least.

Japan, the land of good service, the uniquely Japanese omotenashi in every industry imaginable, does not seem to be okay with that minor nuisance.  Here, buying grocery almost always come with a free bag, and no service personnel at shops dare to ask customers whether the plastic bag is needed in the first time.  Even when the customers specifically go ahead and tell the shop staff that no bag is needed, the compliance from the staff always comes with an apology for the inconvenience caused.  In the minds of Japanese shopkeepers, better service is worth the sacrifice of a few plastic bags and the potential environmental costs.

As argued in a previous post, the Japanese concept of omotenashi is often an integral part of the very business model by which shops operate by.  Good service is what generate sales and especially helps to ensure customers return to buy more after first purchase.  And visual presentation, more than anything, helps distinguish one shop among thousands of others selling pretty much the same products.  The shopfront decor, the staff's politeness and smiles, and the packaging of the products are what allow customers to remember the shop by, and in great deal helps the shop to hit its sales targets.

In the eyes of many people new to Japan, that focus on visual presentation can be slightly excessive.  After all, the shop decor and the packaging often has little to do with the quality, or even the very description, of the products themselves and only add costs to provision of the products.  Beyond the liberal use of plastic bags (often customized and elaborately branded themselves to help commit the shop to memory), the packaging of the products and the shop decorations also use so much plastic and paper materials that a frugal person would certainly find repulsive.  

But of course, shops in Japan see things differently.  They operate in a market where the one-upmanship in visual presentation is almost certainly a battle that they must fight and win in order to ensure continuity of the business itself.  If the shop is presented frugally, with little colors and trinkets hanging around the shops, the consumers used to gaudiness of neon signs everywhere would not even notice the very existence of the shops,much let walk in and buy something.  Even if they do not want to spend excessively on decor and packaging, they simply have to in order to match the competition.

That is not to say that the existing importance of environmentally unfriendly use of excess plastic bags, packaging, and shop decor is unchanging.  The rise of Muji, a chain of stores specializing in simple designs, and popularity of places like IKEA is gradually changing the need for excess visual presentations.  Yet, the impact of Muji and IKEA is still felt only in some industries (stationary, furnatures) while many others (food, cosmetics, any sort of gift products) continue to rely heavily on presentation.  What is worse, as Japanese consumer culture spread to rest of Asia, excess visual presentation is becoming a pan-Asian issue.  

Resolving the issue requires a redefining of what corporate social responsibility means among Japanese, and increasingly, all Asian businesses.  In too many cases, Japanese CSR, with respect to the environment, has focused on donations and volunteerism to help up clean up areas affected by environmental degradation in an obvious visual manner.  Such actions, while effective in promoting company brands as benevolent, are often ineffective in fundamentally changing the perception of what is considering environmentally damaging in everyday life among the general populace.

To be more effective, companies must take aggressive steps toward the very merit of simple design and decor not only as a virtue for the environment but also as trendy and fashionable.  By imitating what Muji and IKEA have done in the respective industries, more firms can squarely create the linkage between environmental friendliness and (alternatively) beautiful products that draw envy among peers.  When business incentives align with material simplicity, the idea of environmental protection will no longer just be a sacrifice to be made in terms of good service.