Page 467 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

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councils. These councils include the Advisory Committee for Natural Re-
sources and Energy (ACNRE), the Strategic Policy Committee of the ACNRE,
and the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Committee of the ACNRE,
in addition to numerous other national and subnational bodies. From 2011, he
became Chairman of the Green Investment Promotion Organization (GIO), a
quango set up by METI in September 2010 to manage low-carbon subsidies
and promote such investment. The GIO members and cooperating businesses
include several of Japan’s major insurance firms together with a large number
of business associations in energy (conventional and renewable), ICT, engi-
neering, and electrical equipment. 8
Right after 3-11, Kashiwagi served as the chair of Research Commission
on Urban Planning and Integrating the Effective Use of Heat Energy, one of
the emergency environmental and energy research efforts that METI under-
took. The Commission included several other specialists, and its proceedings
were observed by several national and Tokyo Metropolitan Government
infrastructure-, environment-, and energy-related bureaucracies. It began its
deliberations in May 17 2011, and then quickly met six additional times,
9
delivering a report on August 1, 2011. The report underscored the merits of
integrating energy and urban planning, so as to realize the diffusion of smart
communities and distributed energy. It also advised that smart heat and power
networks be deployed as the core of a larger, strategic initiative to maximize
disaster resilience, efficiency, decarbonization, the uptake of local energy re-
sources, and local energy security (METI, 2011).
When the LDP returned to power in the December 2012 election, it was
quick to call on Kashiwagi’s expertise. For example, the Ministry of Internal
Affairs and Communications (MIC), whichdin a decidedly fortuitous com-
bination of responsibilitiesdboth oversees Japan’s 1719 local governments
and the country’s ICT infrastructure, wanted to use the crisis as an opportunity
to expand local governments’ energy initiatives. Hence, the then-MIC minis-
ter, Yoshitaka Shind o (2012e14), brought Kashiwagi into the MIC as chair of
a special research commission on diffusing smart energy systems as one means
of revitalizing local areas (DeWit, 2014a).
Kashiwagi was also named to several major committees. For example, he
chaired METI’s Hydrogen/Fuel Cell Strategy Council, from its first meeting
on December 19, 2013. 10 He was also named as a member of the Cabinet

8. The GIO’s website (in Japanese) is available at the following URL: http://www.teitanso.or.jp/
index.
9. The membership, minutes, and materials studied by the Research Commission on Urban
Planning and Integrating the Effective Use of Heat Energy are available (in Japanese) at the
following URL: http://www.meti.go.jp/committee/kenkyukai/energy/nestu_energy/001_giji.
html.
10. The membership, minutes, and materials studied by the Hydrogen/Fuel Cell Strategy Council
are available (in Japanese) at the following URL: http://www.meti.go.jp/committee/kenkyukai/
energy_environment.html.