Environmental Sustainability, Energy Use and Economic Growth: an Analysis of Toyohashi City Energy-Economy Interaction

Abstract

Manufacturing and trading concentration, elevated economic activities and rise in urban population are the driving forces of city growths in the central part of Japan. Toyohashi city, locating between Tokyo and Nagoya, Osaka, is facing rapid growth for its industrial and port related economic concentration. As a result, use of natural resources and energy in the city is increasing. Recent trends show that to ensure economic growth, the City level energy use increased significantly. On the other hand, after the great disaster of 2011, Japan is concentrating more on natural resources to produce energy. The outcome would end in a higher use of natural resources like fossil fuel and natural gas. Finding an optimum solution to address energy-economy interactions is, therefore, becoming complex and difficult. Under the circumstances, this paper attempts to study the growth of Toyohashi city over time and resultant increase in consumption of electricity and gas. Another objective of the paper is to find features of effect of technological yield in use of energy. The results of the study show that manufacturing and trading sector of the economy are causing expansionary pressure on use of combustion energy. The study also finds that contribution of technology to reduce use of energy in production side of the economy yet a dormant factor. Hence, introduction of technology to ensure improved and efficient use of energy has been recommended by the findings of the paper. The limitation of the study can be described as the limitation in research sample and data influence on the results coming out from market orientation. Difference in technology and direction toward the energy use was not taken care of by the study too.