Japanese Firms Creating Rest Places for Wildlife at Factories

August 19, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese manufacturers are stepping up efforts to create greenery areas that help preserve local ecosystems within the premises of their factories.

The moves come as businesses are increasingly asked to make contributions to biodiversity conservation at international conferences. Factories are gradually becoming rest places for birds and insects as a result.

"More and more companies are aware of the need to improve the quality of greenery areas" at their factories, an official of an environment group said.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp.'s factory in the central Japan city of Shizuoka, which makes products including air conditioners, started creating a greenery area harmonizing with local biodiversity in spring 2016.

Satoyama, or woodlands near populated areas, are dotted around the factory, located some 3 kilometers from Shizuoka Station of Central Japan Railway Co. or JR Tokai. The company hopes to make the greenery area at the factory a spot where wild birds and insects can "stop by" during their travel from one satoyama area to another.

Local plant species, including ilex pedunculosa and heartsease, comprise the greenery space. The company also transferred plants that are likely to be cut due to housing development to the factory area.

Plants at the 360-square-meter area have difference heights and blooming seasons to attract various creatures.

"I was surprised to see many butterflies (at the greenery area) last autumn," an official of the company said.

Within the premises of Canon Inc.'s headquarters in Tokyo's Ota Ward, there is an area called "Shimomaruko no Mori" (Forest of Shimomaruko), which is visited by some 30 species of birds, including thrushes and starlings.

"We created the greenery area as we aimed to make our office a place accepted by local residents, and we now see a lot of birds coming," said Junko Kimura, a corporate social responsibility official of the camera and office equipment maker.

Canon set up a watering place for birds at Shimomaruko no Mori, following advice from the Wild Bird Society of Japan. It also started to conduct biological research on birds there four years ago.

In a similar move, companies on the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, are accelerating efforts to create greenery areas straddling their factories as home of wild rabbits and foxes. Jiji Press