Climate Climate & Energy

Japanese dress down to save 81 million gallons of oil in summer

What do you do if your country needs to meet targets under the Kyoto global warming protocol? You dress down.

Yup, the Japanese government is encouraging public workers to wear less in order to use less oil. Since many in Japan don dark suits in summer, they crank up the AC to maintain an average temperature of 77 degrees. Someone figured out that Japan could save 81 million gallons of oil in one summer by setting the temperature at 82. To make the warmer workplace more bearable, employees now have the okay to wear short sleeves and go sans tie.

However, one possible unintended consequence of this move is that shirt sales are up. I'm guessing that they are not organic.

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