Green worker

Be cool at work - wear fewer clothes to beat the heat
The Guardian,
Monday July 7, 2008

Tsutomu Hata was ahead of his time. In 1994, the then-Japanese prime minister appeared in public wearing what he described as an energy-saving suit. But this wasn't some hi-tech Honda-designed outfit that allowed him to work for twice as long without the need for sleep or coffee - but a conventional office suit with the sleeves chopped off at the elbow. The idea was to encourage Japanese office workers to dress down in the summer so that their companies could turn down the air conditioning, and save some energy.
For the last four years, the Japanese government has been running an extremely successful campaign to get office workers to wear fewer clothes. The environment ministry estimates that around a third of the country's offices take part in the Cool Biz initiative, turning down their air conditioning units and saving millions of tonnes of C02 emissions in the process.
For those few days each year when the sun finally shows its face in the UK, it would be much greener if we, too, didn't crank up the air conditioning. You will need to get your colleagues on side though - there's no point turning up to the office in your Bermuda shorts and expecting all the fans to be switched off.
When you suggest the idea to your co-workers - and you may need to word the proposal carefully to avoid any embarrassing misunderstandings regarding your intentions - there is a precedent in this country. In July 2006, as we headed into a minor heatwave, the TUC launched its own Cool Work campaign, mirroring the Japanese approach. It asked employers to relax dress codes in the summer for the sake of the environment - and efficiency.
For some people, dressing down opens up the can of fashionista worms that used to come out on school mufti days. Instead of putting on the regulation clothes, you're forced into making a public statement about yourself. For some of us, that's an unnerving proposition. In Japan, fashion designers designed alternative Cool Biz work styles. There are even Cool Biz fashion shows and a Cool Biz manual, offering advice on matching belts and shoes.
· Adharanand Finn is the author of Make a Difference at Work. To order a copy for £8.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop