The Nishimachi

Green Report

2021-2022
To develop learners and leaders who know, care and take action to
bring value to others and to make a positive impact on the world.

Our School Mission

Compiled by Humanities 9 students, September 2021

Victoria B. Diane Sakurako N.

Elisha B. Solar P.
Tyler B. Alasdair R.
Shehryar C. Laua S.
Luke D.-Y. Sara T.
Thien-Thi H. Sally Y.
Yuken I.

Table of Contents

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 1

Introduction 3

Conducting the Audit 4

Results 5
Energy 5
Water 6
Environment and Healthy Living 7
Waste 9

SWOT Analysis 11

Conclusions and Recommendations 12

Programs and Initiatives Currently in Place 12

References 16

Appendices 18

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 2

Introduction

You must take action. You must do the impossible. Because giving up is never an
option.

Greta Thunberg

There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any
other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.

Barack Obama, (2014)

An environmental audit is an evaluation of a given community to identify whether it

meets its objectives as an eco-friendly member of society. As Dr. Ben Boardman (2021)
states, “An audit is an excellent way of identifying environmental risks and liabilities,
ensuring legislative compliance, and enabling informed decision making.” Conducting
this audit will allow Nishimachi International School to develop a community-wide
environmental management program, as well as to help the school to understand what
elements could be improved or maintained. In other words, this will lead the community
to be more “green” or “eco-friendly” and will allow both students and staff to be aware of
how they can and are impacting the environment.

Currently, global warming is not only increasing but also showing irregular numbers,
abandoning the stable patterns that have continued for millennia. There are opinions
that go against this. For example, Dr. Harari states, “Many call this process ‘the
destruction of nature’. But it's not really destruction, it's change” (Harari, 2011: p. 393).
However, the results of human activity are proceeding at a rate that is off the charts,
and it is undeniable that humans have been an immense factor in warming our planet.
Earth-orbiting satellites such as the latest Landsat-9, which entered orbit September 27

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 3

2021, and other technological advances have enabled scientists to collect lots of
information on our planet and its climate on a global scale.
We conducted this audit because we believe that our environment is precious and we
are responsible for keeping our planet and all living things on it healthy and productive.
Our school plays an important part in local environmental sustainability, and we are
students who “know, care, and take action to bring value to others and make a positive
impact on the world” (our school mission).

Conducting the Audit

To conduct this audit, we started by figuring out what information and data we needed
to gather in order to gain an accurate view of how Nishimachi is currently doing to be
eco-friendly. In order to do this, we consulted a checklist by Eco-Schools USA, a
program run by The National Wildlife Federation. From this checklist, we chose
questions that were relevant to our school and sorted them in accordance with who we
could ask to get the necessary information. The questions that had the purpose of
evaluating students and teachers on their awareness of the environment and their
impact on it were put into surveys. The rest of the questions that required a specialist’s
knowledge were addressed in interviews.

With feedback and approval from our MS Principal, the surveys were sent out to a
sample of students and teachers. As we had a total of 20 questions to ask the middle
school students, the questions were divided into two surveys. To acquire a general
overview of the middle school students’ awareness, we sent each survey to two
randomly selected groups. Each group consisted of 5 students across grades 6, 7, and
8. On the teacher’s side of things, we sent one survey to all Middle School Core
teachers containing 10 questions.

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 4

We then set up interviews with specific individuals such as the School Nurse, Director of
Business Operations, and Middle School Counselor. Once this information had been
gathered, it was analyzed and added to the main report. With these extra insights, we
were able to find more solutions or fixes for our school’s environmental state.

Results

Energy
From the surveys we have conducted for this audit we gathered information from the
students and teachers to know more about their awareness of their energy
consumption.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, windows and doors of classrooms must be open for
ventilation. According to our Director of Business Operations, although it is difficult to
measure how much our annual energy consumption has increased, our daily use of
energy has catastrophically increased. Once we go through a whole school year with
ventilation, this may allow us to realize how much electricity we are using in comparison
to pre-pandemic school years. In relation to this, most student respondents replied that
they frequently complain about the temperature in classrooms. With the COVID-19
protocols in place, it is hard to maintain an agreeable temperature. Thus, teachers will
keep the air conditioner running for longer periods, and as a result, use more electricity.

Another source of energy use is the lights and water. In our investigation, we discovered
that there have been many changes to reduce our school’s energy consumption. In the
past two years, most water taps in bathrooms have been replaced from standard
tapware to automatic tapware; in the past four years, all lights on campus have been
replaced with LED light bulbs.

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 5

Note: 1 = All the time and 5 = Never.
The results were widely spread out, but most of the respondents said that the lights
were mostly turned off when no one was in the classroom, with the exception of one
teacher.

Water
In an interview with the Director of Business Operations, we found that our school does
not have a system to conserve water aside from replacing the taps. Additionally, the
results of the teacher survey show that 45.5% of
teachers have previously found a tap running.
Hence, the change to automated water taps will
allow us to conserve more water.

Over the past year, Nishimachi has replaced

water fountains with new water filling stations.
The new stations help to regulate the amount of
water consumed by students and reduce the
number of plastic bottles. Built inside the station

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 6

are sensors that dispense water when a water bottle is placed in front of it. According to
the School Nurse, the school has been suggesting that students bring reusable bottles
to fill up instead of drinking out of the fountains. In the new school year, more students
have learned to bring their own reusable bottles to school, which helps to prevent the
spread of viruses, as well as reduce the number of disposable cups consumed.
Disposable cups are most often made of materials such as plastic and paper.
Deforestation and the use of plastic are large factors in global warming and the
decrease in their use will be a step towards larger changes.

The Environment and Healthy

Living
In relation to the environment on the
campus and the environment around it, the
Middle School Counselor mentioned that
the neighborhood atmosphere and quiet
surroundings provide students with
calmness and make them feel safe at school. Nishimachi is known for its small, family-
like community, and the small park near our school, typically referred to as Step Park,
has also become a special extension to the campus. In the aspect of the community
taking part in events promoting healthy living, the counsellor mentions that the
pandemic limits how often students and staff of the community can participate in
external events. At the same time the school provides opportunities like the Annual
Outreach Walkathon and Sports Day for the community to stay healthy.
The percentage of teachers who
have found water taps on
In an interview with our School Nurse, she mentioned that changes in the environment
around the school can affect students in several ways. Commonly referred to as the
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), people can have a hard time adjusting to new

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 7

temperatures or environments around them. It is important to communicate with
students about how they are feeling periodically, and ask them about what they think
they can do to make them feel comfortable in the setting.

We also had the opportunity to discuss our environment on campus with the Plant and
Facility Manager at Nishimachi. He clearly stated that our campus does not have as
much greenery as is preferable. In fact, the greenery on our campus is limited to the
trees in the middle of the playground and does not come anywhere close to covering a
quarter of the campus grounds, which is a commonly agreed-on percentage to keep a
school “green”. Other than the amount of green we have on our campus, we also asked
him about what kind of systems we have in place to make sure that our community is
kept clean. These things include whether or not we have a system to prevent pests from
living and reproducing on our campus, as well as what procedures we take to make
sure that all common areas have been sterilized. This is especially important with the
ongoing pandemic. Every second Tuesday of the month, we have vendors coming onto
our campus to make sure that there are no harmful pests living on our campus.

The Plant and Facility Manager also provided us with documents proving how safe each
detergent is, and about the different methods the vendor uses to take care of the pests
on our campus without using harmful pesticides. Please see specific information on
detergents used on our campus in the document “Information from Japanese Sources”
in the Appendices.

In relation to the environment, we also investigated the types of paper that we use on
campus. The information for both white and colored paper we use is included in
translation in the document “Information from Japanese Sources”.
Do the teachers understand the relationship between the environment, society and economics?

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 8

The majority of teachers almost or fully understands the relationship between the
environment, society, and economics. There are no outliers at the negative extreme.

Waste
One of our concerns about the impact Nishimachi has on
our environment concerns food waste, especially for the
students who order school lunches from an outside
provider. What we have come to learn is that the students
do not waste or throw away as much food as we expected,
and therefore the school has not found it necessary to
dispose of food in a campus compost facility. Another
concern is medical waste. The School Nurse was able to
provide us with the information that medical waste, such
as used EpiPens, is usually sent home with students to be
discarded at their family medical clinic.

Another program that Nishimachi is currently taking part in is the recycling of printer
cartridges. Although it is important to make sure that this information is widely spread
across all teachers and staff, used printer cartridges are collected ast the Supply Office

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 9

in Matsukata House to be sent for recycling when enough have been collected. In
addition the Procurement and Supply Officer talked us through the process of recycling
the printer cartridges for the big photocopiers/printers in the Teacher Work Room.
Printers in the Teacher Work Room have a sensor to notify the company when ink is
running low. Once the company has been notified electronically, persons are sent to
replace the empty cartridges. The empty cartridges are recycled by the printer
company.

In the Teacher Surveys that we conducted, many teachers showed concern about how
combustible and noncombustible compost boxes were not separated in classrooms.
Considering the variety of waste produced in classrooms, from paper and plastics to
students’ lunches, it is important that we make sure combustible and noncombustible
wastes are properly separated.

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 10

SWOT Analysis

We conducted a SWOT analysis of the question, How can we be a greener school?

The resulting graphic shows our thoughts.

(Graphic by Elisha B.)

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 11

Conclusions and Recommendations

Humankind today is threatened by a number of disasters that have all been man-
made: they are disasters of culture rather than the disasters of nature to which
our ancestors were regularly exposed.
(Hofstede, 2010, p.426)

After conducting our audit, we have come to find that there are already various
programs and initiatives taking place in our community, along with areas in which we
should improve. In this section, we have provided an overview of which areas
Nishimachi might focus on. While we do understand that some suggestions, requests,
and recommendations made by students and staff will be hard to meet because there
are costs and safety regulations, we believe that there are small changes that the
Nishimachi community could make to essentially create a positive impact on the
environment. Our Nishimachi Learner Expectations are, We act ethically; We pursue
challenges; We take ownership; We are creative; and We make connections.

Programs and Initiatives Currently in Place

Nishimachi has been taking the initiative with environmental things in different aspects.
Many students and teachers are aware of the impact that their actions have on the
global environment, and also understand the basic concept of how society is affecting
the global environment. With this in mind, we have prepared a list that shows areas in
which Nishimachi already shows initiative and should continue to preserve. The
following initiatives are already running:

● Motion-sensor lighting in hallways and stairwells in Yellow and Blue Buildings

● Water bottle fill-up stations placed around the school campus

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 12

 ● All lights switched to LED light bulbs
● Installed motion-sensor taps in washrooms and most student bathrooms
● Nishimachi has become a Round Square candidate school, and one of the
Round Square IDEALs is ‘Environmentalism’
● Established a cardboard and paper recycling program (Grade 9 initiative)
● Printer cartridge collection and pick-up (for Teachers, Staff, and other Faculty
members)
● Bottle caps collected (Grade 6 initiative)
● Teach environmental science and ethics in Middle School Science and Humanities.

Areas of Recommendations

Students in our community feel that climate change is a large threat to the world,
although 36.4% of the students say that they consider the effect that their actions have
most of the time. We can see that there have been many efforts to reduce the
community’s consumption of electricity and water, yet at the same time we also think
that there are certain areas in which we can improve. These are:

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 13

● Water
○ R-G02, Upper Library, Middle School Science Lab (this may be difficult
because warm and cold water is needed), are examples of student areas
that still do not have automated water tap systems.
○ According to Autoflo - which is the first company in Australia that produces
electronic tapware, “Sensor taps can equate to saving as high as 60%,
depending on the type of tap being used.”

● Recycling
○ Some teachers are unaware of cartridge recycling the supply officer
provides.
○ Sorting waste effectively by the combustibility.
○ Visualizing and making it easy for the students to sort garbage (e.g.
adding posters or visual illustrations).

● Environmental Education
○ Getting involved in local Global Environment Projects (e.g. Beach clean-
up on a local level).
○ Setting a clear set of actions to be taken each day to make the school
greener.
○ Providing norms makes it easier for members of the community included -
to know what the aim or goal is.

● Environmental Awareness
○ Students bringing snacks and lunch packed in their own containers.
○ Installing sensor-driven bathroom and classroom lights.
○ Reducing the amount of plastic at Nishimachi (e.g. asking food providers
to use biodegradable food containers).
○ Filtering grey water before being released into the ocean.

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 14

The simple list above comes in part from suggestions teachers wrote in the comment
section of their survey. We understand some of the suggestions may not be easily
implemented or the best solutions, but we hope that this will become an opportunity for
students, teachers, and staff to think about the various impacts we leave on the world
as individuals and as a community.

In the future, we also recommend that the Nishimachi Green Audit becomes an annual
9th-grade project as a part of Nishimachi’s environmental curriculum. This project allows
9th-graders to understand the impact of their actions, as well as becoming an
opportunity for them to take initiatives to solve environmental problems. Additionally, we
recommend that future 9th-graders calculate the school’s carbon footprint and
include this information in future reports. Carbon footprints are able to tell us exactly
how much we are impacting the environment around us, and by comparing carbon
footprints across multiple years, we will be able to see in numbers how we have
improved or declined.

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 15

References

Ale, R. (2021, March 10). ‘10 Powerful Greta Thunberg Quotes’. Retrieved September 24, 2021
from https://www.biography.com/news/greta-thunberg-quotes Last accessed Sep 27, 2021.

Amos, J. (2021). ‘Landsat-9: ‘Satellite of record’ launches to picture Earth’. BBC News.
Retrieved Sep 27, 2021 from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58683181 Last
accessed Sep 27, 2021.

Autoflo. (2021). ‘The Advantages of Sensor Taps’. Retrieved September 27, 2021, from
https://www.autoflo.com.au/news/the-advantages-of-sensor-taps/ Last accessed Sep 27, 2021.

Boardman, B. B. (2021, January 14). The Benefits of Environmental Auditing. WKC Group.
Retrieved September 27, 2021 from https://www.wkcgroup.com/newsletter/news/the-
benefits-of-environmental-auditing/ Last accessed September 27, 2021.

Harari, Y.N. (2011). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Vintage Books, p.393.

Harrabin, R. (2020, May 20). ‘Climate change: Top 10 tips to reduce carbon footprint revealed’.
BBC News. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-52719662 Last accessed September 27, 2021.

NASA. (2021, August 31). Climate change evidence: How do we know? NASA. Retrieved
September 22, 2021, from https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ Last accessed September 27,
2021.

National Wildlife Federation. (N.D.). ‘Eco-Schools USA: Environmental Review Checklist’.

National Wildlife Federation. Retrieved August 27, 2021 from https://www.nwf.org › media › PDFs
› Eco-schools. Last accessed Sep 27, 2021.

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 16

Obama, B. (2014, September 23). Remarks by the President at the U.N. Climate Change
Summit. White House Archives. Retrieved September 23, 2021, from
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/23/remarks-president-un-
climate-change-summit Last accessed Sep 27, 2021.

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 17

Appendices
1) Information from Japanese Sources Documents translated to English
2) Original Japanese Sources 日本語資料
3) Photos from Interviews
4) Student Survey 1
5) Student Survey 2
6) Teacher Survey
7) Round Square. One of the six IDEALs is Environmentalism. Here is a post from a
recent Staff Bulletin that provides an overview of several environmental
initiatives. (On next page)

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 18

Nishimachi Green Report 2021-2022 Page 19