Hacker News Reader

Comment by Morgawr | Hacker News Reader

As someone who lives in Tokyo, I admit I've never seen this before. Not sure about "suddenly everywhere" but if it is I've never come across it. I haven't gone out much since covid but still...

View on HN

I teach at a public university in Tokyo. “SDGs” is clearly a current buzzword being promoted by government policy in Japan. I subscribe to the paper edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and nearly every day there are multiple advertisements and articles that mention “SDGs,” often prominently.

Not only Japanese companies but also Japanese universities have been quick to adopt it. Some examples of university programs with “SDGs” in their titles are at [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

In my experience, the currently promoted buzzwords are often included in university program names in order to attract government funding. Five or ten years ago, the leading buzzword was “global.” My own university has probably a dozen or more programs with “global” in their titles; my colleagues often remark how hard it is to remember which is which.

Another current buzzword, in both business and academia, is “DX” (digital transformation).

Though the SDGs bandwagon is still going strong, some Japanese commentators have started to question it. A person interviewed in an article posted on Friday to a radio station’s website [6] calls SDGs “fraudulent.” He also notes that Japan leads the world in Google searches for “SDGs,” followed by Zimbabwe.

[1] https://www.nara-edu.ac.jp/ESDC/

[2] https://www.chubu.ac.jp/academics/college-education/sdgs/

[3] https://www.senshu-u.ac.jp/social/senshu_sdgs/challengeprogr...

[4] https://www.koeki-u.ac.jp/academics/personnel-training-progr...

[5] https://www.it-hiroshima.ac.jp/about/gp/center/sdgs.html

[6] https://web.archive.org/web/20220828044344/https://www.joqr....

Not sure it's a pure scam, but it sure is very performative. But then, when you see the number of businesses proudly showing "ISO9001" on their buildings...

As a counterpoint, I see it so frequently you could conceivably describe it as being “everywhere” but it’s mostly within corporations, so you wouldn’t exactly be seeing it on the streets of Shibuya (although you do in fact see it there sometimes too)

Now that you’re aware of it, keep your eyes open and you’ll see it pop up in various spots

Always be suspicious of New York Times trend pieces.

It's a running joke in New York that if the NYT writes a piece on a particular trend or sub-culture it may as well be the subject's obituary.

A real trend-setter writes about a subculture before it exists, and it springs into existence!

This is how Saturday Night Fever came to be

It is everywhere, and you'll notice it now that you know about it. I never noticed until I learned about about sometime last year and then I saw it everywhere. It's on suit pins, trucks, businesses, etc.

I have to admit it's a bit less prevalent than maybe 2 years ago but

The yamanote line:

https://sdgs-navi.com/jr

Quite often on politicians/government worker lapels:

https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/content/20211224_sdgsaw02.jpg

Skytree event:

https://www.tokyo-skytree.jp/en/press/post/493

...

I expect it to be everywhere mid September for "sdgs week"

https://www.edie.net/sustainable-development-goals-week/

Moved to Tokyo from the US in 2020. I first heard of the SDGs in language school.

They're also heavily promoted in my work's orientation and training material, but the hq's over in Europe.

I've seen it in the wild maybe two times at most. Once in Ikebukuro as part of some volunteer clean up thing and another on some building somewhere.

So to me, it's not completely unheard of, but "suddenly everywhere" is still definitely a huge stretch.

Same here. I've been living in Tokyo for the past several years and I've never seen this thing.

If you live in Tokyo, there’s no way you haven’t seen it. You just haven’t noticed.

Now the at you’ve read the article, you’ll surely see it.

As someone who lives in a not exactly big but also not quite small city that I wouldn't quite call inaka but my wife does, I've never seen this logo, and not much about SDGs around here, but boy is it all over the media. I remember checking out when the initiative started because I hadn't heard about it even once before suddenly you couldn't spend a day without hearing about it. IIRC, it started in 2014, and somehow, Japan suddenly woke up a year or two ago.

I work in sakuragicho, quite busy there and I haven't seen this either.

Also living in Japan and have never seen it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com