Funny thing happened on the walk home the other day:

The door to a department store was left open, so a guy walking in ahead of me shut it behind him, right in the face of the woman walking behind him. I guess the environment was more important to him than common courtesy.

I’d bring a clear solution to the table and back it with evidence and facts. Maybe the politicians and the Japanese public are sympathetic to emotional appeals to protect businesses, but something tells me they won’t confer the same sacred status to the tie industry as that afforded to local retail districts and small machine shops.

After the meeting, this guy had the press’s attention. He could have used that opportunity to shit on the entire Cool Biz endeavor by citing at least one study I have heard of that suggests the campaign may slow down the economy (google “bloomberg cool biz”).

The concept that wearing ties makes you look dignified is also pretty convincing, just not the way this guy put it. Why not point out the obvious fashion deficiency of simply taking the jacket and tie out of the suit equation?

And that’s about the extent of it. Sure, he is being paid to try, but if I were him I’d accept the limits of trying to get an official mandate for ties in the workplace. Even without the global warming aspect, wearing ties in the summer doesn’t make a lot of sense in most instances, and I think that’s part of why Cool Biz had the appeal that it did. Rather than shield his clients from reality, he might suggest they try and find new markets, diversify, or consolidate.

I tell you what I’D do. I’d start advocating the ‘stop idle’-ing program.

Nobody ever gets anywhere by complaining, and going against a cause that is seen as good for the environment bodes twice as badly for your case.

The necktie industry can’t blame cool biz, but in 5 minutes I came up with two ideas:

1. Instead of advocating against a popular eco-campaign, advocate for a once popular but seemingly forgotten eco-campaign. Necktie companies + eco-legistlation = good image!

2. Ask that people buy rotating tie racks and install them in the employee lounge, where employees may put on ties for meeting clients and such, and take them off when things get sweaty.

Woops! My brain just came up with a third one:

3. SHUT YOUR DOORS campaign, for every company that needlessly leaves it’s doors wide open in the summer, then blasts cold air into the store as well as out into the humid streets. Tokyu Hands, for shame, does this in one of it’s biggest stores in Shibuya.

Necktie sellers should campaign with Tokyu Hands to get all these smaller, less responsible businesses to shut their wide open doors in Summer.

(btw my company still requests that we wear neckties in the summer and boosts it’s a/c way too high, mostly for the comfortability of our customers. In that sense, ‘cool biz’ has little bearing on our purchases of neckties.)

There are much more serious environmental issues out there than arguing what salary men should or should not wear… This cool biz hubbub is just a smokescreen.