Eco design of IT society-an analysis of the environmental effects of IT diffusion by using a CGE model

In this research, we estimated the effects of IT diffusion on the total CO/sub 2/ emissions of the Japanese economy. We based our evaluation on a computable general equilibrium model (CGE model), which is a modeling method generally used in economics to analyze structural economic changes. Based on the framework, we calculated the CO/sub 2/ emissions of Japan for two cases: "the status quo", and "a (hypothetical) advanced IT-oriented economy". Comparing the calculated CO/sub 2/ emissions enabled us to determine the environmental effects of the diffusion of IT. Our results indicate that an advanced IT revolution would potentially reduce CO/sub 2/ emissions by 36.3 million tons of CO/sub 2/, which corresponds to 3.1% of the total CO/sub 2/ emissions of the Japanese economy. We show the details of the evaluations and discuss the key factors which enable 'eco design' of IT society.