Adapting global goals to local action: The SAVE JAPAN Project approach InsightsEssays: Civil Society in Japan

  1. Home
  2. Insights
  3. Adapting global goals to local action: The SAVE JAPAN Project approach

Posted on October 07, 2025

Japan NPO Center (JNPOC) has a news & commentary site called NPO CROSS that discusses the role of NPOs/NGOs and civil society as well as social issues in Japan and abroad. We post articles contributed by various stakeholders, including NPOs, foundations, corporations, and volunteer writers.
For this JNPOC’s English site, we select some translated articles from NPO CROSS to introduce to our English-speaking readers.

 

Adapting global goals to local action: The SAVE JAPAN Project approach

Kenji Yoshida, Managing Director, Japan NPO Center

 

The Japan NPO Center (JNPOC), with support from Sompo Japan Insurance Inc., manages the SAVE JAPAN Project. This initiative unites local environmental NPOs, NPO support centers, and Sompo Japan branch offices to implement citizen-participatory programs that are customized to local needs. Our central mission is to work with residents to foster environments where wildlife can flourish.

In recent years, the project has aligned its focus with Ministry of the Environment policies and current biodiversity trends, concentrating primarily on two key areas: 1) Promoting the adoption and impact expansion of Nationally Certified Sustainably Managed Natural Sites, and 2) Advancing initiatives related to Eco-DRR (Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction), which utilizes ecosystems for disaster prevention and mitigation.

 

Biodiversity conservation becomes a business imperative

The SAVE JAPAN Project has been running since 2011, and its work remains highly relevant and compelling in the current global climate.

In 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada. This landmark framework set an urgent target for 2030: to “halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery.”

In response, the Japanese government formulated the National Biodiversity Strategy of Japan 2023–2030. A core pillar of this strategy is realizing a “Nature Positive Economy,” which led to the creation of a dedicated “Strategy for Transition to a Nature Positive Economy.”

Furthermore, the establishment of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) in 2021 has accelerated change. The TNFD now requires companies to disclose biodiversity-related non-financial information as “nature-related financial information.”

In light of these international developments and new disclosure standards, efforts toward biodiversity conservation have rapidly become a major focus for businesses worldwide.

 

The challenge of local context and diverse collaboration

Biodiversity conservation efforts are inherently challenging because quantitative evaluation is difficult, and the work doesn’t easily lend itself to standardized, scalable models. (Of course, specialized assessment methods and shared expertise do exist.)

For instance, in Japan, Satoyama (traditional managed woodlands and agricultural landscapes) play a crucial role. However, Satoyama is fundamentally an environment shaped by human activity. When lifestyle changes cause these areas to be neglected, the environment shifts. Determining the ideal state to restore them to is a difficult question. Circumstances vary greatly by region, influenced by factors like climate, land use, and culture. A species considered rare in one area might also be common in another. Since biodiversity is governed by a multitude of variables, it’s not easy to measure how a specific activity contributed or what its overall impact was.

Given this background, biodiversity conservation initiatives must be customized to the specific conditions of the local area. We believe these efforts are inseparable from issues of regional sustainability, such as population decline and changing lifestyles. It is essential for all local stakeholders, including residents, to share a common vision of “what kind of community they want to live in,” making collaboration among diverse groups critically important.

 

Key features of the SAVE JAPAN Project

The SAVE JAPAN Project has biodiversity conservation as its nationwide, shared theme. However, the actual activities are driven by local non-profit organizations (NPOs), collaborating with regional stakeholders, including landowners, local governments, and Sompo Japan’s branch offices. Coordinated by local NPO support centers in each region, the implemented activities are incredibly diverse. We believe that this approach—sharing a common theme while deploying efforts tailored to local circumstances rather than conducting the same activity uniformly across the nation—serves as a model for corporate sustainability conducted in partnership with NPOs.

The SAVE JAPAN Project runs annually from October to September, and the host locations for the 2025-2026 season have already been decided. Starting this year, we have welcomed Dr. Jun Nishihiro of the National Institute for Environmental Studies as an advisor. With the endorsement of the Ministry of the Environment, we are now equipped to design our activities from a more specialized, expert perspective.

Details about hands-on activities in each location will be posted sequentially on our special (Japanese) website, so please check the site and join an activity near you!

 

Original text by Kenji Yoshida (JNPOC’s Managing Director) originally posted on September 25, 2025; translated by JNPOC.

Recent Articles