As of the end of November 1999, the total number of ISO14001 acquisition in Japan stood at 2,773. This included certification by 33 local governments, including Kawagoe City and Kyoto Prefecture, which acquired certificates in November (It was expected that more than 40 local governments will have received ISO certification by December 1999). The increase in the number of local government's certification is drastic, considering that only five local governments acquired the certificate in 1998, with Shiroi town being the first local government to do so. No other sector has experienced such a rapid increase in the acquisition. The following list gives the number of acquisitions for each prefecture:

• Tokyo Metropolis = 9
• Saitama Prefecture = 4
• Osaka Prefecture = 4
• Kanagawa Prefecture = 2
• Gifu Prefecture = 2
• Kyoto Prefecture = 2
• Fukui Prefecture = 2
• Oita Prefecture = 2
• Iwate Prefecture = 1
• Miyagi Prefecture = 1
• Chiba Prefecture = 1
• Niigata Prefecture = 1
• Shizuoka Prefecture = 1
• Mie Prefecture = 1
• Ishikawa Prefecture = 1
• Shiga Prefecture = 1
• Kumamoto Prefecture = 1

Currently, cities such as Sapporo, Aomori, Kawaguchi, Chiba, Yokosuka, Iida, Shizuoka, Kitakyushu are in the process of certification, and the popularity of acquisition of the ISO14001 certificate by local governments is expected to continue in 2000. Acquisition of the ISO14001 certificate by local governments brings about a significant impact and promotes better environmental performance on the part of local businesses. For example, Shiga prefectural government has added the acquisition of the certificates of ISO9000s and ISO14001 as criteria to be assessed when evaluating bids for public construction work.

Source: Ecology Symphony: http://www.ecology.or.jp - in Japanese