July 8, 2008
While prime minister Gordon Brown was in Japan telling Brits to cut food wastage, the Japanese government were cutting down on energy wastage - by telling office workers to wear less clothes.
The idea is that if workers wear less in the summer, their employers will be able to turn down the air conditioning - effectively neutralising the global warming effect of Brown flying 14 hours across the world to speak nonsense.
Japanese environment ministers estimate that around a third of the country's offices take part in the Cool Biz initiative. An attractive set of figures in more ways than one.
But beyond the bare facts, Guru reckons that UK workplaces could learn a few things from the Japanese.
Obviously this country has neither the hot weather nor the air conditioning units to make the scheme work in the summer.
But what about those mildly chilly winter mornings, when you arrive in the office in your suit and coat to be confronted with a row of chattering female workers in vest tops and skirts, with the heating thermostat set somewhere between molten lava and the inside of the Earth's core?
Guru is hereby starting the Wear A Flippin' Jumper campaign to cut heating bills and carbon emissions in half this winter.
