A macroeconomic analysis of the relationship between IT industries and environmental policies

In this paper, we discuss methods for analyzing the relationship between IT industries and environmental policies. We will focus on two topics. Firstly, we propose a method for evaluating the influence of a carbon tax (environmental policy) on individual IT companies. We compiled an "intra-company input-output table" based on accounting data from NEC Corporation. By applying input-output analysis to the compiled table, we were able to analyze the effects of a carbon tax on each sector of our company. The second topic is the effects of IT on CO₂ emissions. We created an IT diffusion scenario, and used a macro economic model called a "computable general equilibrium model" to calculate effects of IT on the total amount of CO₂ emissions in Japan. Our results indicate that advanced IT has the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions in Japan by 3%. Both topics are important for the environmental management of electronics companies.