While in British Columbia, I collected cans(aluminum and steel) and bottles (both glass and plastic) so I could recycle. It is partly because I am made aware of the bottle deposit ( 5 cents each) every time I go to the grocery store and also see many recycling bins here and there. If you put your cans/bottles in garbage bins, you do not get deposite back, but it you bring them to the recycling center, you get your money back.)
As the recycling center is open only weekend and Mondays (I believe) for a few hours, I collect cans, bottles etc. and bring many at once. (It is quite different from my behavior in Japan where I bring them on daily basis or so. We do not pay deposit, either, as far as I know.)
So when I stay in BC for a while, I have quite a big collection on my kitchen countertop! (see Photo) From this collection, you can tell my consumption pattern–large number of small cans of Coke zero, several cans of non-alcohol beer, a few plastic bottles (of juice etc.) and a few bottles of wine. (I prefer screw top these days rather than corks and thus tend to prefer local wine and from the New World (New Zealand, Australia etc.)
Yoko Ishikura is a Professor at Hitotsubashi University ICS in the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy in Japan. She has held positions as a professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Business of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, as a consultant at McKinsey and Company Inc. Japan and a visiting professor at Darden School.
Professor Ishikura is a consultant to a number of multinational companies and has been a frequent speaker at management conferences, seminars, and workshops throughout the world. She was a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee for the Japanese government and the International Competitiveness Commission for METI. She is currently a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum.
She is the author of Strategic Shift from OR choices to AND paradigm, Building Core Skills of Organization , and the co-author of the following publications: Managing Diversity in the 21st Century, Strategy for Cluster Initiatives in Japan , and Building a Career to the World Class Professionals – all in Japanese. Her books in English include: Asian Advantage, Hitotsubashi on Knowledge Management and Trust and Antitrust in Asian Business Alliances.
Professor Ishikura’s current research interests are focused on global competition, innovation, and knowledge management. She received her BA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan; MBA from Darden School, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia; and DBA from Harvard Business School.
