Welcome

Taniguchi Office, Faculty of Letters, Konan University addresses environmental studies from a human science perspective that integrates and promotes sustainability and health based on philosophy and applied ethics. We research the relationship between humanities and the environment, integrating the fields of philosophy, psychology and environmental studies. Our work develops an interdisciplinary study of environmental issues toward sustainability and human well-being.

Our mission is to cultivate ecological wisdom through both study and practice. To combine study and practice, we engage with traditional values and indigenous cultures, build the capacity for endogenicity and practice advocacy, education and community based action . We work with a variety of people and cultures such as urban and rural communities, businesses, public officials, schools, and the non-profit sector, to develop healthy and sustainable communities.

We plug away at facilitating symposia and conferences for multidisciplinary dialogue, collaborative research, training courses for teachers and general public, and community based activities for promoting environmental education. We also aim to connect a lifestyle of sustainability with human well-being; our basic ethos underlies our study, policy, advocacy, education and community based activities.

We are linked in a global network of universities and institutes; our work has international, national and local applications.

There are three established research areas:

Sustainable Communities: urban sustainability, green governance, globalization and the local, endogenous development, preservation of traditional values, public health

Integral Ecological Philosophy : system approaches to the study of natural, social and mental environment, applied ethics

Environmental Education: guidelines and implementations for environmental education based on environmental ethics, capacity building, pedagogy of environmental education