Mizue Tsukushi, who introduced so-called eco-fund investment trusts to Japan, has called on individuals to make socially responsible investments to create a better environment.

"Individuals can contribute toward making a large paradigm shift (toward creating a better environment) using individual money," said Tsukushi, president of Good Bankers Co., during a symposium on curbing global warming Thursday in Tokyo.

When Good Bankers debuted the eco-funds -- for investment in enterprises deemed environmentally conscious -- in Japan in 1999, almost all the investors were young individuals and women, Tsukushi said.

She said recent polls also show young people and women would pay slightly more to buy environmentally friendly products rather than environmentally unfriendly ones.

Investment in environmentally friendly companies is beneficial not only for the companies themselves but for the environment as a whole as more such investment would increase their ability to procure funds and step up competition among companies to become more friendly to the environment, she said.

Meanwhile, Haruo Kamimoto, vice president of Ricoh Co., told the symposium, held at United Nations University, that both corporate profitability and companies' environmental conservation efforts are compatible.

Kamimoto said company sections dealing with recycling are in the red but those losses are being recouped by overall profits with sales of energy-conserving machinery. Sections in the red at Ricoh should be able to recover within about two years as more products are recycled, he said.

Kamimoto said corporate management-level commitment and resolve are essential for companies to deal with environmentally friendly measures, adding that it is probably the same for state-level commitment.