This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Feeling dizzy and unwell after cycling to work in Japan's punishing summer heat, warehouse worker Isao Tabuchi headed for his company's newest acquisition: a refrigerator for humans. The phone booth-sized machine, where jets of chilled air ensure ice-cold comfort, only launched this year but has proved popular in a country that seems to be getting inexorably warmer.
"I was really able to recover thanks to that. Once you use it, it's very, very cool," Tabuchi, 51, told in the western industrial city of Higashiosaka. Tokyo-based industrial equipment distributor Trusco Nakayama said it has sold more than 300 units of the "Do Hiemon Box" since April, priced at 1.5 million yen ($9,400).
Customers include construction sites, factories and warehouses, and the company plans to expand to golf courses in the future, said company sales agent China Yamamoto. Baseball stadiums may also be interested. Some within the company had been skeptical, she added.
"It's large, it's expensive, and it's not the kind of product where you can just explain it in words and have customers say, 'Okay, let's buy one.' So there were a lot of uncertainties," she told AFP. Scientists say human-induced climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events around the world. In 2025, Japan saw its hottest summer on record.
This year, the weather office began using a new word—"kokushobi" or "cruelly hot day"—when temperatures hit 40°C (104°F), urging the public to treat extreme heat like a natural disaster. Tokyo alone recorded almost 120 heat-related deaths in the month through mid-August, while close to 63,000 people nationwide this summer needed emergency care. Since last year, Japanese businesses have faced tougher legal requirements to help employees toiling in the heat.
Building sites, for example, must provide workers with suitable clothing such as jackets with built-in fans, as well as air-conditioned break rooms and canopies to ensure shade. A new initiative introduced this year allows bureaucrats in Tokyo to come to work in shorts—a groundbreaking move in a country where formal business attire still rules. The impact of rising temperatures on businesses in the world's fourth-biggest economy is real.
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