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Japanese Bank for International Cooperation will refuse to grant loans for new coal projects, Governor Tadashi Maeda said last month, marking a significant turnaround for the export credit agency. Maeda said the government company, which funded $ 13.4 billion for 28 coal projects between 2003 and 2018, will no longer accept loan applications for new coal-fired power plants, in an interview with the Japanese business magazine Diamond Online. He explained that assessments of coal investments take too long and can lock countries into energy technologies that may be outdated by the time a decision is made. Sara Ahmed, energy finance analyst for the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said: Change due to strain on their balance sheets.
It comes just weeks after Mizuho tightened his climate policy, pledging to stop funding new coal-fired power projects and end all coal lending by 2050, following pressure from investors backing Japanese shareholders’ first climate resolution before l ‘The bank’s AGM next month. A statement by rival Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the world’s third-largest coal lender, released the next day, failed to tighten the Japanese mega-bank’s existing coal policy. In a new approach to ESG risk, he said he would not fund newly planned coal-fired power plants “in principle” except for “projects that use environmentally friendly technologies” such as ultra pressure. -supercritical – a move that observers say has already been made in its political coal from 2018. The new statement extends to oil and gas considerations and highlights the risk of stranded assets, but commits only to “realize environmental and social risk assessments ”for projects.
Seiji Kawazoe, Senior Stewardship Officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management, has joined the Climate Action 100+ steering committee as an investor representative for the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change. He replaces Emily Chew, formerly Global Head of ESG at Manulife Investment Management, who left the committee earlier this year and has now joined Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
Japan Financial Services Agency published its first research report on impact investing in listed equities in collaboration with Nissay Asset Management. The scope of the report includes the current state of impact investing in equities, measuring the impact for listed companies and the relationship between impact and financial performance. The report is now available in Japanese and will soon be translated into English.
Japan to increase nationally determined contribution (NDC) ahead of COP26, Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi confirmed at the St. Petersburg Dialogue last week. In March, Japan disappointed many observers when it failed to tighten its 2015 target of cutting emissions by 26% by 2030. Koizumi has now clarified, “Let’s be clear. We do not intend to leave the national target as it is. We will aim for ambitious numbers in the NDC, reflecting ambitious efforts to reduce emissions. The first step will be to review our countermeasures against global warming, then we will submit additional information by COP26. “
The Japanese TCFD consortium called for support for the Green Investment Guidance (GIG), which aims to help investors and other stakeholders to assess and appropriately use the information provided by TCFD for their investment decisions. Register here.
The Japan Exchange Group and the Tokyo Stock Exchange published the Practical ESG Disclosure Manual for listed companies wishing to improve their ESG activities and their dialogue with investors. It examines how to identify issues that are financially important and how to integrate ESG into business strategy, among other areas.
Nippon Life Insurance and Dai-ichi Life Insurance the two plan to intensify ESG conversations with issuers in accordance with Japan’s updated Management Code, the two Japanese companies told the national business newspaper Nikkei. Nippon Life chief executive Toshihiro Nakajima said the company will also apply the guidelines for investors, which were updated by the country’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency, last month to its holdings. in corporate bonds, from this fiscal year.
