Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (President & CEO: Tatsufumi Sakai) was selected again this fiscal year to be included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Asia Pacific Index (DJSI Asia Pacific). The DJSI Asia Pacific is part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices1 (DJSI), which are a global family of environment, society, governance (ESG) stock indexes, and Mizuho was the only Japanese bank to be selected2.
Out of 600 major companies of the Asia Pacific region, 158 were selected to be included in the DJSI Asia Pacific this fiscal year (of which 82 were Japanese companies). Mizuho has now been listed for six consecutive years.
Mizuho was recognized particularly for our sustainable finance and our climate change strategies. This is a result of our initiatives toward both opportunity and risk in line with Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations for enhancing our sustainable business promotion framework, setting long-term sustainable finance and environmental finance targets, and strengthening climate change risk management while also actively engaging in information disclosure, such as the issuance of our first TCFD Report.
In addition to DJSI, Mizuho is also incorporated into other global ESG indexes including the FTSE4Good Index3, MSCI ESG Leaders Indexes4, STOXX Global ESG Leaders Indices5, and Euronext Vigeo World 120 6, as well as ESG indexes selected by Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), including the MSCI Japan Empowering Women (WIN) Select Index and the FTSE Blossom Japan Index. These indexes select companies that are highly evaluated based on global ESG criteria, and have become a crucial investment standard for ESG investors worldwide.
By integrating sustainability with our corporate strategy and promoting initiatives for sustainability, Mizuho will be able to conduct management that considers value creation for a wide range of stakeholders and achieves improvement of corporate value through sustainable, stable growth for the entire group. As a result, we can contribute to environmental conservation and the sustainable development and prosperity of the economy, industry, and society.
Reference:
We at Mizuho are achieving strong performance as detailed below toward reaching the sustainability finance and environmental finance targets we set in order to fulfill our role in directing finance toward environmental conservation and realizing the SDGs.
Target: Total sustainable finance of JPY 25 trillion from FY2019 to FY2030
(of which the target for environmental finance is JPY 12 trillion)
Results: Total sustainable finance of approximately JPY 4.4 trillion from FY2019 to FY2020 H1 (up JPY 2 trillion from the end of March 2019)
(of which approximately JPY 1.7 billion is environmental finance, up JPY 0.6 trillion from the end of March 2019)
1: The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices are a family of indexes that incorporate companies with outstanding sustainability performance based on economic, environmental, and social criteria, and is provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices of the US.
2: As researched by Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. based on publicly available information issued by S&P Global.
3: The FTSE4Good Index is a series of indexes that incorporate companies that meet the global standards for environmental, social, and governance criteria, and is provided by FTSE Russell of the London Stock Exchange.
4: The MCSI ESG Leaders Indexes are provided by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) of the US, and incorporate companies selected based on outstanding ESG performance.
5: The STOXX Global ESG Leaders Indices are a series of global stock indexes that select from major companies worldwide that meet ESG criteria, and is provided by STOXX of Deutsche Börse.
6: The Vigeo World 120 is an index provided by Euronext N.V., which operates the largest stock exchange in Europe, and Vigeo Eiris, an ESG rating and research agency of France and the UK.
