Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance also has a stewardship policy where it describes its approach on sustainability themes and impact topics with clients and investees.

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance has set a target of net-zero financed emissions by 2050 and discloses that it will reduce financed emissions by 50% by 2031. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance also discloses its absolute financed emissions and that it will reduce financed emissions by 50% by 2031. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance discloses progress against its financed emissions reduction targets.

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. Moreover, it has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect the ILO core labour rights.

In terms of its approach to senior leadership accountability, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance could link the remuneration of its executive and management teams to sustainability performance criteria. In terms of gender equality, it has an opportunity to reach at least 40% female representation in senior leadership positions and disclose the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance could also disclose the actions taken to address any pay gaps. In addition, its engagement policy could include clear frameworks with success criteria and escalation points. The insurer has an opportunity to publish an engagement or stewardship report detailing how its policy is applied in practice. Furthermore, it could publish case studies describing where it has engaged successfully and unsuccessfully with clients on sustainability themes and impact topics.

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance has an opportunity to disclose the key sectors and companies it has identified as priorities to engage with on climate change, specifically on the alignment with the Paris Agreement. Moreover, it could disclose its financing activities devoted to climate solutions. Regarding nature and biodiversity, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance could demonstrate how it is committed to minimising its negative impacts or financing regenerative solutions. No evidence was found regarding Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance’s approach to fossil fuels that spans across the fossil fuel value chain, such as the amount or share of finance it directs towards fuels, or its stance on financing companies with new fossil fuel projects.

While Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance could provide a policy statement committing it to respect human rights using strong commitment language. Furthermore, the insurer has an opportunity to describe a comprehensive process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, especially its financing activities. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance also has an opportunity to establish a grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external individuals and communities to raise human rights complaints or concerns. In addition, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance could disclose the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance has an opportunity to disclose the amount of finance directed towards, for example, women-owned businesses, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or low-income developing countries.