Mizuho

The financial institution performs well in various areas, particularly governance, stewardship, carbon footprint tracking and certain financing and operational activities. On governance, decision-making and oversight for the sustainability strategy are assigned to the highest governance body, with performance criteria for senior executive remuneration linked to specific sustainability targets. Implementation responsibility is also delegated to various functions, teams, or committees. With regards to stewardship, it has a comprehensive stewardship policy that supports environmental transitions and social best practices in line with its sustainability strategy, which covers client and other stakeholder engagement as well as advocacy and partnerships. It also transparently identifies and priorities key sectors, clients and investees to engage with on climate issues and nature-related impacts. Additionally, the financial institution engages in partnerships to influence and support sectors, clients and investees to act on their nature-related impacts. All its stewardship activities and the associated outcomes are published in an engagement report as well.

As for carbon emissions, it monitors its Scope 1-3 emissions, emissions resulting from its associated financing activities (Scope 3 Category 15). Notably, it has also established a transition plan covering its own operations, supply chain and portfolio. In terms of financing and operational activities, it discloses the amount and/or share (in monetary terms) products, services and capital provided to small-and medium-sized enterprises, women-owned enterprises, high-emitting sectors and fossil fuel sectors, as well as its operational details by country.

Regarding human rights, the financial institution has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and also publicly discloses the results of its human rights risk assessments. Lobbying-wise, it discloses its lobbying expenditures and a list of trade associations of which it is a member as well.

There are several areas where the financial institution has scope for improvement, including its disclosures relating to impact materiality strategy, targets and plans, certain financing activities, ILO fundamental rights at work and associated risk assessment processes, as well as its just transition risk mitigation processes. For instance, it is recommended for Mizuho to transparently identify and prioritise its material sustainability impacts across its value chain based on objective criteria and/or supportable evidence. It could also specify if impact targets are covered under its third-party assurance and verification processes.

As for fossil fuel financing, while the financial institution commits to not providing financial services to new companies/projects working on coal fired power generation and coal mining, it has an opportunity to phase out its existing financing. For its financing activities, it is recommended that the financial institution discloses the breakdown of clients and/or beneficiaries by income group, as well as its processes for avoiding divestment from low-income and lower-middle countries as unintended consequences of its sustainability strategies and targets. While the financial institution refers to sectors and areas for nature-related impacts, they have the opportunity to detail how those were identified and prioritized as those with the higest impact with regards to its provision of products, services and capital.

In relation to ILO’s fundamental rights at work, it has an opportunity to formalise its commitment to respect ILO’s fundamental rights at work, as well as formalise its expectation for suppliers to respect the ILO’s fundamental rights at work. Additionally, though the financial institution s human rights policy aligns with ILO standards, it could consider explicitly incorporating these risks into its assessment process and disclosing mitigation strategies for identified risks, as well as social risks related to the net zero transition.

With regards to corruption and bribery it has an opportunity to disclose a publicly available policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption that applies to all its operations, as well as include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships.

This scorecard refers to information in English which was publicly available by July 15 2024. AuM and Total assets are stated in USD for comparability and have been calculated based on reported local currency values multiplied by applicable IMF currency converter values.