Mizuho Financial Group

In terms of its approach towards impact management, Mizuho acknowledges that its financing activities have both positive and negative impacts. The group assigns the responsibility for sustainability issues to the Board of Directors. The financial institution publishes case studies describing where it has engaged successfully with investees on sustainability themes and impact topics.  

As a member of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, Mizuho has set a target of net-zero financed emissions by 2050. It discloses the absolute financed emissions from its corporate and project finance to 19 sectors, including the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) data quality score. It discloses that it identified 70 clients as priorities to engage with on climate change, who it requires to have a strategy aligned with the Paris Agreement. It also discloses that it provided JPY 4.6 trillion since 2019 towards its 2030 target of JPY 12 trillion in environmental finance. Mizuho is committed to minimising its negative impacts on nature and biodiversity. It provides evidence that it requires companies to which it provides financial services to have a strategy addressing their nature- and biodiversity-related impacts. 

Mizuho has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. It describes its process for assessing its human rights risks and discloses what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. Further, Mizuho describes its global system to take action to prevent, mitigate or remediate salient human rights issues, including a description of how the system applies to its financing activities. The financial institution engages with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities. Mizuho discloses a global tax strategy and its lobbying expenditures. 

In terms of its approach to senior leadership accountability, Mizuho could link the remuneration of its executive or management teams to sustainability performance criteria. Furthermore, women are underrepresented on the board of directors where only 1 out of 12 board members are women. The financial institution has an opportunity to describe its engagement approach on sustainability themes and impact topics with clients and investees across its financing activities. 

While Mizuho set an intensity emission interim target for corporate and project finance portfolio for electric power sector, it has an opportunity to disclose an absolute interim target which covers all its financing activities. Furthermore, the financial institution could align all of its environmental finance with internationally recognised frameworks. No evidence was found regarding Mizuho’s approach to fossil fuels that spans across the fossil fuel value chain and financing activities, such as the amount or share of finance it directs towards fuels, or its stance on financing companies with new fossil fuel projects.  

Next to its process for assessing human rights risks, Mizuho could describe a process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts through its relevant financing activities. It could also establish a grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, external individuals and communities to raise human rights complaints or concerns. While Mizuho discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce and its board of directors by age group, it has an opportunity to disclose this information for each employee category. Similarly, it could disclose the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by race or ethnicity. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, the financial institution has an opportunity to disclose the amount of finance directed towards, for example, women-owned businesses or low-income developing countries.