Sumitomo Life Insurance

Sumitomo Life identified and prioritised its impacts through a materiality assessment process which included feedback from external stakeholders. In addition, the insurer publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and has a target to increase female employees in managerial positions to 50% by 2025. The financial institution describes its approach on sustainability themes and impact topics with investees and publishes an overview of its engagement activities in an annual responsible investment report. 

As a member of Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, Sumitomo Life has set a target of net-zero financed emissions by 2050. It also discloses that it will reduce financed emissions from its asset portfolio by 42% by 2030 compared to 2019. The insurer discloses that alignment with the Paris Agreement is one of its engagement topics and that it is a member of Climate Action 100+. It further discloses the aggregate amount of investment it devotes to climate solutions and specifies what these solutions are. Sumitomo Life discloses nature- and biodiversity-related impacts as one of its engagement topics with investees. 

Sumitomo Life has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights. It also discloses a breakdown of its corporate clients by company size and the amount of loans to small and medium-sized companies. The insurer has a publicly available policy statement which shows it is committed to respecting the health and safety of workers.  

In terms of its approach to senior leadership accountability, Sumitomo Life has an opportunity to assign responsibility for sustainability to the group’s highest governing body and links the remuneration of its executive or management teams to sustainability performance criteria. In addition, women are underrepresented on the board of directors where only 1 out of 11 members are women. The insurer also has an opportunity to reach at least 40% female representation in senior leadership positions and discloses the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. The financial institution could include clear frameworks with success criteria and escalation points when describing its approach to investor engagement.  

Sumitomo Life has an opportunity to disclose key sectors or companies it identified as priorities to engage with on climate issues. While the insurer encourages its investees to set a 1.5°C-aligned strategy, it has an opportunity to make this a requirement. The financial institution could also align its investments in climate solutions with internationally adopted frameworks and set a time-bound target explicitly for its climate solutions. No evidence was found regarding the insurer’s approach to fossil fuels that spans across the fossil fuel value chain and its 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. Sumitomo Life has an opportunity to commit to minimising the negative impacts it has on nature and biodiversity. 

Sumitomo Life has an opportunity to describe a comprehensive process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, especially its financing activities. It also has an opportunity to establish a grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, external individuals and communities to raise human rights complaints or concerns. Furthermore, the insurer could disclose the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group, gender or another indicator of diversity. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, Sumitomo Life has an opportunity to disclose the amount of finance directed towards, for example, women-owned businesses or low-income developing countries.