Initiatives for Responsible Investment and Financing
Mizuho aims to contribute to the healthy and sustainable growth of the world economy through facilitating finance and responsible investments and loans.
Basic Policies for Investments and Loans
Participation in the UN's "Principles for Responsible Investment" (PRI)
Mizuho participates in international initiatives and initiatives that respect international standards in order to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society by promoting investment activities that take into consideration social and environmental factors as well as economic factors. Specifically, MHTB has signed on to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), which ensure that institutional investors and pension funds, etc., incorporate environmental, social, and corporate governance issues into their decision–making processes. Based on the purpose of PRI, MHTB has incorporated items related to the environment, society, and corporate governance as indicators into some of its funds, and MHTB also takes those indicators into consideration in exercising voting rights.
Initiatives for the Equator Principles
Mizuho Corporate Bank became Japan's first Equator Bank in October 2003 in the belief that the environmental and social risk management of large–scale projects in compliance with the Equator Principles would become a new business standard in international financing.
- *The Equator Principles are common standards employed by financial institutions to confirm that project finance schemes totaling USD 10 million or more take their environmental and social impact into consideration.
As of February 1, 2010, sixty–eight financial institutions worldwide had adopted the Equator Principles.
- *Link to "Initiatives for the Equator Principles" under "Environment."
Carbon Accounting
Mizuho has initiatives for climate change problems through project finance.
- *Carbon accounting is a mechanism for evaluating businesses by calculating the volumes of greenhouse gases they generate through their business activities and converting them to their CO2 equivalent.
- *Link to "Initiatives for Carbon Accounting" under "Environment."
Participation in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is a network of 534 institutional investment firms that together have assets approximating USD 64 trillion (as of October 2010) and are working in unison to get over 4,000 companies throughout the world to disclose both their strategies for addressing climate change and their greenhouse gas emissions as a step toward solving the problem of climate change.
Mizuho joined the CDP in 2005 and has been participating in a newly launched water project since fiscal 2010.
CDP logo
Promoting Activities by SMEs and Middlemarket Corporations
As part of its efforts to promote the SMEs and middlemarket corporations that are the driving force behind the Japanese economy, Mizuho has been supporting the Medium and Small Business Research Institute since its founding in 1966. We support the Good Company Grand Prix Award program, which is sponsored by the Center, and its empirical surveys and research.
Initiatives for the Convention on Cluster Munitions
Before the Convention on Cluster Munitions (Oslo Treaty) came into effect, at the end of July, 2010, related officers and employees were duly requested to take responses according to Credit Codes with honor and respect to the intent of the convention when carrying out credit transactions. Moreover, a policy to avoid providing the credit that funds production of cluster munitions was defined and the procedures for it was established.
