Prizes bring efforts of Japan and its companies to global attention

At the first awards event since the Japan Times Satoyama and ESG Awards became the Sustainable Japan Award, Japan Times Chairperson and Publisher Minako Suematsu gave the opening address.

Looking back to 2018, when The Japan Times established the predecessor of the Sustainable Japan Network, she said, “At that time, many said that the government and companies were falling behind countries in Europe and North America in ESG efforts.”

She analyzed the reputation of Japan’s efforts as partly the result of a lack of visibility due to an insufficient capacity to publicize information in English. She also pointed out that imbalanced media coverage hinders thorough understanding of what is really happening, such as in the case of the July 2020 grounding incident in Mauritius that Mitsui O.S.K. Lines was not actually responsible for.

She highlighted the importance of taking responsibility in communicating the facts to the world based on a profound understanding of Japan and Japanese companies.

She celebrated the prizewinners, saying their activities deserve global attention, and promised that The Japan Times, Japan’s oldest English-language newspaper, will keep the word up to date on their achievements.