November 06, 2024
【Sustainable Japan Grand Prize】Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc.
Director, President and CEO
We are very pleased to receive this prestigious award.
The world is full of problems, such as global warming, loss of biodiversity, conflicts, poverty, human rights abuses and an increase in health hazards. Sustainable corporate growth requires companies to be involved in solving these problems with a sense of ownership, and to actively contribute to the creation of a sustainable society. While creating an impact on society, we must also generate economic returns.
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group is engaged in environmentally and socially conscious sustainable finance in order to actively contribute to our customers’ ESG goals and sustainable management. In addition, from the perspective of technological innovation, we have partnered with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, Apollo and others and last year established a new company with the Japanese subsidiary of the ERM Group, the world’s largest sustainability consulting firm, to support corporate response to climate change.
In addition, I would like to introduce our Forest Trust as a unique business. Japan’s forestry industry faces many problems, including the aging and decline of forestry workers, and devastated forests whose owners are difficult to identify. Forest Trust is a business in which forests themselves are entrusted to us in order to contribute to a green and sustainable society and the revitalization of local economies.
As a mechanism for promoting sustainability and human capital, we established a new Sustainability Committee in 2023
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of our group. In the spirit of trust, based on confidence and integrity, we will continue to fulfill our fiduciary role based on long-term relationships of trust with our customers. We will continue to contribute to solving social issues through the power of trust and contribute to the development of a sustainable and prosperous society as a unified group for the next 100 years.
Reason for the award:
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings contributes to the realization of carbon neutrality and the construction of strong supply chains. It has built long-term trust with its customers through its active engagement with their investees. It has the ability to flexibly develop and transform its business models, staying ahead of changes in the business environment. This can be seen as a source of its sustainable management. Moreover, as one of its policies for improving well-being in the workplace, it actively invests in human capital development. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust has formulated strategies based on “paving the way for the next 100 years with the power of trust” as the core of its blueprint for ideal management into the future. The strategies include taking a “backcasting” approach by outlining where it wants to be in 2030, selling all its cross-shareholdings and setting numerical targets like a 10% return on equity. Furthermore, it has set up a sustainability committee to advise management on the creation of both social and economic value.
