Nippon Life Insurance

Nippon Life Insurance publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The financial institution has annual report where it describes its engagement approach on sustainability themes and impact topics with clients and investees. The financial institution also publishes an ESG report describing how the engagement process is applied in practice.

As a member of the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance Nippon Life Insurance has set a target of net-zero financed emissions by 2050. The financial institution also states that it will reduce financed emissions by more than 45% by 2030. Additionally, the financial institution discloses the key sectors and companies it has identified as priorities to engage with on climate change, and the rationale for choosing these priorities. It also states that alignment with the Paris Agreement is one of its engagement topics and as a member of Climate Action 100+, the financial institution discloses that it collectively engages with its clients on the topic of climate change.

Nippon Life Insurance has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights.

In terms of its approach to senior leadership accountability, Nippon Life Insurance assigns responsibility for sustainability to the group’s Sustainability Management Promotion Committee and not to its board of directors. Additionally there is no evidence that the financial institution links the remuneration of its executive or management teams to sustainability performance criteria. With regard to female representation in leadership positions, women are underrepresented on the board of directors where only 2 out of 24 board members are women and the financial institution has an opportunity to reach at least 40% female representation in senior leadership positions. with success criteria and escalation points.

While Nippon Life Insurance encourages its clients to set a 1.5°C-aligned strategy, it has an opportunity to make this a requirement. Although the financial institution discloses the aggregate amount of finance it devotes to climate solutions, it has an opportunity to disclose what the climate solutions are and to discloses time-bound targets explicitly for its climate solutions. There is no evidence that the financial institution is committed to minimising the negative impacts it has on nature and biodiversity. Additionally no evidence was found regarding the financial institution’s approach to fossil fuels that spans across the fossil fuel value chain, such as the amount or share of finance it directs towards fuels, or its stance on financing companies with new fossil fuel projects.

Nippon Life Insurance has an opportunity to describe a comprehensive process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, especially its financing activities. The financial institution also has an opportunity to disclose the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group, gender or another indicator of diversity. Additionally there is no evidence that it discloses a policy on bribery and corruption and its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption. 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, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or low-income developing countries.