Konica Minolta named to ESG indexes
August 2, 2021
The company has been named to all ESG Indexes adopted by the GPIF for five consecutive years and included in the FTSE4Good Index Series for 18 consecutive years.
Konica Minolta, Inc. has been named to all of the four responsible investment (RI) indexes adopted by Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). These four indexes are the FTSE Blossom Japan Index, the MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders Index, the MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index and the S&P/JPX Carbon Efficient Index.
This is the fifth consecutive year for Konica Minolta to be listed on all of these ESG indexes since the GPIF first adopted them.
Konica Minolta has also been included in the FTSE4Good Index Series, which is one of the most well-known RI indexes in the world, for 18 consecutive years.
In its Medium-term Business Plan “DX2022,” Konica Minolta declares its determination to evolve into a company clearly committed to solving social issues as part of its basic policy, and says it has remained committed to developing innovations that can promote both the creation of new value for the global environment and human society, and the growth of its business.
In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the company said it considered how it could contribute to the fight against the pandemic, and has been providing various support and solutions, leveraging the strengths it has developed in the healthcare business and a wide range of other areas. To help with the recent vaccination effort, for example, the company assisted in setting up mass vaccination centres by applying its know-how in arranging event venues, while adding speech-to-text and remote sign-language interpreting services to its “multi-language interpreting for medical institutions” app, to help hearing-impaired persons at vaccination centres. In this way, Konica Minolta continues efforts to address social problems through its business activities.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Digital Platform launched by 16 Japanese companies, including Konica Minolta, has now grown to 44 member companies in just one year since its inception. Konica Minolta uses this platform to work with the companies to develop and share country-specific navigation maps that compile information related to the introduction of renewable energy and recycled materials, thus helping to accelerate the environmental management efforts of the member companies.
Through these efforts, Konica Minolta is striving to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while facilitating the evolution of the business community and human society.
The FTSE4Good Index Series, which was introduced by FTSE Russell, a UK-based global index provider, lists companies around the world demonstrating strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices, and provides a means for investors and RI funds to select companies with good sustainability prospects for investment. The FTSE Blossom Japan Index is designed to include Japanese companies with excellent performance in ESG practices, and was selected by GPIF, the world’s largest public pension fund, as one of the ESG indexes for its passive investment strategy.
The MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders Index and the MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index are ESG indexes introduced in 2017 by MSCI Inc., a US-based global ESG research and index provider. These indexes were also adopted by the GPIF.
The S&P/JPX Carbon Efficient Index was launched jointly by S&P Dow Jones Indices, one of the world’s major index providers, and Japan Exchange Group, Inc. Using TOPIX as a benchmark, it is designed to reduce exposure to high-carbon companies while maintaining the risk/return profile similar to that of their benchmarks. This index, too, was selected by GPIF as an environmental index.
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