3 Minutes to Read by 3 Minutes to Read by 3 Minutes to Read by 3 Reuters, TOKYO, June 29 – Shareholders of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group voted down a plan to connect the bank’s operations with global climate change targets on Tuesday, giving the board a victory over environmental activists. Activist investors in Europe and the United States have succeeded in forcing firms to sell their fossil fuel interests, but the strategy has so far failed in Japan. This is the fourth time a so-called shareholder climate resolution has been defeated after being presented to a publicly traded Japanese business since 2020. Japanese corporate boards have benefited from the support of domestic institutional investors who favor management. Mitsubishi UFJ is Japan’s largest lender, and it has a long history of supporting coal and fossil fuel projects. A Mitsubishi UFJ representative verified via email that the proposal was defeated at the company’s annual general meeting, with around 23% of shareholders voting against it. The board of Mitsubishi UFJ voted against the resolution, claiming that the proposal’s “core content” “has already been included into the company’s management strategy,” citing a recent carbon neutrality pledge and other policy changes as examples. The resolution was proposed by non-governmental organizations Kiko Network and Rainforest Action Network, and it was backed by a number of shareholders, including Federated Hermes’ EOS, which focuses on sustainable investing. In an email, Sachi Suzuki, affiliated director for engagement at EOS at Federated Hermes, said, “While we welcome the latest improvements to the company’s policies and the net zero pledge for 2050, we do not believe these are adequately aligned to prevent global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.” To avoid the worst effects of climate change, the 2015 Paris Agreement urges countries to reduce carbon emissions to limit average temperature rises to under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial levels. The first Japanese publicly traded firm to confront a climate resolution was Mizuho Financial Group, which was defeated by shareholders last year. Sumitomo and Kansai Electric Power have both fought identical resolutions in the last two weeks. Takashi Umekawa and Aaron Sheldrick contributed reporting, while Christian Schmollinger edited the piece. Continue reading