Japan’s $1.3 trillion GPIF backs corporate integrated financial-sustainability reporting by asking fund managers to rank the best

Japan’s $1.3 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, has given a major boost to the practice of integrated reporting – the combining of financial and ESG data – by requesting that 16 of its domestic equity fund managers nominate companies that have produced 10 ‘excellent’ integrated reports and 10 ‘most-improved’.
The move by the world’s biggest pension fund brings serious investor support to integrated reporting in Japan and internationally. It will be of interest to foreign investors looking for comparable financial/sustainability data at Japanese companies. GPIF has aggregated the data and produced a top rank of the best companies in each category.
The five companies most nominated by Japanese fund managers as publishers of excellent integrated reports are:

• Ajinomoto Co., Inc, the food and chemical company

• Konica Minolta, Inc, the IT/business tech company

• OMRON Corporation, the electronics manufacturer

• ITOCHU Corporation, the textiles to food group

• MARUI GROUP CO., LTD, the retail groupThe four companies with the most-improved integrated reports are

• Daiwa House Industry Co., Ltd, the construction company

• Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd.

• OMRON Corporation

• Sumitomo Corporation, the general trading company

The results of the survey have been compiled into lists of 70 and 68 companies respectively selected for having created excellent integrated reports and most-improved integrated reports. The lists can be seen here.
Integrated reporting has been taken up in Japan as part of wider reforms to modernise the economy under Abenomics, and as part of the Ito review on stewardship and corporate governance. RI recently interviewed Richard Howitt, a former MEP and recently appointed chief executive of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), following a major trip to Japan.