欧洲和美国目前在可持续投资市场中占主导地位，但日本正在成为竞争者。日本政府养老金投资基金（GPIF）是世界上最大的，资产为1.5万亿美元，2017年，该基金增加了其可持续投资的目标in its stock portfolio from 3 to 10 percent. Arecent outlook彭博社（Bloomberg）说，GPIF是推动全球可持续投资的关键力量。和民意调查日本由34个机构投资者组成的日本可持续投资论坛表明，其可持续性元素的资产百分比从2016年的16.8％增加到2017年的35％。

日本的blossoming rolein sustainable investing has huge potential for impacts globally. The country has the world’s第三大资产管理市场, with its financial institutions managing near30万亿美元。

But two hurdles stand in the way of Japan realizing its full sustainable investment potential—sustainability has not yet been fully integrated in business strategies and practices, and information disclosure by companies remains inadequate.

可持续性并非完全内部化。

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria reflect the sustainability of companies’ operations and are used to guide investments for greater long-term returns. Because of the foreign origin and short history of sustainable investing and companies’ ESG integration, the investment and business community in Japan has yet to fully understand these concepts. Critics argue that companies’ ESG disclosurelacks financially material information, and what data is available investors have difficulties interpreting. Without integrating ESG into core values, companies’ disclosures and investors’ assessments could end up being box-ticking exercises that do not inform decision-making in a meaningful way. This breeds skepticism about the value of sustainable investing and holds the market back.

所需的信息和披露之间存在不匹配。

尽管日本公司越来越了解对ESG披露的需求和信息披露的需求正在增长，但投资者经常发现它并不令人满意。这是因为公司透露的不符合投资者的需求。

对于某些投资者而言，所披露的信息不符合他们的需求，因为它不标准化，可比较，可量化或客观地验证。满足此类需求的信息类型可能包括温室气体排放，水压力，垃圾废物等等。披露简单的事实和数据通常不够, or it is not articulated within the context of the company’s business strategy. A beverage company, for example, may need to do a deep dive into water resource management as investors might want to know the potential impacts of climate change on its water management and its strategy to manage water stress. On the other hand, many Japanese companies feel disoriented in the disclosure realm generally since there are no set rules or standards, and they do not fully understand the information needs of investors.

第三方数据和评级机构collect scattered data from different sources to provide metrics, reports, and ratings on companies’ ESG performance. However, the fact that these代理商使用各种信息集并创建不同的评分部分原因是为什么应该披露哪些信息以及如何解释可用信息感到困惑。

这并不意味着本地指导完全缺失。日本环境部（MOE）和经济，贸易和工业部（METI）均为ESG信息披露提供了指导。MEE指导考虑了最近的国际发展，例如可持续发展目标，巴黎协定和来自Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD)。

Tokyo Stock Exchange. Photo by tanaciousme/Flickr
Tokyo Stock Exchange. Photo by tanaciousme/Flickr

但是，MOE和METI指南是自愿的。日本的财务监管机构和日本证券交易所集团（JPX）缺乏制定自己的公司报告指南或正式采用MOE或METI的指南。指代私营公司ESG披露的唯一监管指南是由东京证券交易所发布并由金融服务局（FSA）支持的公司治理法规。必威官网亚洲体育上市公司需要遵守该代码（或解释是否不说明），但是该代码本身并未就要披露的信息以及如何提供实际指导。

Opportunities for Advancing Sustainable Investment in Japan

These challenges are daunting, but they are not insurmountable, and they must be addressed urgently. As therecent IPCC report reminds us, there’s really no time to waste in changing how investors allocate capital. Here are two ideas for further scaling up sustainable investment in Japan:

1.以身作则，并推动其他人遵循。

For sustainable investment to take root, a critical mass of investors and companies who take it seriously and adopt it is necessary. The role of front runners is important in accelerating this process.

GPIF正在扮演这样的领导角色。它2015年签署了负责投资原则（PRI）自那时以来，日本资产所有者签署国的数量增加了一倍（从7到16）。目前，它根据五个ESG指数，包括two recently announced carbon efficiency indices。这些新指数通过给各自行业的碳效率更高的投资权重来减少排放的动力来减少排放。

In addition, GPIF haschanged the way it engages with its asset managers: It requires all of them to integrate ESG considerations into their investment decisions, is monitoring them more closely, and has introduced a new performance fee structure with multi-year contracts to incentivize a long-term focus. GPIF is also strengthening its engagement with ESG rating agencies to improve their rating methods. And just this past month,它加入了气候行动100+必威官网是真的吗，全球投资者的倡议敦促公司减少排放。

Given its size, GPIF has a significant amount of influence on other institutional investors, as well as investee companies—both within Japan and globally. To reach critical mass, it is vital for them to encourage other major investors in Japan to follow their lead.

2.提高人们对现有披露指南的认识，并鼓励更多的协调。

考虑到不同信息需求和资本市场的全球性质，有关ESG/可持续性信息披露的全面指南是有益的。有多项国际披露计划，例如Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), theGlobal Reporting Initiativeand the可持续性会计标准委员会。

投资者和政府机构可以合作，以提高对现有指导的认识，并呼吁公司进行更高质量的披露。他们还可以合作以协调披露要求，例如，通过将与气候相关的披露与TCFD建议保持一致。必威官网是真的吗负责投资的原则报告在日本上，提供了一些有关如何改善披露的建议，例如通过提供JPX的ESG信息披露指南，并审查Meti和FSA披露信息的质量和可比性。

定期重新审视这些建议对于衡量是否正在取得进展非常重要。这样的进展不仅应有助于克服信息不匹配，因此投资者可以更轻松地采用可持续投资方法，还可以帮助公司将业务案例内部化为可持续性。

日本以外

Given GPIF’s recent moves, it’s clear that the investment community in Japan is waking up to the risks and opportunities presented by sustainability and ESG integration. No country has put all the pieces of the puzzle together to fully integrate sustainability in the mainstream investor marketplace. But as investors in Japan deepen their efforts at home and abroad, the global prospects for sustainable investing will improve as well.