FinanceMap scores this financial institution in the following areas. Please navigate to the relevant tab for in-depth analysis
FinanceMap assesses these portfolios for this financial institution. Please navigate to the relevant tab for in-depth analysis.
Fossil fuel production companies are defined as those with primary sector of operations in the up-, mid-, and/or downstream segments of fossil fuel production. Green companies are defined as companies having over 75% revenue deriving from Substantial Contribution to Mitigation activities under the EU Taxonomy.
Portion of AUM Assessed: $123B
Sector Paris Alignment scores for the sectors in which the asset manager has shareholdings. FinanceMap Paris Alignment analysis is limited to the automotive, upstream fossil fuel, and power sectors.
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| Kansai Electric Power Co Inc | 17.8% |
| Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc | 15.2% |
| Electric Power Development Co Ltd | 14.1% |
| Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc | 12.8% |
| Tohoku Electric Power Co Inc | 12.8% |
| Chubu Electric Power Co Inc | 7.2% |
| Hokkaido Electric Power Company Incorporated | 4.7% |
| Hokuriku Electric Power Co | 4.3% |
| Shikoku Electric Power Co Inc | 3.0% |
| Sembcorp Industries Ltd | 2.5% |
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| Toyota Motor Corp | 32.8% |
| Honda Motor Co Ltd | 22.8% |
| Suzuki Motor Corp | 17.9% |
| Nissan Motor Co Ltd | 11.9% |
| Mazda Motor Corp | 6.5% |
| Subaru Corp | 4.1% |
| Mitsubishi Motors Corp | 2.0% |
| Great Wall Motor Co Ltd | 0.4% |
| Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd | 0.3% |
| Volkswagen AG | 0.3% |
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| China Shenhua Energy Co Ltd | 34.8% |
| Yankuang Energy Group Co Ltd | 20.7% |
| Peabody Energy Corp | 13.5% |
| Coal India Ltd | 11.5% |
| Glencore PLC | 10.9% |
| Exxaro Resources Ltd | 4.0% |
| Adaro Energy Indonesia TBK PT | 2.6% |
| United Tractors Tbk PT | 1.5% |
| Washington H Soul Pattinson and Company Ltd | 0.1% |
| Bukit Asam Tbk PT | 0.1% |
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| Inpex Corp | 26.3% |
| Mitsui & Co Ltd | 21.1% |
| ENEOS Holdings Inc | 12.9% |
| Tokyo Gas Co Ltd | 8.1% |
| Osaka Gas Co Ltd | 4.3% |
| Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd | 3.5% |
| Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras | 3.1% |
| Chevron Corp | 2.9% |
| Cosmo Energy Holdings Co Ltd | 2.7% |
| Exxon Mobil Corp | 1.9% |
All equity funds that FinanceMap has identified as being managed by this asset manager. Click through to a fund's profile page to view in-depth analysis.
SMTAM appears positive on climate. The asset manager has a climate engagement strategy that informs selection of companies to engage with as well as desired climate outcomes such as reduction of GHG emissions and setting long-term and intermediate targets. It appears to follow an engagement structure with broad milestones for tracking progress. The asset manager has not provided a defined escalation response, but has demonstrated the use of escalation for unsuccessful engagements, including divestment.
SMTAM appears to be actively engaging companies on climate change. For example, its engagements with an unnamed company led the company to announce internal carbon pricing and enhance disclosure of emissions, and its engagements with Ameren led the company to review GHG emissions reduction targets and set a net zero by 2050 target. The asset manager does not appear to be engaging companies on climate policy influence. It is a highly active collaborator on climate, leading engagements with CA100+ at several Asian companies and representing Asia on the CA100+ Steering Committee.
SMTAM has outlined the roles of its different stewardship-related governance teams, and appears to review its stewardship policies and activities. It is partially transparent about engagements, providing several case studies but only providing names for global companies. The asset manager discloses all proxy voting data along with voting rationale.
It has demonstrated some use of shareholder authority, sending a letter of support to a shareholder proposal made by Ceres and PRI Engagement partners.
Insightia data indicates that SMTAM did not meet the minimum threshold to assess support of AGM resolutions InfluenceMap categorizes as in line with the Paris Agreement. Therefore, the asset manager has not been scored on InfluenceMap's climate-relevant voting query.
FinanceMap's methodology to measure the engagement process on climate was developed in consultation with several of the world's leading asset managers and uses key aspects of the UK Financial Reporting Council's 2020 Stewardship Code . The Stewardship Code was chosen to benchmark engagement quality as it provides an ambitious framework and detailed definitions of what constitutes effective engagement. FinanceMap defines the term ‘engagement’ as referring to all investor actions undertaken to influence the management strategy of the companies they own including private communications with corporate management and appointed advisors; questions at AGMs/other company meetings; comments on the company in the media; escalation and the shareholder resolution process (filing, voting behavior). FinanceMap’s methodology breaks the engagement process down into a set of sub-activities and looks for evidence associated with these across publicly available data sources.
Climate-relevance categorization of shareholder resolutions is based on the IPCC’s Special Report on 1.5°C and its concluded need for “rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.” FinanceMap scored voting on any resolution where the intent and likely outcome is consistent with this IPCC stated need. The voting data is drawn from asset managers' disclosures to the US Security Exchange Commission (SEC), asset manager websites (including third-party websites they link to), directly from the asset managers, and through specialist voting data provider Insightia. The full list of resolutions assessed is available here.
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings (SMTH) appears to mostly have engaged on sustainability-related corporate disclosures, with very limited but broadly positive engagement on sustainable finance regulation.
SMTH has supported the role of finance in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. Subsidiaries Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management and Nikko Asset Management have further advocated for the role for finance in keeping global temperature rise to within 1.5C and net-zero by 2050 in joint statements to governments in 2021 and 2022, and as members of the Net-Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAMI). In its 2021-2022 sustainability report, SMTH also supported the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, and subsidiary Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management advocated for the framework to mandate the alignment of financial flows with biodiversity goals in a statement by the financial sector in 2022.
SMTH has mostly engaged on corporate sustainability disclosures, through its subsidiaries. In joint statements to governments in 2021 and 2022, Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management and Nikko Asset Management advocated for mandatory implementation of the TCFD and 1.5C pathway-aligned transition plans. In another joint statement in 2022, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management advocated for policymakers to support the assessment and disclosure of nature-related impacts and dependencies. In response to the US SEC in 2022, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management also advocated for increased ambition of the proposed climate disclosure proposal.
SMTH has stated that it is engaging with policymakers on sustainable finance in its sustainability reporting, but with no further details of specific policies it is engaging on or the outcomes it is seeking. SMTH has also disclosed some memberships to third party organizations but has not given details on board or committee memberships, the sustainable finance policy positions of these organizations, or actions taken to address misalignments.
InfluenceMap’s methodology for assessing lobbying on sustainable finance policy closely follows InfluenceMap’s established methodology on climate policy engagement, which is used extensively by investors, including via the Climate Action 100+ investor engagement process. Our full methodology can be found here.
Under our assessment of sustainable finance lobbying, InfluenceMap considers engagement on all financial policies which intersect with climate and/or other sustainability issues. The analysis takes into account both the engagement of the financial institution and the activities of industry associations they hold membership of.
InfluenceMap’s methodology covers seven publicly available data sources, searching for evidence of engagement and corporate positioning since 2017. To determine the policy issues within the scope of the analysis, InfluenceMap breaks down sustainable finance policy engagement into a series of subcategories, or 'queries'. These are designed to cover high-level issues relating to the importance of sustainable finance, as well as more specific areas of sustainable finance policymaking. InfluenceMap’s research process searches for evidence of an organization's engagement with each sustainable finance policy issue, across each of the data sources.
The following table outlines the key queries and data sources, which FinanceMap uses to assess asset managers' corporate engagement programs. Every evidence piece is assessed on a five-point scale of -2,-1,0,1,2 or NA (not applicable)/NS (not scored). All queries, data sources, and evidence pieces are weighted against one another in a matrix system to arrive at a final top-level score. Clicking on specific cells will load the underlying evidence and information on how it has been assessed.
In this section, we depict graphically the relationships the corporation has with trade associations, federations, advocacy groups and other third parties who may be acting on their behalf to influence climate change policy. Each of the columns above represents one relationship the corporation appears to have with such a third party.
In these columns, the top, dark section represents the strength of the relationship the corporation has with the influencer. For example if a corporation's senior executive also held a key role in the trade association, we would deem this to be a strong relationship and it would be on the far left of the chart above, with the weaker ones to the right. Click on these grey shaded upper sections for details of these relationships. The middle section contains a link to the organization score details of the influencer concerned, so you can see the details of its climate change policy influence. Click on the middle sections for for details of the trade associations. The lower section contains the organization score of that influencer, the lower the more negatively it is influencing climate policy.
InfluenceMap Data Point on Corporate - Influencer Relationship
(1 = weak, 10 = strong)
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management and Nikko Asset Management Europe is a member of The Investment Association (last checked September 2023).
not specified
--no extract--
InfluenceMap Data Point on Corporate - Influencer Relationship
(1 = weak, 10 = strong)
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management and Nikko Asset Management Europe is a member of The Investment Association (last checked September 2023).
not specified
--no extract--
Open PDF file of Data Source