350 Japan wins Sustainable Finance Award for NGO efforts

350 Japan, an international environmental non-governmental organization (NGO), will receive the NPO/NGO Award at the 8th Sustainable Finance Awards. The award is sponsored by the Research Institute for Environmental Finance (RIEF) and recognizes financial institutions, companies, and organizations that have contributed to the development of environmental and sustainable finance in Japan.

The reason for 350 Japan receiving the award was due to their collaboration with partner organizations in implementing shareholder proposals and engagements calling for stronger climate change countermeasures, and their efforts in encouraging megabanks to implement climate countermeasures and information disclosure.

350 Japan, along with partner organizations and citizen shareholders, submitted a shareholder proposal to Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMBC Group) calling for stronger measures against climate change. Although the proposal did not receive the “two-thirds or more” approval required, it did receive support from domestic and foreign investors.

NGOs such as 350 Japan investigated the actual conditions of financial institutions’ investments in fossil fuels and supported the shareholder proposal by developing a citizen action requesting that the money invested in fossil fuels be redirected to clean energy-saving and renewable energy.

Eri Watanabe, senior campaigner for 350 Japan, expressed their gratitude for receiving the award and noted that they will continue to work with domestic and international citizen movements to address the climate crisis. The award reflects the growing grassroots movement in solidarity with citizens, not only in Japan but around the world, calling for corporate action to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees amidst the manifestation of the climate crisis.

More about the climate crisis in Japan