Sustainability Promotion Framework

The world faces a wide range of environmental and social problems, including global warming, biodiversity loss, poverty, human rights violations, and growing health issues. For companies, the decline in social sustainability that results from the intensification of these problems will lead to deterioration of business foundations in the long run. In order for companies to sustain growth towards the future, they must proactively contribute to creation of a sustainable society by engaging with a sense of ownership in solving problems.

At the Group, we believe that it is our social responsibility not only to practice sound management based on a high degree of self-discipline with the background of a fiduciary spirit but also to actively contribute to building a sustainable society. Under this belief, we pay due consideration to the impact our business activities have on society and provide unique value through our core business to solve social and environmental problems faced by our clients and other stakeholders.

With the recognition that it is our social responsibility to proactively contribute to creating a sustainable society, SuMi TRUST Group has established the “Basic Policy on the Social Responsibility of Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group (Sustainability Policy).” In our Group, the Executive Committee, which is an executive body, discusses and decides on policies and strategies for promoting sustainability, and the Board of Directors supervises this process, in accordance with the Sustainability Policy.

In fiscal 2023, the Sustainability Committee was established as an advisory body to the Executive Committee with the aim of organizationally discussing issues with responsible departments in addressing issues related to sustainability and reporting the progress of the related initiatives. The Committee is comprised of the Officer in charge of the Sustainability Management Department (CSuO^*1) as the chairperson and the Officers in charge of the Corporate Planning Department, the Human Resources Department, and the IR Department as members. It checks the progress of the sustainability initiatives in the Group and deliberates on various measures to promote sustainability. In fiscal 2024, the Officer in charge of the Risk Management Department（CRO^*2) was added as a member of the Committee, in response to the growing attention to sustainability risks.

Through deliberation at the Committee and submission of reports to the Executive Committee, we clarify the scope of issues to address sustainability, and establish a structure to systematically carry out a series of initiatives, including policy planning, response implementation, and disclosure. In fiscal 2023, the first year of the Committee, we held 20 meetings to discuss sustainability, human rights, and human resource strategies.

*1Chief Sustainability Officer

*2Chief Risk Officer

As part of materiality management, the Corporate Planning Department and the Sustainability Management Department engage in dialogue with relevant departments as "pseudo" investors regarding the Group's issues extracted from materiality items, thereby improving business operations and expanding information disclosure. We refer to this initiative as internal engagement and consider it as a check and balance function based on an external perspective, different from the supervisory function of the Board of Directors as a management perspective.

The main purpose of internal engagement is to improve the internal management system of the executive side, but the overall activities are reported to the Board of Directors and issues are shared.

The Corporate Planning Department and the Sustainability Management Department select topics for internal engagement and conduct dialogue with related departments from items pointed out by ESG assessment organizations, dialogue with domestic and overseas ESG investors, standards of proxy advisory companies, communication with NGOs (letters and dialogue), and high-profile issues related to corporate governance codes, ESG, and SDGs. In FY 2023, from November to December 2023, internal engagement on a total of 8 themes was implemented for general managers in 12 departments, and each department recognized them as issues related to business operations and disclosure. Recognized issues were reported to the Sustainability Committee, the Executive Committee, and the Board of Directors.