"Environmental shareholder activism comes to Japan as Mizuho faces climate resolution", 22 June 2020

More investors are publicly backing a resolution to curb coal project lending that shareholders of Mizuho Financial Group are expected to consider this week, the first time such a step is to figure at the annual meeting of a Japanese listed company.

As a new front of stakeholder activism opens up in Japan, advisory groups such as the Institutional Shareholder Services group and Glass Lewis, which advise funds worth more than $35 trillion, back the proposal...

If Thursday’s resolution is passed, it could push Japanese banks, one of the last remaining major holdouts on financing coal, to live up to recent commitments to end lending for the dirtiest fossil fuel as climate concerns grow...

[Danish pension fund] PKA has about $50 billion under management and will vote in favour of the Mizuho resolution...

Swedish pension fund manager AP7, with $64 billion in assets under management, also supports the resolution...It joins three investors who reiterated their support...

Blackrock, which holds about 5% of Mizuho, a stake worth about $1.3 billion), declined to comment.

Ostensibly aimed at getting Mizuho to align its business to goals of the Paris Agreement to counter global warming, the resolution seeks to push the bank to halt backing for coal projects around Asia, a priority for Japan’s government and big business...

Japanese banks have been among the biggest financiers to coal over the last five years...