Dialogue With Overseas ESG Investors

Here at the ANA Group, we identify social demands through dialogue with stakeholders, and then align our corporate strategy with these requirements, evaluating the impact on business and society. Finally we incorporate these requirements into corporate initiatives.

In this time, we exchanged opinions online with ESG investors who have been holding regular dialogues on the progress of ESG management in the ANA Group and Global Trends in ESG investment.

Excerpts of comments on the ANA Group(EOS at Federated Hermes)

• Regarding the Carbon Neutral announced by the Japanese government, it is important for the Japanese companies to work and challenge with the government and business industry to realize this in the future.
• Regarding the foreign workers, we would like to see proper disclosure of information when something goes wrong.
• Regarding diversity, the number of female managers is steadily increasing but we believe there is still room for improvement, and would like to be informed if there are plans for any ongoing activities. When exercising voting rights, the number of female directors of each company will be judged based on stricter standards than before.
• Please formulate and disclose a policy on the exercise of voting rights regarding cross-shareholdings (stockholdings).
• We have recently become aware of climate change and biodiversity, and their increasing negative impact on our living environment in addition to air pollution. For example, we can no longer deny the possibility that the antibiotics we feed to meat (livestock) may have an adverse impact on humans in the long run. Especially in China where the outbreak of Covid-19 occurred, some believe that the disease arose in the animal market, and that the number of infected people is rising due to the increased contact between humans and wildlife through deforestation.

Excerpts of comments on the ANA Group(World Benchmarking Alliance)

• If planning on being actively involved in the efforts related to Science Based Targets, it is advisable to refer to the guidance provided by the Science Based Targets Initiative. The 'ACT' assessment, used for the WBA Climate and Energy Benchmark, assesses various aspects of targets: including short-term goal of five years and a long-term goal of milestones up to 2050. Since we are unable to grasp as of now, when the current situation will change due to technological innovations etc., it can be advisable to draw a realistic grand design by focusing on the landing point for 2050 while flexibly reviewing the activity plan on a five-year time scale.
• We recognize that airlines have a complex series of operations involving a variety of equipment and people, including aircraft and other vehicles. In the transportation industry, Scope 1, 2, and 3 are the most challenging issues to be addressed, depending on whether the company owns or leases its vehicles. We would like to continue our discussions as WBA prepares to benchmark transport companies with the newly developed ACT Transport methodology, which specifies the extent to which these business areas should be addressed.
• We believe the trend of tightening regulations on due diligence laws will spread not only to the European region but also to other regions in the future. In terms of due diligence, it will be necessary to identify and disclose the information on the risks and impacts of a company's business on society and the environment, in a way that links both environmental and human rights, rather than addressing them separately.
• In regards to the grievance mechanism:
  • It will be good to disclose information about how the grievance mechanism is used in practice (ANA hasn't received any grievances so far, but when it is the case, then information on the number of grievances filed, resolved, any trends in issues raised would be interesting).
  • On the fact that no grievances have been received so far: this could be a sign that potential users are not aware of the mechanism or not sure how to use it or that it's the right platform to air grievances: consulting with potential users to make sure they're aware of the mechanism but also to increase trust in it could help.