Japanese gov pension fund selects new indices for ESG integration
The Government Pension Investment Fund for Japan (GPIF) has selected a pair of new indices launched by index provider MSCI as benchmarks for its ESG investment strategy.
The two indexes chosen are the MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index (Win) and the MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders Index.
The MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index (Win) holds companies whose gender diversity initiatives have been determined by MSCI ESG Research to encourage more women to enter or return to the workforce.
Metrics such as the percentage of women in new hires, as a total workforce, in senior management are used.
As for the MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders Index, it includes companies that show the best ESG profile relative to their sector peers.
The constitution of this new index relies on MSCI ESG Ratings and targets companies from within the MSCI Japan IMI Top 500 Index.
Diana Tidd, MSCI’s head of Index, said: “The Japan Empowering Women Index (WIN) and the MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders indexes we launched today reflect the thought leadership and innovation we bring to the world’s largest institutional investors as they seek to integrate ESG into their investment processes, and benchmark selection.”
Seiichiro Uchi, head of Japan Index & ESG Coverage at MSCI, commented: “We are pleased that GPIF has selected these new MSCI benchmarks as they expand their ESG investing initiatives. These two indexes come at a time when the importance of ESG integration is becoming ever more important and diversifying Japan’s workforce is increasingly viewed as a key factor in the country’s continued economic development.”
MSCI runs over 700 ESG indexes and claims more than $58bn in assets are benchmarked to MSCI ESG indexes globally.
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