In August 2023, Nippon Life Insurance Company, the biggest life insurance company in Japan, published its new ESG policy. According to the newly released policy, the insurance company now adds nuclear weapon producers to the companies it excludes from investment or finance. Producers of cluster munitions, biological weapons, chemical weapons and anti-personnel mines were already excluded by Nippon Life.
In our 2022 report ‘Risky Returns: Nuclear weapon producers and their financiers’, Nippon Life still featured as one of the financial institutions with investments in companies involved in nuclear weapon production. The new policy is therefore a very welcome development and an important first step to divest from all nuclear weapon producers.