3 years ago
Environmental, Social and Governance investing is getting popular in Japan that even Buddhist monks are getting into it.The new investor is a Zen Buddhist temple in central Tokyo.
More and more Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines are interested in buying environmental, social and governance bonds.
It’s a sustainable investing in Japan shows Environmental, Social and Governance investment has increased by 68% in 2020.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing class of investing that is also known as “sustainable investing. This is used by investors to evaluate corporations and determine the future financial performance.
The Japanese population is shrinking. This is reducing the number of their followers that can pay for their functioning of Monterey. Religious organizations are under pressure to earn more from investing.
More religious groups want to make money for building repairs and maintenance over the coming decades.According to government data, Members of religious groups have dropped about 12% in the last year.
The coronavirus pandemic is maximising loss as well. In normal years 160,000 people visit shrines and temples at the start of the year. But this year many have stayed away due to the virus. Due to which religious groups were derived from the income of donations.
Religious groups are also getting more involved in sustainability projects. Groups are seeking to create a more equitable and sustainable economic system.
Those developments have provoked temples and shrines to rethink the use of cash. The cash raised from followers in the past were kept in conservative investments such as bank savings and government bonds.
They said at a time when people can barely get any returns from long-term savings they are happy to contribute to help society.
Zen Buddhist temples have started taking various risks. They think ESG investing is an appropriate way of using their offering for social welfare.
Source:Bloomberg-compiled data
(Bloomberg)
