Sustainable Lab partners with Gunma Bank to launch new services for SMEs

Sustainable Lab, developer and provider of Japan’s largest non-financial data platform “TERRAST”, has entered into a business partnership with Gunma Bank to launch new services for SMEs, promoting ESG management and information disclosure.

Background of the Partnership

Amid growing global awareness of climate change and social issues, businesses are being asked to transition to sustainable management practices. However, many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the backbone of regional economies, face significant hurdles in implementing sustainability initiatives and often struggle to take the first step.

To address this, Sustainable Lab has partnered with Gunma Bank, a regional financial institution dedicated to supporting local businesses, to develop the “Gunma Bank SDGs/ESG Management Evaluation and Diagnosis Service”. Together, the two companies aim to support the sustainable management of SMEs through this service.

The Service

This scoring service, jointly developed by Sustainable Lab, evaluates and scores a company’s overall SDGs/ESG initiatives and allows for benchmarking against other companies in the same industry. This allows businesses to objectively and quantitatively grasp their own sustainability efforts. The free version emphasizes the “E” (environment) pillar, which is crucial for climate change countermeasures. By quantifying a company’s environmental initiatives, the service aims to promote and support ESG management and create new opportunities between financial institutions and businesses.

The paid version covers all three pillars of ESG — E (environment), S (social), and G (governance). It provides a comprehensive evaluation and scoring of a company’s ESG management efforts.

Please follow us to read more about Finance & FinTech in Japan, like hundreds of readers do every day. We invite you to also register for our short weekly digest, the “Japan FinTech Observer”, on Medium or on LinkedIn. Our global Finance & FinTech Podcast, “eXponential Finance” is also available through its own LinkedIn newsletter, or via our Podcast Page.

Should you live in Tokyo, or just pass through, please also join our meetup. In any case, our YouTube channel and LinkedIn page are there for you as well.