5. Enhancing sustainability management

SMFG has carried out various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities for years with a focus on three priority issues―the environment, community, and the next generation―which were specified in March 2014 from a medium- to long-term perspective.

Specifically, many environmental activities have been conducted in order to realize a number of objectives, such as reducing electricity usage and combustible waste as a measure to alleviate environmental burdens, improving operational efficiency through paperless operations and other initiatives, providing environmental education programs for all employees, and promoting environmental business as efforts to contribute to preserving and improving the global environment through business activities. In the area related to the next generation, group-wide initiatives are carried out to continuously provide a wide range of financial literacy education programs.

Since the mid-2010s, SMFG stepped up its efforts from the previous CSR activities to begin promoting sustainability management, in response to mounting international concerns over the sustainability of the global environment and society. In April 2020, SMFG announced SMBC Group Statement on Sustainability. Then, based on the statement, the Group established the ten-year plan SMBC Group GREEN×GLOBE 2030, and presented a set of commitments, including a pledge to achieve a total of 30 trillion yen of green finance (20 trillion yen out of the total) and finance that contributes to realizing sustainability from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2029.

In May 2021, SMBC Group unveiled its Roadmap Addressing Climate Change, a long-term action plan to contribute to achieving a carbon-neutral society by 2050, along with Action Plan STEP 1, a package of related initiatives to be undertaken during the earliest phase.