The Super Cool Biz campaign to ease dress codes and cope with less air conditioning amid an anticipated summer power shortage is extending to shareholder meetings this month.
Nomura Holdings Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. are among 207 companies that are either saying management will attend the meetings in casual attire or asking their shareholders to do likewise, according to a study by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp.
The shareholder meeting season reaches its peak more than three months after the quake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which supplies power to an area covering 40 percent of gross domestic product. Relaxed summer dress codes began in 2005 and accelerated this year amid government efforts to save energy.
"Cool Biz didn't quite spread in the business scene, but the power-saving effort could actually accelerate the trend," said Masahiro Nakagawa, group manager at Tokyo-based Mitsubishi UFJ Trust's corporate agency division. "Shareholders' meetings have traditionally been held in a very formal setting, and this could actually lead to a bigger change in society."
The study is based on 75 percent of the roughly 2,700 companies that are holding their gatherings this month.
A total of 154 companies, including Hitachi Ltd., Japan's second-largest builder of nuclear reactors, Honda Motor Co., the nation's third-largest carmaker, and Sumitomo Corp., the third-biggest trading house, are informing shareholders that their management will attend the meetings in casual attire.