PwC Japan Group awarded triple honours by PRIDE Index 2022 for initiatives aimed at LGBT+ inclusion, recognised with Gold, Rainbow, and Best Practice awards
PwC Japan Group
11 November 2022
Tokyo, Japan, 10 November 2022 - The PwC Japan Group (chair: Koichiro Kimura; hereinafter ‘PwC Japan’) was ranked Gold by the voluntary organisation ‘work with Pride’*1 for the fifth year in a row in their 2022 PRIDE Index. PwC Japan also received the Rainbow award for the second year in a row and, for the first time ever, the Best Practice award, in recognition of PwC Health Insurance Society’s efforts to generate collective impact*2 by driving transgender-friendly service at health check facilities through the development and distribution of applicable criteria for transgender-friendly medical institutions, which use a rainbow mark to indicate institutions that meet the standards.
*1 A voluntary organisation that supports efforts to drive and firmly establish diversity management practices related to LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other sexual minorities) inclusion at companies and other organisations. For more information, see https://workwithpride.jp/about-us/.
*2 ‘Collective impact’ is defined as a commitment made by a group composed of key players from various sectors (such as companies, government agencies and NPOs) to take on a common agenda in order to solve a specific social problem. For more information, see https://workwithpride.jp/rainbow/.
The PRIDE Index was established in 2016 as the first performance index to measure LGBT+ inclusion efforts at workplaces in Japan. The purpose of this index is to improve awareness of what LGBT+ employees need to work comfortably, and to act as a guideline for the promotion of internal measures.
The Rainbow award is awarded only to companies that receive the Gold award, support the establishment of laws related to LGBT+ issues, and that promote collective impact initiatives. The Best Practice award is given to those initiatives among the nominees that are deemed to be especially notable as best practices—for example, especially novel LGBT+ initiatives or initiatives representing new ideas.
Based on their global strategy, The New Equation, PwC brings together diverse professionals in a variety of fields to solve social problems, with the aim of building trust and delivering sustained outcomes for their clients. To achieve this, they strive to foster an inclusive culture through various inclusion and diversity (I&D) activities designed to enable each of their people to realise their full potential. As part of these efforts, PwC Japan takes active measures to foster LGBT+ inclusion, including the operation of internal networks for LGBT+ employees and for allies. (For details, please see the following section, ‘The PwC Japan Group’s efforts to realise LGBT+ inclusion’.)
In addition, PwC Japan has sponsored Tokyo Rainbow Pride (https://tokyorainbowpride.com/english/) since 2018, and in 2022 also sponsored Rainbow Festa! 2022, one of the largest LGBT+ events in western Japan.
The PwC Japan Group’s efforts to realise LGBT+ inclusion
1. PwC Health Insurance Society’s LGBT+ Inclusion × Wellbeing efforts: Driving transgender-friendly service at partner medical institutions through the development and distribution of ‘Transgender-friendly service standards for health check facilities’ and the use of a rainbow mark to indicate transgender-friendly institutions
Based on requests from transgender people, the PwC Japan Group has for several years been using a rainbow mark on the list of partner medical institutions that it distributes to all insured persons to make it easier to identify which facilities are LGBT+ friendly. However, interviews with representatives of multiple medical institutions, internal LGBT+ groups and persons in charge of inclusion and diversity brought to light several issues related to the standards used to award the rainbow mark, which had not been clearly defined. As an effort to address this issue, the PwC Health Insurance Society developed applicable criteria for transgender-friendly medical institutions (https://secure.pwc-kenpo.jp/eng/infoKenpo.jsp?nid=1000000000016436, and distributed these criteria to the 185 health check facilities with which they have contracts in November 2021. As the result of their follow-up efforts to respond to inquiries and consultations from medical institutions, the PwC Health Insurance Society was able to assign the rainbow mark to 67 of the 185 medical institutions included in their 2022 list of contracted health-check facilities, giving transgender people more options for facilities where they could feel comfortable taking their yearly health check. The establishment of these criteria also clarified the specific points that each medical institution needed to address, helping the medical institutions that provide health checks to stabilize their operations and make their facilities easier for transgender patients to use.
2. The PwC Japan Group’s pledge to support marriage equality
In 2019, the PwC Japan Group signed a joint proposal published by the chambers of commerce of various countries regarding marriage equality. In 2020, the group participated in Business for Marriage Equality (BME), a campaign aimed at visualising which companies support the enactment of marriage equality into law, and in 2021, pledged their support for Business Support for LGBT Equality in Japan (https://www.hrw.org/EqualityActJapan).
3. Inter-company collaboration and implementation of a marriage equality movement within the PwC network (collective impact initiatives)
Since July 2021, the PwC Japan Group has collaborated with the general incorporated association Marriage For All Japan, an organisation which aims to achieve marriage equality through its enactment into law in Japan, to encourage the PwC Japan Group’s clients and business partners to join BME by leveraging the PwC network, increasing the number of participating companies as a result.
The PwC Japan Group works together with the PwC global network to display inclusive leadership aimed at achieving an inclusive society that enables everyone to achieve their full potential.
About PwC
At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We’re a network of firms in 152 countries with nearly 328,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. For details, see www.pwc.com.
About the PwC Japan Group
The PwC Japan Group is a collective name for the member firms of the PwC global network in Japan and their affiliates. Each firm within the PwC Japan Group conducts its business as a separate, independent business entity.
In response to our clients’ increasingly complex and diverse corporate management issues, the PwC Japan Group has put in place a system that consolidates our knowledge in the fields of auditing and assurance, consulting, deal advisory, tax and legal services, and encourages organic collaboration among our professionals in each field. As a professional services network with approximately 10,200 certified public accountants, tax accountants, lawyers and other professional staff, we strive to provide services that more accurately address our clients’ needs.
Related content