According to Japan’s Ministry of the Environment, the government has completed its competitive review process and selected companies for “outstanding-practice” certification under the FY2026 ESG Lease Promotion Project, a component of the national CO₂ emission-reduction subsidy programme aimed at building a carbon-neutral society.
The certification scheme has been in place since FY2023. It formally recognises designated leasing companies that have demonstrated exceptional track records in placing decarbonisation equipment with their clients. The mechanism is structured to extend green capital access to small and medium-sized enterprises — and across broader supply chains — by using leasing intermediaries as the primary distribution point rather than targeting end-users directly.
Certified operators receive a government-issued certificate and an exclusive logo mark; a tiered recognition system rewards consecutive selection with a silver mark for two years running and a gold mark for three or more consecutive years. The full roster of FY2026 awardees is published in a PDF annex linked from the ministry’s official notice.
Carbon Market Context
- Japan’s broader green transition ecosystem remained active heading into mid-2026: the GX Future Consortium and GX Future League opened membership recruitment in March 2026, extending the network of private-sector actors formally aligned with government carbon-neutral targets.
- A working group on green market creation through intermediate emitters published its findings in March 2026, signalling continued policy interest in using supply-chain intermediaries — rather than direct emitters alone — as structural leverage points for decarbonisation, a logic that mirrors the ESG lease programme’s design.
- The GX Human Resources Market Creation Working Group also released outputs in March 2026, indicating that Japan’s carbon-neutral industrial policy is being built out simultaneously across multiple dimensions — equipment financing, market architecture, and workforce development — of which the ESG lease certification scheme is one practitioner-facing instrument.
Source
- 令和８年度二酸化炭素排出抑制対策事業費等補助金（カーボンニュートラル社会構築に向けたESGリース促進事業）に係る優良取組認定事業者の公表について環境省 (Japan Ministry of the Environment)