Project overview
In July 2024, Nikko AM released its fifth annual sustainability report. We think it looks very striking.
Since 2019, we’ve been supporting the asset manager with design, layout, editing, and photography for each one of these information-rich reports. Each one gives a snapshot of sustainability at the firm over the previous calendar year, including new ways sustainability considerations are integrated into each investment strategy and how the company is helping to improve both the communities where it operates and the environment.
We worked closely with the Global Corporate Sustainability team again in 2024 to produce the report, which covers the 2023 calendar year. It’s important to the team that each report has a distinct look from the previous year, so we proposed a direction where the front and back covers as well as the dividers for each section present one strong photograph that captures real Nikko AM employees from its offices around the world involved in an activity related to sustainability. The team loved the idea.
This year’s cover features a member of Nikko AM’s US office reading to a group of children at a Literacy Day event put on by South Bronx United, a charity that the company supports. One constant on the cover from year to year is the tagline “Invested in sustainability”, which we devised for the company’s second report.
At Paradigm, we believe in using as much real photography (and as little stock imagery) as possible to present the company in the most distinctive, compelling, and authentic light. In addition to selecting photos supplied by Nikko AM, we arranged and oversaw photo shoots for some of the company’s Tokyo-based teams. We tried to find a balance between posed and candid shots, those taken indoors and outdoors, as well as those conveying stillness and action.
We also created, redesigned, or refined infographics, charts, tables, and other data visualizations for the report, ensuring that they aligned with the colors in the company’s brand guidelines.
Paradigm’s editors were responsible for doing a comprehensive edit of all the content in the report, in English and Japanese. We improved clarity, flagged sections that were potentially missing information, and removed repetition from the drafts of each chapter. We also did some additional writing where required and gave titles to many of the chapters.
You can read the full 2024 sustainability report here.
We count it a privilege to be involved in Nikko AM’s sustainability journey and look forward to seeing how the firm — and the report — evolves in 2025.
For the cover and dividers of the 2023 Sustainability Report, we directed photo shoots for one employee at every Nikko AM office. The concept was to depict how Nikko AM’s employees are invested in sustainability, so we showed each representative thinking about the communities where they operate, the environment, and investments.
The cover of the 2022 Sustainability Report, covering the 2021 calendar year, illustrated the shift to remote work during the pandemic and presented the perfect opportunity to feature the diversity of Nikko AM’s employees from four different continents.
