REDUCING THE CARBON INTENSITY OF OUR PORTFOLIO
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, representing both significant risks and opportunities to the companies in which we invest as well as the communities we serve. We are proud to announce that last year, OMERS undertook the organization’s first total portfolio carbon footprinting exercise. This helped us to understand the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the portfolio and assess the risks and opportunities this poses to the fund over the long term.
Based on the outcome of this exercise and following the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (an initiative we championed with our Canadian pension plan peers in the fall of last year), we are pleased to announce our commitment to reducing the carbon intensity of our total portfolio by 20% by 2025.
This goal is aligned with the commitments that countries and companies around the world are making to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. However, we know that the journey will be made up of many steps, so we have set a shorter-term goal that is ambitious but attainable. This will ensure that our leadership team is accountable now, and that programs will be put in place that will lead to both immediate and incremental change.
We believe this commitment is essential to protecting our investments over the long term and ensuring that we continue to deliver the pension promise.
For more information on how OMERS is investing your retirement savings, please see the Sustainable Investing page on omers.com, which also provides details of the carbon footprint.