Statement on the release of OSFI’s Climate Risk Management Guideline (B-15)
Statement from Shift on the release of the Climate Risk Management Guideline (B-15) from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI)
SHIFT ACTION FOR PENSION WEALTH & PLANET HEALTH
For Immediate Release: March 7, 2023
Toronto, ON | Traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chippewas and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation
Financial stability depends on climate stability. Canada’s financial regulators will be unable to fulfill their role of ensuring financial stability and ensuring public confidence in the Canadian financial system, including protecting the hard-earned pensions of Canadians, without putting our financial sector on track for 1.5°C.
Today, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions issued new guidance for how banks, pension funds and insurers should disclose and manage climate-related financial risks. The new rules will require finance institutions to disclose key aspects of climate risk, stress test their businesses against different global heating and energy transition scenarios, and report scope 3 emissions by the end of 2025.
These new guidelines fall short of what is required and allow financial institutions to further destabilize both the climate and the financial system. Measuring and disclosing climate risks is important, but it’s not enough to put our pensions, banks, insurers and corporations on track to meet climate goals.
The federal government must step up to align financial flows with climate targets and build on OSFI’s new disclosure guidelines.
Learn more about how regulators can move from disclosure to alignment in our Roadmap to a Sustainable Financial System in Canada.
Contact information:
Adam Scott, Director, Shift Action for Pension Wealth & Planet Health
adamscott@shiftaction.ca
416-347-3858
Patrick DeRochie, Senior Manager, Shift Action for Pension Wealth & Planet Health
patrick@shiftaction.ca
416-576-2701
Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health is a charitable initiative that works to protect pensions and the climate by bringing together beneficiaries and their pension funds to engage on the climate crisis.
-30-