OMERS member “very disappointed” to hear CEO defend oil and gas companies at annual meeting
OMERS held its annual meeting on April 9, 2025 ( (watch the video here). Before the annual meeting, Shift shared sample questions that climate-conscious OMERS members could use to ask their pension fund about its investment strategies in the era of climate change. This blog recaps the climate-related discussion during the Q&A.
OMERS members asked pointed questions of their pension fund during OMERS’ annual meeting, reflecting shared concerns about what’s being done with workers’ retirement savings. Topics included the affordable housing crisis and the financialization of real estate, privatization and public-private partnerships, and questions about investments in oil and gas, which we’ll describe below.
OMERS member David Kidd asked about OMERS’ position on fossil fuel investments and what OMERS CEO Blake Hutcheson thinks about the “sustainability plans” of oil and gas companies (video at 1:53:25).
Here’s how Mr. Hutcheson responded.
We, OMERS, do have some equities that are in the oil and gas business. They are the most blue-chip, the most well-articulated enterprises with climate strategies to decarbon [sic] their future focus. We have a very specific sieve, we are very thoughtful, it’s put through multiple layers before we take those decisions. Some people feel we should never invest in oil and gas, period, irrespective of the need, irrespective of the revenue potential, irrespective of the fact that it’s a considerable piece of the Canadian dollar and the success of the country. We have not drawn a line to say we won’t do it. It’s always a debate between, you know, how much the fossil fuels may affect society and how much of an offset is being considered. We think the ones, and very few of them, that we’ve invested in will serve you extraordinarily well, they have this year by the way, from a return perspective, so, no, we’re not going to put a line in the sand saying we’re never going to do it but I can assure you we’re being very thoughtful, we have a specific sieve, and we are taking the highest quality ones with the best long-term climate positions.
OMERS Annual Meeting, April 9, 2025, at 1:55:34
What do independent benchmarks show about the “climate strategies” of these companies? Do these companies have “the best long-term climate positions,” as Mr. Hutcheson claims?
OMERS’ regulatory filings to December 31, 2024, show that OMERS has at minimum $800 million invested in oil and gas equities, including investments in Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Enbridge, EOG Resources, Exxon Mobil, Imperial Oil, Occidental Petroleum and Phillips 66. (Mr. Hutcheson did not mention the climate plans of any of the fossil fuel companies privately owned by OMERS. The pension fund’s 2024 Annual Report disclosed that $4.1 billion of OMERS’ portfolio was invested in “Energy” as of December 31, 2024).
Net-zero benchmarks from Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) and Climate Engagement Canada (CEC), investor groups of which OMERS is a member, contradict Mr. Hutcheson’s claims, as do other credible third-party analyses of oil and gas company climate plans.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd (CNRL)
The CA100+ “Disclosure Framework”, which “evaluates the adequacy of corporate disclosure in relation to key actions companies can take to align their businesses with the Climate Action 100+ and Paris Agreement goals,” assessed CNRL as failing to meet 10 of 11 indicators. CNRL’s scores on the “Alignment Assessment” (“independent evaluations of the alignment and adequacy of company actions with the goals of Climate Action 100+ and the Paris Agreement”) are similarly dismal. A detailed analysis from Carbon Tracker concludes the company is not Paris-aligned.
Chevron
Oil Change International’s Big Oil Reality Check found Chevron’s climate plan to be “grossly insufficient” in every indicator evaluated.
ConocoPhillips
Oil Change International’s Big Oil Reality Check found ConocoPhillips’ climate plan to be “grossly insufficient” in every indicator evaluated.
Using CA100+ frameworks, ConocoPhillips does not fully meet any “Disclosure Framework” criteria, and fails on alignment criteria as well, with 88% of the company’s potential future investments in new upstream oil and gas projects evaluated as incompatible with the world’s climate goals.
Enbridge
Enbridge’s net-zero by 2050 ambition fails to account for its material scope 3 emissions. The company has no short-term greenhouse gas reduction target. It scored a D, or “Misaligned”, for its “Real World Climate Policy Engagement” on CEC’s net-zero benchmark.
EOG Resources
Using CA100+ frameworks, EOG Resources does not fully meet any “Disclosure Framework” criteria, and fails on alignment criteria as well.
Exxon Mobil
Oil Change International’s Big Oil Reality Check found ExxonMobil’s climate plan to be “grossly insufficient” in every indicator evaluated.
Imperial Oil
Imperial Oil previously met one of 11 CA100+ “Disclosure Framework” indicators, but CA100+ notes that since the assessment was made Imperial has removed disclosures from its website.
100% of the company’s potential future investments in new upstream oil and gas projects were evaluated as incompatible with the world’s climate goals.
Occidental Petroleum
Comparatively, Occidental Petroleum looks not-quite-as-terrible-as-the-others when it meets three of 11 CA100+ “Climate Disclosure” indicators, illustrating how low the bar is for oil and gas companies. Predictably, the company does not pass any ”Alignment Assessment” criteria.
Phillips 66
Using CA100+ frameworks, Phillips 66 does not fully meet any “Disclosure Framework” criteria, and fails on alignment criteria as well.
How does OMERS’ “very specific sieve” conclude that these companies have “the best long-term climate positions”?
OMERS member Lee Ramsay asked just that question at the annual meeting:
My name is Lee Ramsay and I’m an OMERS retiree. I’m very interested in climate issues and I have a question for Blake. I was very disappointed to hear you say that we don’t have a hard line in the sand on oil and gas investments. You were talking about having a very fine sieve. I’d like to ask you to explain exactly what that sieve is because it seems to me that when a business is carbon it’s very hard to get a sustainable climate plan out of that.
OMERS Annual Meeting, April 9, 2025, at 2:01:22
Mr. Hutcheson turned the question over to OMERS Chief Legal & Sustainability Officer Michael Kelly. Mr. Kelly responded with a thoughtful explanation of the energy transition but did not explain what the “sieve” is beyond mentioning that OMERS looks at things such as how the company is thinking about carbon capture and storage. Carbon capture and storage is often overhyped, underperforms, is financially and technically unreliable, and can be used as a deceptive tactic by the oil and gas industry to continue operations while appearing to address climate concerns. (See, for example, CCS hype and hopes sinking fast, Can carbon capture be a meaningful climate solution?, and Oil companies sold the public on a fake climate solution — and swindled taxpayers out of billions.)
Mr. Kelly also said that OMERS “can’t make these decisions if we’re not getting good disclosure.” Based on the above companies' failing scores on CA100+’s “Disclosures Framework”, CEC’s net-zero benchmark and other third-party analyses, it is difficult to know how OMERS is receiving enough information to evaluate which companies get through their “very specific sieve”.
What sort of messages is OMERS governance hearing about the future of oil and gas?
When the oil and gas industry has been shown over and over to deceive the public, one has to wonder what oil and gas directors say to pension fund board members about their industry.
Pension funds don’t have to go far to hear directly from oil and gas directors: as of December 31, 2024, Shift identified that six of Canada’s largest pension funds (out of 11 analysed) have board members that concurrently sit as directors at fossil fuel companies. This figure includes OMERS: OMERS Administration Corporation board member Diane Kazarian also sits on the board of Gibson Energy and is a member of the Gibson board’s Sustainability and ESG Committee. Last week, Gibson Energy joined with other oilpatch companies demanding that Prime Minister Mark Carney “turn them loose” by removing the oil and gas emissions cap and repealing the federal levy on large emitters—effectively asking the government to cancel two cornerstone policies designed to ensure that Canada meets the climate goals it has committed to on the world stage.
A perilous time for critical climate policy
It’s a perilous time for critical climate policy. Pension funds need climate-aligned regulation in order to make good investment decisions. And they need a stable climate in the long run—otherwise they’ll be unable to fulfill their duties to their beneficiaries. Now is certainly not the time for a pension fund director to sit on the board of a pension fund that is proud to call its Climate Action Plan “aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement”, while simultaneously sitting on the board of a company that is calling for the dismantling of regulations designed to help us meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
This is where the rubber hits the road
OMERS has a decision to make. Will it continue to pretend that its oil and gas investments have “the best long-term climate positions,” or will it acknowledge that these companies’ ongoing disclosure failures and obstruction of climate policy are slowing down the energy transition that the world desperately needs? At a bare minimum, OMERS must commit to immediately halt any new investment into these companies, set a timeline by which the remaining companies must demonstrate full alignment of their business strategies with the goals of the Paris Agreement, and commit to phasing out investments in companies that do not meet these timebound expectations.
What you can do
OMERS members must remember that your pension fund is investing on your behalf. You deserve to know how your pension fund is arriving at the demonstrably false conclusion that oil and gas companies have “the best long-term climate positions”, and you deserve to know what your pension fund will do when companies don’t meet the requirements of its “very specific sieve”.
Send a letter to OMERS today and ask about the climate strategies of its oil and gas investments.