This month the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan released its 2023 Annual Report, which included an update to its climate strategy. Here are the report’s key highlights when it comes to climate risk and the energy transition.

OMERS took a significant step forward in 2023 by releasing its Climate Action Plan. But the pension manager still has work to do to strengthen its ambition, demonstrate actual emissions reductions in its portfolio and the real economy, improve its climate engagement and disclosure, safeguard significant investments from physical and transition risks, and place exclusions on new fossil fuel investments. Shift looks forward to OMERS improving on these measures and providing further updates to its beneficiaries.

The recent actions of four companies, on whose boards Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Director Deborah Stein sits, are indicative of an oil and gas industry that is expanding fossil fuels, lobbying to block government climate action, and fighting tooth and nail to prolong the use of fossil fuels. These companies are acting in ways that directly undermine the OTPP’s commitment to net-zero emissions and the rapid transition away from fossil fuels that is required to protect the retirement security of working and retired Ontario teachers. A year after Ms. Stein joined the OTPP Board, let’s take stock of what the companies on whose boards she sits have been up to in 2023.

As the scientific imperative to phase out fossil fuels dominates discussions at the global climate conference, CPPIB highlights its growing oil and gas investments

While some encouraging elements are included, OPTrust’s Climate Strategy update and 2022-2023 TCFD report demonstrate a process-heavy approach that has resulted in few hard climate targets and no progress toward excluding new investments in fossil fuels, thus demonstrating that the fund is still struggling to align its $25-billion portfolio with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The University Pension Plan’s new Climate Stewardship Framework represents one of the strongest approaches to climate-related engagement and stewardship in the Canadian pension sector, reaffirming UPP’s position as a climate leader. But UPP shies away from taking the necessary and Paris-aligned step of excluding fossil fuels from its portfolio, something that its members, including sustainable finance experts and climate scientists, have demanded since the plan’s inception.

Working and retired public servants from across Canada sent a letter today to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet asking them to remove Imperial Oil Director Miranda Hubbs from the board of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSPIB) with cause. 

BCI, the $233 billion pension manager for 725,000 public sector employees, including teachers, health care workers, college and university staff, and provincial and municipal public servants, released its 2022-2023 Annual Report last week. BCI’s lack of a net-zero emissions commitment, failure to implement a fossil fuel exclusion, and continued investment in fossil fuels and related infrastructure demonstrate that the fund is not yet aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Working and retired public servants from across Ontario sent a letter today to their pension manager, the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO), seeking clarity on its confusing policy for restricting and phasing out investments in fossil fuels.

While the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan’s (HOOPP) newly posted 2022 Real Estate Sustainability Report provides expanded disclosure of the fund’s approach to and challenges in real estate decarbonization, it also serves to highlight how little information HOOPP has made available regarding decarbonization of other asset classes.

OMERS’ 2022 Annual Report, released February 27, 2023, shows that the pension fund is making progress in its approach to climate-related financial risk, although significantly more action still needs to be taken. Expectations are high for OMERS’ forthcoming Climate Action Plan.

PSP’s 2022 Responsible Investment Report, released on November 10th, demonstrates that PSP is responding to calls from beneficiaries for increased disclosure of how it’s handling climate-related risks and putting in place the building blocks to execute its Climate Change Strategy. But a close read of these documents shows that despite clear and laudable signs of progress, PSP is still falling short.

While BCI is responding to calls from beneficiaries for increased disclosure of how it is handling climate-related risks, the investment manager has minimal investments in climate solutions, remains invested in risky high-carbon assets without credible decarbonization pathways, and continues its futile attempts to engage with fossil fuel companies that are failing on climate action.

New analysis finds 80 Canadian pension managers with 124 different roles at 76 fossil fuel companies, raising critical beneficiary questions about fiduciary duty and pension administrators’ conflicts of interest on climate-related investment decisions. The report from Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health reveals the deep entanglement between the fossil fuel industry and directors, trustees and investment managers at Canada’s largest public pension funds.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Canada’s third largest pension, committed in January to net-zero emissions by 2050, and in September set interim targets for getting there, but it wasn’t until this week that the OTPP disclosed crucial details on how exactly it plans to achieve its goals. Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health breaks down the highlights and examines what still needs to be done.