Opinion: Ontario pension funds are starting to understand there’s no retirement security on a dead planet
writes Shift’s Pension Engagement Manager Laura McGrath in Corporate Knights
May 9, 2024
Excerpt:
As the dust settles on a slew of annual results from Canada’s largest pension funds, there are positive signs that some public pension managers are slowly getting their act together on climate, spurred along by pressure from their members.
Three Ontario pension funds in particular stand out for improving their climate strategies in 2023: the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) both released climate plans. And the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO), the pension manager for the Ontario Public Service Pension Plan and other funds, continued to improve its management of climate-related financial risks.
Pension funds are invested (figuratively and literally) in our collective ability to meet global climate targets. They’re trying to make sense of the physical, transition, legal, regulatory and reputational risks that their assets will face in the coming years as the climate crisis intensifies and the policy response to it strengthens. At the same time, they’ve started asking themselves how they can profitably invest in climate solutions and decarbonization so that their investments are making the future better, not worse, for their members.
These pension funds are making progress, although the growing severity of potential climate impacts demands that they pick up the pace.