Net-zero commitments alone are not enough, says new report from Smart Prosperity Institute, which calls for more data on what Canada’s biggest pensions are actually doing to get to a greener future
Canada’s biggest pension funds need to be more transparent and accountable when it comes to their climate change commitments, according to a new report.
“In general, there’s either zero disclosure on climate-related metrics — and that’s for a lot of smaller funds — or there’s some reporting on these metrics but we still feel it’s incomplete and opaque,” Monahan said. But most of Canada’s biggest pension funds say they prefer an “active management” approach of working with their portfolio companies to ensure they have a credible plan to transition to a net-zero future. John Graham, CEO of Canada Pension Plan Investments,that the influential fund would stick by its decision not to pursue blanket divestment from fossil fuel-related investments.
“Currently, methodologies used by pension funds to define ‘green’ or ‘transition’ investments are often not disclosed or poorly explained, and few, if any, individual assets are labelled in pension funds’ disclosure documents,” the report said, adding that lumping the two types of investments together “makes related pledges very challenging to track.”