CALGARY, Alberta TORONTO, Sept. 16 Reuters - Ontario Teachers' Pension PlanPension Plan Board OTPP Canada's third-largest pension fund announced new interim targets to reduce carbon emissions intensity of its portfolio as part of a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
OTPP, which manages C $227.7 billion million in assets and 80.11 billion in assets, plans to reduce emissions intensity by 45% by 2025 and 67% by 2030 from 2019 levels.
Fellow pension fund Caisse de d p t et placement du Qubec also has a net zero target by 2050, but environmental campaigners said OTPP's interim targets are the strongest climate commitment endorsed by a Canadian pension fund.
Ziad Hindo, OTPP's chief investment officer, said the fund would be looking to invest in more clean-energy companies as well as in firms offering software and services that allow other businesses to move to a lower-carbon economy.
Climate change engulfs the entire investing landscape. Tackling it requires massive effort and significant amounts of capital, said Hindo. OTPP is increasing staffing across various asset classes to keep up with growing investment in the climate sector, Hindo added. The fund's portfolio consists of more than USD 30 billion in green investments such as renewable energy, energy storage, electrification, electricity transmission, energy efficiency and green real estate.
Unlike many big pension funds in the United States, OTPP is not actively investing in oil and gas altogether, although it stopped actively investing in listed exploration and production companies in 2019. OTPP will need to go further if it wants to be considered a global leader in climate change, said Adam Scott, director of pension activist group Shift. It describes how the OTPP will invest in solutions to the climate crisis, but also makes no mention of how it will eliminate its exposure to the cause of it, namely high-risk fossil fuels.