Climate change

COMMITMENTS TO GLOBAL AND REGIONAL INITIATIVES

Mackenzie Investments has established a Sustainability Centre of Excellence (COE) responsible for fostering Mackenzie's culture of sustainability by delivering firmwide support and enhancing capabilities across its investment division and organization. In 2024, Mackenzie's COE won the 2024 Climate Change Partner Award, presented by Institutional Connect, which recognized the Sustainability COE for its dedication to proactively addressing climate change, with a solid climate strategy and a focus on stewardship and engagement, particularly with top emitters. IGM Financial’s companies also each have sustainable investing committees and working groups comprised of executive leaders who oversee sustainable investing priorities, including climate change. 

Furthermore, Great-West Lifeco’s subsidiary, Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM), as well as IGM Financial’s subsidiaries, IG Wealth Management and Mackenzie Investments, have joined Climate Action 100+, an investor initiative to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.

For its part, IG Wealth Management works with organizations and coalitions to encourage ESG changes and the development of sustainable investing practices. Examples of collaborative actions include its membership in the Responsible Investment Association (RIA) of Canada, Ceres, and being a signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Task Force on Climate related Financial Disclosures, and through IGM Financial's involvement in the CDP. Mackenzie Investments also collaborates with various organizations and initiatives, such as Climate Engagement Canada, Ceres, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Green and Transition Finance Council, CDP, the International Corporate Governance Network and the IFRS Sustainability Alliance, to advance sustainability, climate action and responsible investment practices.

ILIM aligns its Climate Report with TCFD recommendations and adheres to the Paris Aligned Investor Initiative (PAII), a collaborative investor-led global forum enabling investors to align their portfolios and activities to the goals of the Paris Agreement. The PAII framework is designed to provide a foundation based on climate science, on which a broad range of asset owners and asset managers can define strategies, measure alignment, and set ambitions on net zero emissions and transitioning their portfolios.

Finally, GBL committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in May 2021. In January 2022, GBL became the first investment holding company to have climate targets aligned with a 1.5°C pathway approved by SBTi for both its own operations and its eligible portfolio of participations. In 2023, due to the evolution of GBL Capital’s governance and faster than anticipated progress towards its intermediary 2025 target, GBL-resubmitted to SBTi its baseline for validation and requested an uplift of its intermediary targets. Revised targets were validated in November 2023. In 2024, 62% of the eligible portfolio had a climate strategy with targets aligned to a 1.5°C trajectory validated by SBTi, compared to 0% in 2020.

CARBON PERFORMANCE

In 2021, Great-West Lifeco announced its ambition of achieving net zero GHG emissions by 2050 for both operations and investments. In 2023, it published Advancing Inclusive Growth, a report that presents the company’s net zero interim goals for operations and investments. In 2024, IGM Financial refreshed its sustainability strategy and, within its action on Climate pillar, has established two focus areas and related goals and targets that address the priority topics of climate change mitigation and resource usage. Of importance, IGM Financial is focused on supporting the transition to a nature-positive, net zero world, with two goals: the first, to progress portfolio coverage aligned with net zero by 2030, and the second, to decarbonize its operations in line with net zero by 2050 or sooner.

For its part, GBL has developed a comprehensive climate transition plan, which includes a commitment to minimizing its carbon footprint in line with the 1.5°C requirements. Under its 2025-2030 ESG commitments, GBL committed to the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) in May 2021. In January 2022, GBL became the first investment holding company on a global basis to have climate targets aligned with a 1.5°C pathway approved by SBTi for both its own operations and its eligible portfolio of participations. In 2023, due to the evolution of GBL Capital’s governance and faster than anticipated progress towards its intermediary 2025 target, GBL-resubmitted to SBTi its baseline for validation and requested an uplift of its intermediary targets. Revised targets were validated in November 2023. More information on our publicly traded operating companies’ climate commitments, goals, targets and carbon management strategies and reporting can be found in their respective disclosure, including their respective responses to the CDP climate change questionnaire.

In addition to the above, Great-West Lifeco and IGM Financial continued to monitor and track their performance in furtherance of energy use, water use, waste, and GHG emissions reduction targets. 

SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS

Great-West Lifeco’s subsidiary GWL Realty Advisors aims to minimize its environmental footprint by driving cost efficiency and improving the sustainability performance of the buildings under its management, while working collaboratively with service providers to support environmentally conscious activities, products and services. Through its leadership and expertise, GWL Realty Advisors believes it can have the greatest impact by influencing the development of sustainable cities and communities; encouraging more responsible consumption and production within its managed portfolio; and managing and reducing the risks posed by climate change to its clients’ portfolios in support of a resilient world and low-carbon economy.

In 2024, the company continued it’s activities to advance carbon reduction across its managed portfolio, with a focus on deploying tools and resources to assist their teams in achieving its interim carbon footprint reduction goal of 50% by 2030, from a 2019 baseline. To date, the company has achieved a 22.8% carbon footprint reduction from 2019 to 2024 across its office and residential portfolios, which is on track for its 2030 goal. As part of setting the foundation for achieving these goals, the company also built an asset prioritization plan with screening criteria to identify those assets that are the best candidates for decarbonization studies. Since 2019, the company has completed over 50 decarbonization studies on existing buildings, including 20 studies in 2024 and 10 planned for early 2025. Together, these studies cover approximately 40% of 2019 portfolio emissions, after adjusting for dispositions. As a mark of progress, GWL Realty Advisors achieved its first CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Certification, at 1090 Homer Street in Vancouver, BC. The team at 1090 Homer Street has been making thoughtful efforts over the years to invest in low-carbon systems to reduce the building's reliance on natural gas for heating. To achieve CAGBC Zero Carbon Building – Performance Standard certification, the team created a zero-carbon transition plan and offset the building’s remaining annual operation emissions. Between the period of March 31, 2022, and March 31, 2023, 21 tonnes of CO2e were offset, the equivalent to the carbon sequestered by planting 347 tree seedlings and letting them grow for 10 years.

A majority of the buildings under GWL Realty Advisors’ management also have green building certifications. To learn more about these efforts, please visit the SDG 11 section of this website.  

IGM Financial’s environmental management efforts focus on four areas of its operations: responsible purchasing, office space, resource management and business travel. The company recently developed a company-wide Procurement Policy to guide them in sourcing, selecting and managing suppliers to meet its needs and mitigate potential risks. They’ve also launched a sustainable procurement program with a minimum weighting factor of 20% for ESG criteria in evaluating requests for proposals. Moreover, IGM Financial’s Corporate Real Estate team is working to reduce the environmental impact of its workplaces by rationalizing office space, modernizing existing offices and, when leases expire, upgrading to more energy efficient buildings and preferably ones that are LEED certified. The company aims to reduce  the amount of leased office space it occupies by 20% from December 2023 to December 2026.  In 2024, IGM Financial reduced its leased office square footage by 40,000 square feet despite opening five new IG offices. They also advanced its office modernization strategy, which prioritizes having engaging spaces enabled by the latest technology, energy efficiency, water conservation, natural light, indoor air quality, waste reduction, wellness and sustainable building materials. Since 2018, the company has completed 28 office renovations and anticipates completing the modernization of 65% of its real estate portfolio by the end of 2026.

GBL promotes leading energy efficiency initiatives across its offices, none of which are owned by GBL. Therefore, it conducts regular engagement with the landlords of the premises it occupies. In 2024, this engagement concentrated on GBL’s head office in Brussels and GBL Capital’s new premises in London. GBL’s head office building is currently being renovated with the aim to achieve HQE (“Haute Qualite Environnementale”), BREEAM Outstanding and CO2 Neutral certifications. The renovation works started in 2023 and are expected to be completed during 2025. GBL Capital's new premises in London were selected due to the location and advanced building sustainability management practices. The building is designed in alignment with BREEAM and Greycoats net-zero carbon principles and features advanced energy and resource conservation practices: Habitat Plan enhancing biodiversity and green spaces surrounding the building, chemical-free cleaning, water conservation and energy efficiency further reducing the environmental footprint and energy consumption.

EMPLOYEE AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Through the work of employee green committees, sustainability/green councils, working groups and internal promotion, Great-West Lifeco, IGM Financial and GBL continued to educate their workforce on these topics, building capacity and creating a consistent culture of environmental awareness.

IGM Financial aims to get its employees more involved in climate action by helping them improve their climate and environmental literacy and reduce their carbon footprint. Plans include offering environmental courses, providing tools to track personal emissions and launching communication and engagement campaigns. The company's Green BRG will play a big part in this, with a mission is to incorporate green-living concepts at work and at home through a variety of initiatives. Thanks to the Green BRG, in 2024, IGM Financial: stopped selling bottled water at its IG Bistro in Winnipeg and installed filtered water dispensers throughout its offices; installed battery recycling bins in many photocopier rooms and invited employees to bring in their dead or expired household batteries; participated in the national Commuter Challenge, in which employees committed to leaving their cars at home in favour of walking, biking, ride-sharing, taking transit and telecommuting; and planted 650 trees in Winnipeg and Mississauga. 

Great-West Lifeco’s commitment to the environment extends beyond its own operations and into the communities where it lives and works each day, including through the following initiatives. Canada Life works with MicroHabitat, an urban farming company, to create a 500 square foot urban farm rooftop garden at its historic 330 University Avenue location in Toronto, with the vegetable harvest collected for donation to local food banks. Moreover, Canada Life also works with Microsoft and Computers for Success Canada, donating end-of-cycle devices to the Computers for Schools Plus program - nearly 3,000 laptops have been donated to schools in Manitoba and Ontario since 2020. In addition, GWL Realty Advisors continued to leverage several empty rooftops to help address food insecurity through its ongoing and expanded MicroHabitat initiative. In total in 2024, its 17 urban gardens produced 5,594 pounds of vegetables for local food banks and supported over 150 pollinator species. 

In addition to supporting organizations that are focused on issues related to climate change, our major publicly traded subsidiaries encourage their staff to play their part in preserving the environment. As an example, Canada Life has a partnership with Green Standards, which promotes the reselling and recycling of office furniture with the revenues generated from this activity then donated to local community organizations. Since 2009, over 145 projects have diverted tonnes of material from landfills.