COMMITMENTS TO GLOBAL AND REGIONAL INITIATIVES
In 2025, Mackenzie Investments' Sustainability Centre of Excellence (COE) celebrated five years of providing firmwide support on sustainability-related investment considerations, offering centralized research, through leadership and expertise, aligning stewardship efforts and bringing transparency to clients regarding the firm’s activities. Also in 2025, Mackenzie continued to evolve its research and insights capabilities to better support investment decision-making. They invested in data tools and expanded research capacity to deepen expertise and strengthen their role as a partner to the investment teams. Additionally, they maintained close collaboration between research and stewardship functions, ensuring that engagement and active ownership activities are informed by robust, evidence-based analysis. IGM Financial 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, Keyridge Asset Management Limited (Keyridge), 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), the Ceres Investment Network, and being a signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment, Climate Action 100+, 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.
In 2021, Keyridge published its Climate Action Pledge, which sets out the actions they intend to take to support progress towards its decarbonisation ambitions, working in partnership and on behalf of its clients by using its influence in terms of investment decision-making, risk management and public advocacy to accelerate and play a positive role in the climate risk agenda. Keyridge also publishes its annual Climate Report, which is in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) 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.
For its part, Sagard is a member of climate-related initiatives that aim to advance dialogue and collaboration on climate change and sustainability, including the initiative Climat International, a group of private equity firms seeking to engage the wider private markets industry to help private equity firms improve their understanding of climate-related risks and opportunities and to encourage the movement towards forward-looking analysis of climate-related financial risk, and Clean, Renewable, Environmental Opportunities, a global nonprofit working to deploy high-impact capital into sustainable investment opportunities to accelerate the shift to a low-carbon economy.
Finally, under its 2025-2030 ESG commitments, 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.
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. Progress was made on both these goals in 2025, with the company achieving 37% if its in-scope AUM being verified by SBTi, as well as maintaining its carbon neutral operations (since 2022) through the purchase of high-quality carbon offsets.
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. As of 2025, GBL is on track with the implementation of its climate transition plan. In 2025, GBL delivered a 70% decrease in its GHG emissions scope 1 and scope 2 versus the 2019 baseline mainly due to ongoing refurbishment of GBL’s main office and the temporary relocation of the GBL team to a significantly smaller office for most of 2025. With 69% of GBL’s SBTi eligible NAV covered by 1.5°C SBTi-validated targets in 2025, GBL delivered its intermediary coverage target (66% eligible NAV coverage by 2025).
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 believes in generating value by creating sustainable communities that engage, excite and inspire. In 2025, their focus was clear: strengthen the systems, governance, and execution discipline needed to help reduce risk, lower emissions associated with their managed assets, and protect long-term value for their clients, tenants and communities.
In 2025, the company continued its 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. Since 2019, the company’s office and multi-residential portfolios have achieved an 18% carbon footprint reduction. In 2025, the company formalized a multi-stage decarbonization framework to embed climate transition risk into business planning, investment decisions and operational strategy. This framework enables their teams to better integrate carbon reduction opportunities into budget planning and supports the evaluation of long-term value implications, regulatory exposure and capital recoverability for both existing assets and new acquisitions. This approach earned them the GHG Management Award at the annual HOOPP LEAP Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements in sustainability, innovation and leadership.
Fore more than a decade, GWL Realty Advisors’ Sustainability Benchmarking and Conservation Program (SBCP) has been a key internal initiative in improving energy efficiency and enhancing water conservation and waste management across its managed office assets. The SBCP was originally launched in 2013 and has continued through two cycles over the past decade. Looking ahead, the company has decided to continue this program through to 2029. In line with its carbon footprint reduction ambition, energy and emissions reductions are already underway. To complement these, the SBCP will introduce new five-year goals focused on water and waste reduction for managed office assets.
GWL Realty Advisors also worked in 2025 to advance decarbonization studies across office assets yet to have a study done, and expanded its focus to industrial and retail. To date, approximately 80% of company-managed office assets (by floor area) have completed studies. For industrial and open-air retail, they introduced a decarbonization assessment matrix as well as a standardized building condition assessment checklist to identify assets with upcoming equipment renewal and decarbonization opportunities. An early success of this work saw the installation of over 40 hybrid rooftop units across industrial and retail portfolios in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec in late 2025. These units provide electric heating, in addition to gas heating, thereby reducing the GHG emissions of these assets
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.
Over the past several years, IGM Financial has been reducing its operational emissions by improving the efficiency of its owned building, rationalizing office square footage, modernizing existing offices and, for leased offices, upgrading to more energy-efficient buildings and preferably ones that hold a Green Building certification when leases expire. The company aims to reduce the amount of leased office space it occupies by 10% from December 2023 to December 2026. This reduction is largely driven by the consolidation and modernization of the IG region offices. Also, the company’s Procurement Policy guides them in sourcing, selecting and managing suppliers to meet its needs and mitigate potential risks. Their sustainable procurement program includes a minimum weighting factor of 20% for sustainability criteria when evaluating requests for proposals.
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 November 2025, after 2 years of renovation, GBL’s team relocated to its head office in Brussels. GBL’s renovated office offers more advanced energy efficiency features and over the period 2019 (SBTi baseline) to 2030, 10% energy efficiency achieved across its premises would lead to a reduction of 5t. CO2e (scope 1).
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 at work and at home. The company's Green Business Resource Group (BRG) will play a big part in this effort. Having piloted Mammoth Climate in 2024, IGM expanded the platform company-wide in 2025 to strengthen climate literacy and inspire employees to take climate action. Once an employee signs up, they can track their personal carbon footprint, learn through short lessons, accept challenges to reduce their footprint, and earn points redeemable for tree plantings or charitable donations. Lessons covered topics such as your personal carbon footprint, the IGM climate strategy, climate change 101 and AI & climate change. Close to 400 employees enrolled in the first three months, averaging more than seven actions per person. The focus in 2026 will be to increase participation further.
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 Urban Roots London, helping them partner with other organizations led by equity-deserving groups to provide fresh produce through community markets, advancing food system equity and sustainability. Moreover, Canada Life also works with Water First Education and Training, a Canadian organization addressing water challenges in collaboration with Indigenous communities. Their support expanded their School Water education programs in Western CANADA FOR Indigenous students, reaching over 900 participants from First Nations communities since 2023. In addition, GWL Realty Advisors progressed environmental and food-security initiatives through its micro-gardens program, with 20 rooftop farms yielding over 5,000 pounds of fresh produce which was donated to nine food banks in 2025.
For its part, Keyridge Asset Management Limited (Keyridge) has rolled out significant responsible investment education and training initiatives to its employees. Training included a responsible investment fundamentals program for staff, a client interaction programme for client-facing staff and module-based training for more specialised employees. In addition, Keyridge offers a comprehensive learning and development framework for all employees. By partnering with Percipio, employees have access to thousands of on-demand courses, videos, books and tests, many of which incorporate sustainability and stewardship. Lastly, formal sustainability training has been made available to Keyridge staff via targeted training. For example, the CFA Institute’s Sustainable Investing Certificate and/or the UNPRI’s Advanced Responsible Investment Analysis is available for Fund Management Team members who wish to undertake it. Members of our Investment Risk Team can pursue the Sustainability and Climate Risk certificate run by the Global Association of Risk Professionals.
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 encourages its employees to make choices that benefit both their well-being and the planet by joining the Commuter Challenge, a competition that has been running for 30 years in cities and workplaces across the country. Canada Life employees embraced sustainable travel options, covering over 4,300 kilometres using eco-friendly transportation – a powerful reminder that small changes can lead to big environmental wins.
