Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

In terms of female representation in leadership positions, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has a gender-balanced board of directors where 58% of members are women. It also describes its engagement approach on sustainability themes and impact topics, including how engagement is undertaken in practice, as well as a clear framework with success criteria and escalation points in the event that engagement with investees is unsuccessful. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board also publishes case studies describing where it has engaged successfully with investees on sustainability themes and impact topics.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board discloses absolute financed emissions. It also discloses the aggregate amount and share of finance it devotes to climate solutions while specifying what these solutions are. These climate solutions are defined according to internationally adopted frameworks.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has a grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights, as well as bribery and corruption, concerns or complaints. Moreover, the financial institution has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption. The financial institution discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. It also discloses a public commitment to protecting personal data and assigns responsibility for its global tax strategy to its chief financial and risk officer.

There is no evidence that the financial institution assigns responsibility for sustainability to the group’s highest governing body. Moreover, there is no evidence that the financial institution links the remuneration of its executive or management teams to sustainability performance criteria. The financial institution has 36% women in senior leadership. The financial institution has an opportunity to reach at least 40% female representation in senior leadership positions and disclose actions taken to address any pay gaps.

There is no evidence that Canada Pension Plan Investment Board discloses a target to reach net-zero financed emissions by 2050. While the financial institution discloses that it engages with its clients on ESG and specifically climate change, no evidence was found that the financial institution has a rationale for engaging with specific companies or sectors on the topic of climate change. There is an opportunity for the financial institution to disclose alignment with the Paris Agreement as one of its engagement priorities. It could also disclose time-bound targets explicitly for its climate solutions and commit to minimising its negative impacts on nature and biodiversity.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board states that it respects human rights, but has an opportunity to place this statement in a public policy document. It could also describe a comprehensive process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, especially its financing activities. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, the financial institution has an opportunity to disclose the amount of finance directed towards, for example, women-owned businesses, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or low-income developing countries. On workforce diversity, while the financial institution discloses the ages of its board members it does not disclose this information for each employee category.