2024 Sustainable Investing Report: CDPQ exceeds its climate targets

CDPQ published today its Sustainable Investing Report for the year ended December 31, 2024.

This report highlights CDPQ’s results in 2024, including exceeding its climate targets earlier than planned in its climate strategy enhanced in 2021. CDPQ has also made progress on several social and governance fronts over the past year.

With this report, CDPQ confirms that its long-term strategy for sustainable investing is beneficial for its global performance, enabling it to manage complex and growing risks and to seize the best opportunities to deploy its constructive capital in Québec and around the world.

“Sustainable investing is an integral part of our fiduciary duty. To achieve the best performance for our depositors, we must align our capital with strong business models that create value now and will do so in the future. I would like to congratulate our teams for the colossal work that has been accomplished, having reached our targets faster than anticipated,” said Charles Emond, President and Chief Executive Officer of CDPQ. “We will need to continue finding the balance between ambition and pragmatism in our approach to take into account the current environment that companies are navigating. But always with a long-term view in order to have assets that are well positioned for the future. This is the best way to fulfill our mandate for the pensions of more than six million Quebecers.”

“CDPQ’s leadership in sustainable investing, both in Québec and around the world, is real and recognized. This leadership position opens doors to the most innovative partners and facilitates access to excellent opportunities, ensuring our continued success in the coming years,” said Marc-André Blanchard, Executive Vice-President and Head of CDPQ Global and Global Head of Sustainability. “We continue to view sustainable investing as an expression of our constructive capital both to ensure the resilience of our portfolio and generate optimal long-term returns. The transition must be analyzed through both the prism of risk management and investment opportunities.”

Environment

Climate targets have been achieved through CDPQ’s investments in low-carbon or low-footprint assets, the decarbonization of its portfolio companies and engaging in proactive dialogue with portfolio companies:

• $58 billion in low-carbon assets, including $15.5 billion in Québec, representing an overall increase of $40 billion in low-carbon assets since 2017, thereby exceeding the target of $54 billion by 2025.
• A 69% decrease in our portfolio’s carbon intensity since 2017, exceeding the target of a 60% reduction by 2030.
• $358 billion in assets with a low-carbon footprint, or nearly 80% of its total portfolio.
• $6.2 billion in transition assets to decarbonize the highest-emitting sectors.

Social

CDPQ values openness and a variety of perspectives to enrich its decisions and enhance its performance, both internally and in the composition of portfolio company Boards of Directors and external managers. It also adheres to fair tax principles across its activities and analyzes each investment opportunity according to demanding criteria:

• 47% of its employees and 42% of its Board of Directors are women.
• 27% of its employees in Canada identify as members of one of the following groups: visible minorities, ethnic minorities or Indigenous people.
• 73% of its actively managed public companies had at least 30% women on their Boards of Directors, representing an increase of 78% over four years.
• 310 pre-investment opinions on tax practices were issued.

Governance

CDPQ positions governance at the heart of its practices and investments. It works on optimizing its governance practices and actively helps improve those of its portfolio companies and external managers. In 2024, its support and influence were expressed in different ways:

• 12 Québec companies supported with implementing sustainable business practices.
• Dialogue with 537 portfolio companies in which CDPQ is a shareholder.
• Using its voting rights on 34,857 resolutions at 3,326 shareholder meetings to express its sustainability convictions.
• 47% support for shareholder proposals on environmental issues.

The 2024 Sustainable Investing Report is available online.