Keeping Our
Commitments
2023–2024 Sustainability Report Highlights
We exist to keep the pension promise, and we do that by keeping our commitments to our members, our staff and the communities in which we work and invest in. We are focused on contributing to our members’ financially secure retirement, while creating an inclusive, collaborative and caring workplace.
OPB 2023–2024 Sustainability Report Highlights cover Download the full report
Photo of Geri Markvoort, Board Chair, and Darwin Bozek, President and Chief Executive Officer Photo of Geri Markvoort, Board Chair, and Darwin Bozek, President and Chief Executive Officer

Message from Geri and Darwin

Geri Markvoort, Board Chair

Darwin Bozek, President & Chief Executive Officer

We are pleased to share our Sustainability Report which provides an update on our continued sustainability efforts for 2023 and 2024. With recent leadership transitions and ongoing initiatives to modernize our organization, we continue to remain focused on advancing sustainability to enhance our investment approach, continuously improving the client experience and being an employer of choice. All with a view to keeping the pension promise to our members.

At OPB, we view sustainability as a set of practices to better understand and address risks and opportunities that can affect our operations and investments. Sustainability supports our mission to Advise and Protect members and contributes to their financially secure retirement.

Read the full message in our report

Investments

Sustainable investing is central to fulfilling the OPB pension promise and ensuring strong, long-term financial returns. As a founding client of our investment manager, the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO), OPB works closely with IMCO to inform and guide its approach to sustainable investing, so our assets are invested in alignment with the long-term financial health of the Plan. IMCO invests in accordance with its relevant policies, while we provide oversight and monitor both ESG integration and overall financial performance.

IMCO grew the proportion of investments in climate solutions to 11.5% of the portfolio, as part of its commitment to a net-zero future and its 2030 target of deploying 20% of the portfolio in climate solutions.

IMCO achieved, as of the end of 2023, an estimated 44% reduction in its portfolio’s financed Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions intensity from a 2019 baseline, toward a target of 50% reduction in financed emissions intensity by 2030.

OPB and IMCO are signatories to the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) – this report includes our PRI Assessment Scorecard for 2023, where we scored at or above the median for each PRI module.

IMCO 2023 Sustainability Report
To learn more about IMCO’s approach to sustainable investment, you can download their 2023 Sustainability Report.
PRI Assessment – Summary Scorecard
Policy Governance & Strategy = 87%, Indirect – Listed Equity – Passive = 81%, Indirect – Listed Equity – Active = 81%, Indirect – Fixed Income – Passive = 48%, Indirect – Fixed Income – Active = 80%, Indirect – Private Equity = 80%, Indirect – Real Estate = 80%, Indirect – Infrastructure = 78%, Indirect – Hedge Funds = N/R,Confidence Building Measures = 80%

The PRI releases assessments for PRI signatories based on their reporting of responsible investing activities from the most recent year. Since the scorecard is a summary, we have posted our more detailed Assessment Report and Public Transparency Report on OPB.ca.

People

OPB is committed to protecting the pension promise for our 100,000 members. Our focus on sustainability better positions us to protect our long-term financial health, deliver excellent service to members and provide our employees with an inclusive workplace.

Our people are at the heart of OPB. They are essential to delivering excellent client service and to making OPB a trusted advisor and a leader in the pension industry. As an employer, we believe having a strong culture, engaged employees and a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace enables us to better serve the diverse membership of the PSPP.

Employee Experience
  • Enhanced our annual employee survey to include a new performance metric to better understand employee experience from an inclusivity lens.
Member Accessibility
  • Engaged an accessibility expert to assist us in developing our Multi-Year Accessibility Plan (MYAP) for members.
Our Culture
  • OPB's Board and leadership team added a new organizational performance metric to help us understand how our employees experience our work environment from an inclusivity lens.
  • In our most recent survey, we included a series of inclusion measure questions to gain insight into our employees’ experience. The questions assess areas like emotional safety at work, active leadership efforts to create inclusive/safe environments, being able to bring one’s whole self to work, and OPB’s overall commitment to DEI, among others.

To support employee well-being in 2023 and 2024, we:

  • held wellness sessions;
  • partnered with our Employee and Family Assistance Program provider to offer a wellness series for employees; and
  • brought in expert speakers at our virtual and in-house town halls to advise about overall wellness strategies, stress management and resilience.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Diversity, equity and inclusion are core values for OPB, and we are continuously evolving our approach to meet the expectations of our stakeholders and employees. We believe that our commitment to DEI makes our workplace stronger and more agile, and that it directly contributes to making our organization more productive and sustainable over the long term. Over the past few years, we have taken several steps to advance these values at OPB. A few of the initiatives that we profiled in more detail in our inaugural report include:

  • providing mandatory training sessions and expansion of education for staff and Board members;
  • reviewing human resources practices and policies to reduce the potential for bias in our recruitment and hiring process;
  • partnering with organizations dedicated to advancing DEI for underrepresented groups; and
  • establishing a DEI Advisory Council.
Advancing Inclusion in 2023 and 2024
  • OPB’s Board of Directors and employees participated in virtual tours of the former Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
  • To mark National Indigenous Peoples Day in June, a group of OPB employees attended the annual Sunrise Ceremony at Nathan Philips Square. In September, our DEI Advisory Council organized staff attendance at the Indigenous Legacy Gathering Sunrise Ceremony hosted by the Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre at Nathan Phillips Square.
  • OPB joined Pride at Work Canada in 2023 as part of our efforts to continue advancing DEI within our workplace.
  • In 2024, we offered an online course through a third-party provider, “The Spectrum of Gender Identity in the Workplace”, to support our ongoing learning and education around gender diversity. The course offers insights on core concepts of gender identity. This course has now also been incorporated into our employee onboarding.
  • In June 2024, a group of OPB employees, including members of our executive leadership team, along with friends and family, represented OPB for the first time in Toronto’s Pride Parade, celebrating and supporting 2SLGBTQIA+ employees and our diverse client communities.

Case Studies