Climate Action Q&A

We believe it is in the long-term best interests of our Clients. Our first and foremost responsibility is to act in the best interests of our Clients and to help them grow and protect their investments to meet their financial goals—and we believe that supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy ultimately serves our Clients’ best interests. We believe that our global economy will likely benefit from an orderly transition toward limiting the global temperature rise. Shifting towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions within our portfolios will allow us to increasingly deliver more sustainable investment returns to our Clients, while also making the world a more sustainable place for us to live.

We believe it is in the long-term best interests of our company. The physical impacts described above affect companies and governments across the globe. In addition, transition impacts, such as changing regulations and shifting customer preferences, will continue to motivate companies to change how and/or where they do business. All these factors (and many more) can positively and negatively impact the value of businesses, including our own, and therefore, investment capital. Addressing climate change is an inherent part of our role as a trusted and responsible provider.

We believe it is in the long-term best interests of the world. Climate change affects everyone and everything around us. We know that severe climate events (like flooding and cyclones), as well as the impact from more gradual shifts in climate patterns (like rising sea levels or shrinking ice sheets) will increasingly impact government and corporate spending, livelihoods, health costs, and more. These impacts can have a ripple effect on other environmental and social factors, such as biodiversity loss, health and wellbeing, migration, and workplace health and safety. And unfortunately, these repercussions generally affect marginalized communities to a greater extent. So the global fight against climate change is a fight for global prosperity.

We are aligned with our parent company Sun Life. Sun Life’s three sustainability pillars are to foster: financial security, healthier lives and sustainable investing. Our commitment to net zero in our investments supports these pillars.

The time to act is now. We believe climate change calls for urgent action, and our industry must come forward and commit. 

The first step in our commitment to NZAM is to determine our 2030 goal. We want to be thoughtful, realistic and transparent in our commitment, while remaining conscious of multiple factors that are likely to influence our net zero journey. To develop our goal, we took into account the current state of the global and domestic economy, infrastructure, investor needs and mindset, the need for global collaboration to address industry-wide challenges, and data limitations.

As a result our goal is that by 2030, we plan to have 24% of our total assets under management (AUM) on the path towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 2050 or sooner.

We plan to increase this percentage in the coming months and years as the managers we invest with become more aligned with net zero, and as we explore adding additional investment managers and/or investment strategies that are net zero aligned. Given the need to transform our energy, land use, and other systems, we are also committed to increasing our offering of climate-friendly investment solutions.

We are also committed to educating our clients, managers and industry on why this journey is so important. We recognize that not everyone is convinced that net zero is in the best interests of their investments—or even the world. We have an opportunity—and challenge—to persuade the individuals we interact with to trust us to continue to invest in their best interests while also pursuing net zero by 2050 or sooner—and to recognize that these two goals are not mutually exclusive. 

Our commitment to net zero is a strategic commitment, which involves all departments, and is supported by our senior leadership. Early in 2021 we established our Sustainability Committee, comprised of senior leaders from a variety of departments across Sun Life Global Investments, as well as other areas of Sun Life. This led to the formation of our Net Zero Working Group, which is a cross-functional team drawing on several areas and consulting broadly across the organization. We seek to create additional working groups as we build our strategic plan and implementation. And of course, our Multi-Asset Solutions Team is central to our net zero strategy as they work to shift our investment solutions toward a decarbonization.

To align with the broader Sun Life net zero goals and sustainability strategy, we participate in, and contribute to, the Sun Life International Sustainability Council. We also engage and collaborate with the sustainability committees across other Sun Life businesses, including the Global Sustainability Team.