La Caisse ups climate investment targets

La Caisse is ambitiously aiming to have CAD $400 billion ($454bn) worth of climate action investments in its portfolio by 2030.

Releasing its 2025-30 climate strategy last week, La Caisse, formerly known as CDPQ, unveiled its aims to accelerate the decarbonisation of companies and significantly increase transition-related investments.

The strategy is based on two pillars. The first is investing in companies that adopt and achieve La Caisse's decarbonisation targets.

The second is investing in future-oriented climate solutions across low-carbon assets, nature-based solutions, adaptation and resilience solutions, and climate-solution enablers.

The CAD$473 billion ($536bn) investment group manages money for 48 depositors, primarily pension and insurance funds in Québec's public and parapublic sectors that represent six million people.

La Caisse president and chief executive Charles Emond said: "Today, we are reaffirming our sustainable investing convictions because they are at the heart of our fiduciary responsibility. We are demonstrating even greater ambition by going beyond calculating our portfolio's carbon emissions to work even harder on transitioning the real economy across all sectors by encouraging the companies we invest in to adopt clear and credible decarbonisation plans."

La Caisse launched its first climate strategy in 2017. Since then, it has set to achieve a carbon-neutral portfolio by 2050 and exceeded its targets.

"However, our portfolio has decarbonised much faster than the real economy. In 2025, we are entering a new phase in our climate strategy with the ambition to accelerate the decarbonisation of companies and the economy. This is the best approach for long-term performance for our depositors," Edmond said.

Last year, one of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth funds, ADQ, acquired a 49% stake in Plenary Group - its first investment in an Australian company. ADQ acquired the shares from existing Plenary shareholders, including all those owned by La Caisse.