Carbon Footprint Reporting

Climate-related risk and the complex environmental, social and economic challenges that come with it are impacting our company, clients and communities. To demonstrate our commitment to climate change mitigation and environmental stewardship, we maintained our carbon neutral status in 2022.

From carbon neutral to net-zero

We have been carbon neutral since 2020 and have achieved this by reducing our corporate emissions by 35% from 2019 base year levels and offsetting the remainder using carbon offsets that have been verified to a recognized standard, to ensure quality. We are committed to going further and have set targets to become net zero in both our operations and our investments within the timeframes recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

To motivate progress toward net-zero goals, we have set interim targets and milestones that will hold us to account.

Net zero operations by 2040

We have a target to reduce the emissions of our operations by 45% by 2030 and achieve net zero by no later than 2040. This includes both direct emissions (Scope 1) and indirect emissions (Scopes 2 and 3), including emissions resulting from corporate offices, Financial Advisor offices, fleet vehicles and business travel. Reflecting our commitment to leadership and to ensure our carbon accounting is aligned with the realities of hybrid and virtual work modes, we also track emissions from employee commuting and working from home, and Information Technology assets and services.

To incentivize progress and hold us to account, in 2022 our Board of Directors initiated the process of tying progress toward our net zero operations targets to our president and CEO’s long-term incentive plan in 2023.

2022 emissions impacted by post-pandemic rebound

Our operational emissions increased from 2021 levels, an increase we predicted since business travel had been reduced to near zero and operational emissions decreased at a time when we were working remotely. We project that this trend will continue in 2023, and we are broadening and deepening engagement with various departments on our decarbonization pathways to drive us towards our net‑zero commitment.

For more information about our carbon footprint: Operational energy consumption and carbon emission inventory