Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Questions

1) FULL-SERVICE BUSINESS BANKING

We offer our business owner clients access to a full suite of financing and cash management solutions through in-person and digital channels. Business owners can streamline their financial management to focus on what matters most: growing their business. Our continuing investment in digital capabilities will enhance their experience even further

2) FULL-SERVICE PERSONAL BANKING

We offer our personal clients, who are often our business owner clients and their families, access to a full complement of banking services through in-person and digital channels. We just launched digital client onboarding for our personal clients.

3) SPECIALIZED FINANCING 

We offer our clients access to a differentiated, proactive client experience through highly personalized service, specialized expertise within specific industries, customized solutions and faster response times.

4) WEALTH MANAGEMENT

We offer our clients access to comprehensive wealth management approaches for their personal and business wealth. Discretionary wealth management, comprehensive financial planning and investment solutions are available through our boutique approach delivered within CWB Wealth Management and CWB branches.

3) TRUST SERVICES

We offer a wide variety of comprehensive trustee and custodial solutions for individuals and businesses.

See the “Enhanced Capabilities Provide Strong Platform for Growth” section in our Annual Report.

Our success is built from a strong foundation of our core values:

People First - Caring people are the key to our success. We work as a team and support one another. We always treat each other with respect and have the courage to be candid.

Relationships Get Results - Clients choose CWB for the best experience. We build relationships proactively, with intention and consistency. Our results depend on it.

Embrace the New - Change is everywhere. We seek out new ideas and are committed to continuous learning. We know that better is always possible.

The How Matters - How we do things is as important as what we do. We take ownership, and move with urgency and efficiency. We always act with integrity, and balance risk and reward.

Inclusion Has Power - Diverse teams unleash new ideas and perspectives. We are aware of our own biases. We are proud of who we are, and we are allies for those around us.

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Earning and maintaining trust is at the core of providing financial services. At CWB Financial Group, we understand this requires that we respect your privacy and protect the personal information you place in our care. Our Privacy Statement outlines the privacy management practices we have adopted to safeguard your personal information and to comply with Canadian privacy law. It is also our public statement describing how we collect, use and disclose personal information, and the choices you may exercise in this regard.

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Statement, our privacy practices, or if you would like to review your personal information, please contact your CWB Financial Group branch or office. Alternatively, you may write to CWB Financial Group’s Chief Privacy Officer at:

Chief Privacy Officer
CWB Financial Group
3000-10303 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta
T5J 3X6

[email protected]

We are committed to treating all people, including our clients, employees and applicants, in a way that allows them to maintain their independence and dignity. Believing that inclusion has power, we strive to create an accessible environment for all, including people with disabilities. See our Multi-Year Accessibility Plan on our Accessibility webpage for more information.

We also offer accessible products at low-cost and accessible services through online banking. For more information on these products see the “Access to financial services” section in our Public Accountability Statement and “Making Every Relationship Accessible” in our Corporate Social Responsibility Report.

We believe we have a responsibility to support the financial health of our clients, our team members and our communities. To support vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the pandemic, CWB has supported a number of employability, professional development and financial literacy programs, such as:

• Bissell Centre’s Financial Empowerment Program in Edmonton
• The Dollars and Sense Program through the Launch Community Development Foundation in Kelowna
• Wellspring’s Return to Work Workshops through the Alberta Cancer Foundation in Southern Alberta
• Read Saskatoon’s Financial Literacy Program
• The Calgary John Howard Society’s Learning Employment Enhancement Program

Our clients are at the heart of our value proposition. We take the long view and build relationships with business owners. We believe in helping our clients make informed choices and help them every step of the way. This belief and focus on our clients pervades all levels of the organization, as much a tone from leadership as it is the passion in the field.

We believe this has minimized our risk of selling unsuitable products to our clients or products with misleading information, or not taking reasonable account of consumer needs, goals or financial situations, or not explaining key terms and conditions.

More information on our approach can be found at our coercive-tied-selling webpage and within our Code of Conduct on page 22.

At CWB, we believe in our core value that Inclusion Has Power. We believe we reach our true potential by attracting top talent of all backgrounds and welcoming new ideas and perspectives. We have seen the impact that establishing representation targets can have to enhance the diversity of our organization and ensure we are stronger and more prepared for the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow.

In 2020, our CEO, Chris Fowler, signed the BlackNorth CEO Pledge and we committed to have Black, Indigenous and racialized people comprise at least 5% of our Executive Committee by 2025. We have also committed to have 30% of the Executive Committee comprised of women.

In addition, the Board set new representation targets for itself. The Board aims to have Black, Indigenous and racialized people comprise at least 5% of the Board by 2025 and have women comprise at least 40%. Currently 42% of our director nominees are women.

In accordance with our Corporate Governance Policy, the GCR Committee considers a number of factors when seeking new directors for nomination, including each candidate’s skills, expertise, experience, integrity, independence, residency and geographic location and diversity criteria such as race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexuality, and abilities. Understanding that systemic biases exist broadly across society and our industry, the Board will consider the impact of biases on candidates to obtain specific qualifications or experiences in considering Board and Executive Committee candidates. See our Proxy Circular for our policies regarding Board and Executive Committee diversity.

The strength of our people is an essential part of our success, and we are committed to a culture that attracts and retains top talent.

We do this by proactively investing in our practices and programs to build a positive, rewarding and collaborative work environment where teams are empowered to deliver exceptional client experiences, and employees are celebrated for who they are. Our brand and values include a people-first approach to planning and execution, a focus on driving inclusion and diversity as key business advantages, and specific strategies to increase CWB’s brand awareness in the markets where we operate. We complement this with a specialized and knowledgeable approach to talent acquisition, a competitive total rewards offering with differentiated benefits, flexible work arrangements, comprehensive learning and development opportunities and a proactive focus on succession planning. When necessary, we embark on specific recruitment strategies to attract diverse candidates with diverse slate requirements for all leadership roles.

Each year we conduct an in-depth trust and engagement survey with our partner Great Place to Work™. This is a comprehensive survey we use to actively and regularly measure our culture. It provides us rich quantitative and qualitative data that we use to drive our culture work. 

Despite managing significant cultural disruptors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CWB was able to enhance the employee experience in 2020. For the second consecutive year, CWB has been certified as a Great Place to Work™ and was named one of Canada's Best Workplaces, moving up 13 spots to come in at number 28.

This achievement recognizes the hard work and dedication each of our people brings to work each day and further demonstrates the strength of living our values during times of adversity.

To enhance the knowledge and operational skills of our employees, we are proud to offer a variety of in-house professional development programs and learning opportunities. Many of our learning resources are on our online Learning Centre, providing our people with the opportunity to increase their skillset and expertise through educational workshops, virtual sessions and learning materials. We have an Educational Assistance program where we reimburse employees up to 100% of eligible fees for job or career related courses. To support our internal pipeline of talent as well as individual career growth, we provide access to certified career coaches through our Career Design program.

See our Corporate Social Responsibility Report for more information.

We maintain an integrated and disciplined approach to risk management. In relation to financial crime risk, we govern, oversee and assess principles and procedures designed to help ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and internal risk parameters related to anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing and sanctions measures, and our compliance with anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws and regulations.

See our Annual Report pages 61-65 for information on our operational risk management.  Additional information related to anti-money laundering, anti-bribery, and anti-corruption is available on pages 21 and 23 in our Code of Conduct.

Our Board of Directors oversees our ESG activities. Recently, we established a sustainability team under the leadership of our Chief Financial Officer. This team is responsible for designing and implementing a sustainability roadmap. The roadmap will include a focused approach on how CWB can best support the transition to a less carbon intensive economy. It will also seek to identify the part CWB can play to help address climate change.

Climate change presents both risks and opportunities for society and the global economy. It will take a collective effort between businesses, government, and individuals to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to safe levels. CWB is committed to a more sustainable future and supports the transition to a low-carbon economy. As we develop a sustainability roadmap, our climate ambition will be a key focus area. This will include targets and a plan to reduce our own GHG emissions. It will be a focused approach to how CWB can support Canada’s climate goals.

Transparent and timely communication on our climate-related work is important to our stakeholders. This year, we will develop and initiate a phased approach to enhance our climate-related disclosures in alignment with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, which aim to facilitate consistent and comparable reporting of climate-related risks and opportunities across industries.

We have identified that while our day-to-day operations do not have a material impact on the environment, we face certain environmental risks including the risk of loss if a borrower is unable to repay loans due to environmental clean up costs, and the risk of damage to our reputation resulting from the same. In order to manage these risks, and to help mitigate our overall impact on the environment, we evaluate potential environmental risks as part of the credit granting process. If potential environmental risks are identified that cannot be resolved to our satisfaction, the loan application will be denied. Where financing is provided, Internal Audit provides third line oversight to ensure all required processes and documentation are in place. Reports on environmental inspections and findings are provided quarterly to the Board Risk Committee. See the “Credit-related Environmental risk” section in our Annual Report for more information.

We are working towards five- and fifteen-year plans to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from our operations in the Alberta Capital Region. To measure our GHG output we partner with Climate Smart, a social enterprise in Vancouver, whose approach to measurement complies with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard. The following figures include our GHG output from electricity, heat, and team member commuting, which we recognize as our highest energy outputs. GHG output is measured in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), which represents the varying global warming potential of different GHGs and converts them into equivalent tons of carbon dioxide.

Alberta Capital Region GHG emissions

2025 Reduction Target | 2035 Reduction Target | FY2017 emissions (baseline) | FY2019 emissions | FY2020 emissions
                 15%                                    25%                                 6,366 tCO2e                     6,070 tCO2e            4,878 tCO2e

Our FY2020 GHG emissions in the Alberta Capital Region were 23% below our baseline year, predominantly driven by a reduction in our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from electricity and heat. This reduction reflects the increase of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced electricity consumption in our corporate office and throughout our network of banking centres. It also reflects certain efficiencies achieved through our increased use of eco-friendly building features, such as lights-on sensors and LED lighting. In 2021 and 2022, we expect our GHG emissions may rise from 2020 figures as many of our team members return to the office. As we refine our climate approach and disclosures, we will include more detailed analysis of the material sources of our GHG emissions.¹

¹ CWB’s fiscal 2017 greenhouse gas (GHG) baseline inventory and fiscal 2019 GHG inventory were recalculated in 2021 due to improvements in the accuracy of activity data collected for electricity and heating at the Central Alberta CWB locations. The revised activity data resulted in an 8% increase in emissions reported in the baseline fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2019 inventories. Climate Smart’s recalculation policy states any change in a company’s emissions over a ‘5% significance threshold’ triggers an inventory recalculation. This approach adheres to the GHG Protocol’s guidance on baseline recalculation and ensures CWB’s GHG inventories continue to align with the principles of the GHG Protocol.

We commit to reduce our greenhouse gas release in the Alberta Capital Region by 15% by 2025, and 25% by 2035. Current reduction initiatives include:

• Bicycle parking for employees
• Retrofitting LED lighting
• Programmed paper reduction initiatives in print-capable devices
• Implementation of flexible work arrangements and telecommuting
• Buying energy efficient appliances and equipment

Reduction initiatives in the planning stage include: 

• Occupancy sensors
• Electric vehicle charging stations
• Regulated thermostat temperatures
• Subsidized public transit pass for employees

Every year we strive to ensure our waste management processes are managed and followed rigorously by encouraging our employees to reduce, reuse, and recycle. In our Edmonton office and in other various locations, we have designated areas for employees to recycle their cardboard, paper, and bottles. See the “Our Environment” section in our Corporate Social Responsibility Report for more information.

Waste management is a key focus for us, as we commit to reduce, reuse and recycle. We continue to encourage our people to print fewer documents and reports and use paper-shred services on every office floor. In 2020, we shredded and recycled more than 97, 892 kg of paper, representing an estimated 1,844 trees.

Recycling old technology also helps us meet our environmental responsibilities. We partner with the Electronic Recycling Association to recycle old technology. In 2020, we returned more than 570 items, such as computer monitors, laptops and printers, after they were securely wiped of all files and information. Through this effort, we recycled more than 1,748 kg of hardware.

Visit our Governance webpage.