As one of Canada’s largest banks, we’re committed to minimizing the impact of our operations on the environment and demonstrating leadership by integrating environmental considerations into our business practices. We continue to find new, innovative ways to reduce our environmental footprint through both enterprise-wide and employee-led initiatives.

Our strategy

BMO’s operational efficiency program is driven by the following three strategies:

1. Reduce operational GHG emissions from energy use in our buildings and business travel
2. Neutralize Scope 2 emissions from electricity with renewable energy certificates (RECs)
3. Purchase voluntary carbon offsets equivalent to remaining emissions

Our work continues

Our Corporate Real Estate team implements its Global Energy Management Playbook with the aim of reducing energy use and emissions. We focus on operational efficiency improvements and capital building upgrades that lead to decarbonization.

Since 2008, we have set and met four multi-year enterprise-wide GHG emission reduction targets for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions. In the period from 2020 to 2023, reductions relative to our 2019 baseline either met or came close to our target to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% by 2030. We plan to re-assess our operational GHG emissions reduction target in 2025 to account for the impact of our acquisition of Bank of the West.

Further reporting on emissions

Here’s more information on how we’re measuring against our goal to reduce carbon emissions:

• Sustainability Report Data Pack and Glossary: The indicators we use to guide us in the implementation of our operational efficiency strategy can be found in our Sustainability Report Data Pack and Glossary.
• CDP: Formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP aims to enhance the level and quality of carbon emissions disclosure from publicly traded corporations. Read our most recent (2024) response to the CDP which represents the relevant data for our fiscal 2023 period.
• Emissions verification statement: Read the third-party statement providing an independent verification of the completeness and accuracy of our operational greenhouse gas emissions reporting.
• Carbon offsets project descriptions: Describes our voluntary purchases of carbon offset credits.