Supplemental reporting
Table of Contents
Maintain a foundation of trust
Obsessed with your success
Manage our impact responsibly
Overview
Appendices
METRICS AND TARGETS
Our developing approach to climate change begins with a focus to ensure that our operations are managed responsibly to mitigate and reduce our direct impact on the environment. Prior to 2022, we estimated our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions in alignment with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol for the Alberta Capital Region only, which included our Edmonton corporate office and Edmonton- area banking centres, and set absolute emissions reduction targets of 15% by 2025 and 25% by 2035, based on our fiscal 2017 baseline. In 2022, our total Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions for the Alberta Capital Region were 29% lower compared to 2017, exceeding both targets. In 2022, we expanded the estimation of our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions to include our corporate office space and banking centre network across our entire national footprint. Our estimated total Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions of 5,953 tCO 2 e were primarily driven by our Alberta-based corporate office space and banking centres. As a result of the expanded scope of our GHG emissions estimate, we have initiated the development of a comprehensive reduction plan and targets, using a science-based approach, which will initially focus on our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions across our national footprint and replace our Alberta Capital Region targets. We expect to use 2022 as our base year in the development of our reduction plan and targets and will develop a policy that defines the circumstances and thresholds that would trigger a baseline recalculation. Looking forward, we expect our emissions to decline based on both the targeted actions we take to reduce our carbon footprint, as well as the decarbonization of electrical grids across Canada. As noted in the Strategy section, during 2022, we developed and launched a process to measure our Scope 3 GHG emissions within our lending portfolio. As we move forward, we plan to expand our emissions disclosures, reduction plan and targets to include our Scope 3 financed GHG emissions.
2022 results
Metric
Unit of measure
2022
Energy consumption Direct energy use (Scope 1) (1)
KPMG provided limited assurance of this figure in 2022. Refer to page 74 for KPMG’s Independent Limited Assurance Report.
42,037
Gigajoules (GJ)
35,160
GJ
Indirect energy use (Scope 2) (2)
GHG emissions Scope 1 (3)
2,339
3,614
Scope 2 (3)(4)
Tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO 2 e)
5,953
Total Scope 1 and 2
0.089
Scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity (5)
tCO
2 e/square metre of space occupied
(1) Includes natural gas used to heat the spaces we occupy, and diesel used within back-up generators, where applicable. (2) Includes electricity and steam used within the spaces we occupy. (3) Our GHG inventory is prepared by a third-party consulting firm in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
We use the operational control approach to define our organizational boundary. As per the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, under the operational control approach, a company accounts for 100% of the GHG emissions from operations over which it can introduce operating decisions, which includes all owned and leased spaces occupied by Canadian Western Bank and its subsidiaries. Our GHG emissions are estimated for the period from November 1, 2021 to October 31, 2022. Greenhouse gases included in the inventory are CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, and HFCs. Electricity, natural gas and diesel emissions factors were obtained from the National Inventory Report 1990-2020: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada. We used 2020 emissions factors for natural gas and diesel and 2019 emissions factors for electricity, as the published 2020 electricity emissions factors were preliminary at the reporting date. Steam emissions factors were obtained from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency Emission Factors for Greenhouse Gas Inventories, April 2022. Refrigerant emissions were estimated based on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) HFC Emissions Accounting Tool (Simplified Screening 2 Approach), using global warming potentials from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, 2014 (AR5). To determine energy consumption used to estimate our GHG emissions, we relied upon utilities invoices, where possible, and landlord provided information for certain locations. There were cases where data inputs were incomplete or unavailable, such as utility usage data at a specific location for a particular period. Where required, we used estimation techniques to approximate utility usage, including extrapolation of existing consumption data to cover incomplete periods, as well as energy use intensity (EUI) data from facilities of a similar profile and location. (4) We report our Scope 2 GHG emissions using both market-based and location-based methods. Based on our current operations, the results for the location-based and market-based methods are equivalent. (5) Total Scope 1 and 2 emissions per square metre of banking centre and corporate office space occupied throughout the year.
63 2022 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY STATEMENT
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