Big deals are made in our big tent. Movers and shakers from diverse sectors come to GLOBE Capital to drive transactions and accelerate growth. To inspire strategic connections, we’ll be introducing you to a sample of conference delegates in our Meet the GLOBE Capital Community blog series. Check back often for more insights.
Company: The Co-operators
HQ: Guelph, Ontario
Leadership: Rob Wesseling, President and Chief Executive Officer
Describe your company in 30 words or less:
The Co-operators is a Canadian financial services co-operative. We serve a diversity of clients through insurance, group benefits, wealth planning, and investment solutions to build financial security, sustainability and resilience.
What are you hoping to get out of GLOBE Capital?
As always, we are looking forward to the conversations, idea-sharing, and critical debates that come out of GLOBE sessions. The opportunity to convene with like-minded companies across sectors to share insights and challenges and discuss opportunities to transform business is exciting. We always leave GLOBE invigorated by the potential of what’s to come.
We’re particularly excited for the session on Investing in Resilience. The transition to a low carbon future requires us to innovate new ways to deploy capital to protect our homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure.
Bullish or bearish on the clean economy in 2021 and why?
We’re bullish on the clean economy in 2021. The transition to a more resilient and sustainable society is quickly gaining traction. Broad support is crucial, because we need a critical mass of investors to make a difference. To mobilize markets in this direction, our asset management company, Addenda Capital, launched Canada’s first Impact Fixed Income Pooled Fund to catalyze impact investing across the country. Our fund now has more than $85 million in assets and is growing.
At The Co-operators, we currently allocate over 20% of our invested assets to impact investments. This translates into over $2 billion. It’s worth mentioning that amidst the great volatility we have seen in 2020, these investments have continued to perform well, relative to other investments.
We are committed to working together to build the market in this space, collectively. Impact and transition finance will help de-risk our economy and communities by building cleaner energy systems, more energy efficient and resilient infrastructure, stronger housing, better food security, mental health supports, and more. The UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals point us in the right direction, and we’ve aligned our organization’s long-term goals accordingly. Collectively, we need to accelerate our movement toward them.
Your take on the biggest opportunity in the clean economy:
The biggest opportunity we see is to use the asset side of our balance sheet to drive positive externalities that build community resiliency and the sustainable, low-emissions economy.
Imagine if, for example, companies used their capital to fix the urban-forest interface to prevent catastrophic wildfires in high-risk areas, or to develop infrastructure that helped to mitigate losses from flooding, or to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency. There is an abundance of capital that can be harnessed to build the future we need to see. Imagine if all of us used our capital in this way, to finance the transition to a more resilient, sustainable future. There is immense opportunity to grow in this space. Through collaboration, we can make it happen.
Best GLOBE memory:
There are many good memories, but most resonant is the overall feeling of GLOBE: having the opportunity to gather together in person, to share conversation, laughs, ideas and insights, all under the majestic backdrop of Vancouver or Toronto. While there are great opportunities (and fewer emissions!) in virtual connection, it will be good to convene again in person every once in a while, once conditions allow for us to do so.
Website: Cooperators.ca
Twitter: https://twitter.com/The_Cooperators
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-co-operators
Integrated Annual Report: integratedreport.cooperators.ca
