ESG Message from FCC Leadership

This is an exciting time for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives at Farm Credit Canada (FCC). We care about advancing our sustainability practices and are in a position to support our customers on their sustainability journey. And over the past few years, we have been reshaping our approach to corporate strategy, ESG and what we stand for as an organization.

As part of our new approach, we renamed our Enterprise Strategy division the Strategy & Sustainability division to indicate how we’ve made sustainability more central to how we do business at FCC, while we work to enable our customers and the industry to operate more sustainably as well.

In 2021-22, our strategy reflected a number of shareholder priorities and — as you’ll read in this report — many of them are directly related to ESG. In broader terms, this is the work we’ve accomplished to support an innovative, sustainable and responsible Canadian agriculture and food industry today and over the long term.

We had a very successful year of living into our strategy and ESG commitments. We supported under-represented groups in agriculture and food, providing nearly $5 billion in loans to young farmers and entrepreneurs. We also provided over $573 million in loans to women entrepreneurs. We made significant progress on our Indigenous lending strategy with the goal of enabling more Indigenous community participation in the Canadian agriculture and food industry.

In terms of charitable social impact and fighting food insecurity, thanks to considerable support from partnerships across the country, we had another record year for Drive Away Hunger, raising 36 million meals for Canadians in need. FCC also provided funds to 124 school feeding programs at Indigenous and community schools nationwide.

The 2021-22 fiscal year was marked by significant environmental challenges like wildfires and floods in B.C., drought in different parts of the country, and potato wart in P.E.I. – on top of pandemic-related challenges like labour shortages and trade issues. To respond to these challenges, we rolled out three customer support programs in seven locations across Canada. These were in addition to the existing pandemic support program, which began in 2020 to assist customers facing business continuity issues due to the pandemic.

One more note on environmental commitments: we’re pleased to share that this summer, FCC published its first Climate-Related Disclosures based on the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) standards. This will be produced annually to better understand the climate-sensitive assets in FCC’s portfolio – measuring our industry’s exposure to climate risk. This past May, we launched the FCC Sustainability Incentive Program in partnership with the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) – rewarding FCC customers and look forward to supporting other industry-led initiatives in the future with cash incentives for meeting CRSB standards. Lots of work is yet to be done, and we’re excited to extend more programs like it to other agriculture and food sectors.

We’re excited for the possibilities that lie ahead, for FCC, for our customers, the communities we serve, and for the greater industry – possibilities to amplify our positive impact on the environment and on society.

Leadership Team, Farm Credit Canada

Over the past 18 months, FCC has focused ongoing efforts on building an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practice to guide how we operate and how we support our customers on their sustainability journey.

We aim to be a partner to the agriculture and food industry and our communities for generations to come, so it’s important that we advance our practices and set targets to measure our progress. Our ambition is rooted in the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals articulate some of the largest global challenges of our time, and we have a role to play in being part of the solution. From our position as a financial Crown corporation dedicated to agriculture, we see the ability to move the dial on the SDG 2 — Zero Hunger and SDG 12 — Responsible Consumption and Production.

Our ESG Commitments

We operate sustainably and support customers to do the same.

Earlier this year we renamed our Enterprise Strategy division, Strategy & Sustainability. This change highlights how we’ve made sustainability more central to how we do business at FCC. In turn, this enables us to find ways to help our customers and the industry operate more sustainably too.

We foster a healthy and inclusive society.

A more resilient future for the agriculture and agri-food industry also means fostering greater opportunities for inclusivity. Women, youth and Indigenous agricultural entrepreneurs are among the groups that FCC has sought to support by developing specific products and resources that will permit them to enter, grow and thrive in the agriculture and agri-food industry. We also focus on supporting equity groups within our organization so that everyone can thrive.

We operate responsibly and with integrity.

FCC has a well-established approach that enables effective governance at a Board and management level. As our ESG program matures, enhanced governance, clear strategy and targets, and rigorous reporting standards are foundational to our success.

ESG topics span a wide variety of areas within the organization, requiring multiple functions working together towards common goals tied directly to the overall business strategy. Lots of work is yet to be done, but efforts are well underway to establish a baseline of where we’re at as an organization and to build a vision of where we're going to hold ourselves accountable to.

Learn more about the work we’ve done in our commitments to our customers, the industry and our employees in our 2021-22 ESG report.

Josie Ricci Mackay
Vice-President, Strategy and Sustainability