News Releases

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 22, 2014) - In celebration of Earth Day, BMO encourages Canadians to take part and review their own environmental footprint.

"Across Canada, Environmental Ambassadors are organizing recycling and composting events in BMO's retail branches and office buildings," said Jim Johnston, Director, Environmental Sustainability & Compliance, BMO Financial Group. "We're fortunate to have more than 100 Environmental Ambassadors who help to increase environmental awareness, champion our environmental sustainability strategy and assist in executing our BMO ECO5 Strategy.

"Today we launched Essentials of Environmental Sustainability, a new online course developed to promote awareness of environmental sustainability for our employees. Also, for the second year, BMO has collaborated with the other large Canadian banks and Global Electric Electronic Processing on a two-day electronic waste collection event in downtown Toronto on April 22^nd and 23^rd, 2014."

Reducing BMO's Environmental Footprint

• Commitment to carbon neutrality: Since 2008, we have set and successfully met two absolute emissions reductions targets. Our current 5-year goal is to reduce absolute emissions by 10 per cent across the organization as compared to a 2012 baseline.
  
  
• 100 per cent renewable energy: In 2013, BMO purchased 115,195 megawatt hours of 100 per cent renewable electricity to power retail branches and offices across North America.
  
  

BMO and the Environment

BMO has earned a position on several key sustainability indices, including: the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index, the Jantzi Social Index and the FTSE4Good Series Index. BMO is also included on the Global 100 - a list of the most sustainable corporations in the world, Maclean's/Jantzi-Sustainalytics list of the Top 50 Socially Responsible Corporations in Canada and Corporate Knights Magazine's Best 50 Corporate Citizens.

BMO's Environmental, Social and Governance Report and Public Accountability Statement (ESG Report/PAS) outlines how we manage the ESG items that matter most to our business, and features a Scorecard which details supporting year over year metrics. The ESG Report/PAS is available at: www.bmo.com/esg-pas-report

Highlights include:

• BMO Capital Markets was involved in raising approximately $1.8 billion of equity and debt in the capital markets for entities active in renewable energy across North America
  
  
• Introduced multi-year workforce representation goals and initiatives in each business group for persons with disabilities, Aboriginal persons, minorities and women.
  
  

BMO's Corporate Responsibility Report, a companion piece to the ESG Report/PAS, illustrates the way we conduct our business, what we stand for, and the commitments we've made to our customers and the communities where we operate. The report is available on our website at: www.bmo.com/corporateresponsibility.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817 as Bank of Montreal, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified financial services organization based in North America. The bank offers a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers. BMO Financial Group had total assets of $593 billion and more than 45,500 employees at January 31, 2014.