News Releases

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 22, 2015) - BMO Financial Group has today been named one of Canada's Greenest Employers for 2015 by Mediacorp Canada Inc. This designation recognizes the employers that lead the nation in creating a culture of environmental awareness in their organizations.

In naming BMO to this year's list, Mediacorp cited the following reasons:

• BMO's establishment of a Sustainability Council, which includes executive representation from all areas of the bank
• BMO's more than 100 in-house "Environmental Ambassadors," who work to raise awareness of environmental issues and champion the bank's sustainability strategies
• BMO's purchase of green power through a partnership with Bullfrog Power and the bank's encouragement of employees to do the same, offering them a small discount when they sign up

"This is a tremendous honour for BMO, and recognition of how important our sustainability efforts are to us as an organization," said Jim Johnston, Director, Environmental Sustainability, BMO Financial Group. "Sustainability and success go hand in hand at BMO. We remain committed to minimizing the impact of our operations on the environment and to demonstrating leadership by integrating environmental considerations into our wider business practices."

BMO and Sustainability

BMO has attained and maintained Carbon Neutrality across the enterprise since 2010 and achieved ISO 14001 certification for its Environmental Management System in two buildings in the Greater Toronto Area. In 2014, we launched Essentials of Environmental Sustainability, a new online course developed to promote employee awareness of our environmental commitments.

For Waste Reduction Week 2014, BMO employees showed off their creativity and resourcefulness by transforming items destined for the garbage into useful and decorative treasures.

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 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, the 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 2014 Environmental, Social and Governance Report and Public Accountability Statement (ESG Report/PAS) outlines the sustainability issues that are most important to our customers, our other stakeholders and our business. Management's approach to reducing our environmental footprint is listed on pages 28 and 29 and our ESG Scorecard, on page 5, is complete with credible year-over-year performance metrics. The 2014 ESG Report/PAS is available at: www.bmo.com/esg-pas-report.

BMO's 2015 Corporate Responsibility Report, a companion piece to the ESG Report/PAS, will be available in June 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 approximately $672 billion and more than 46,000 employees at January 31, 2015.