Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2022 i Corporate Knights

For the leaders of the divestment movement, which encourages institutional investors to sell off their shares in fossil fuel companies, winning isn’t everything. Eroding public support for the sector has been considered valuable work in itself. But after a decade of determined lobbying, the divest side is suddenly doing a lot of winning. Just before the launch of COP26, the UN climate conference in November, the DivestInvest network calculated that endowments, portfolios and pension funds worth nearly US$40 trillion have now committed to divesting their fossil fuel holdings. That tally, they noted, is bigger than the combined GDP of the U.S. and China. From the US$16-billion Ford Foundation (the ultimate fossil fuel fortune) to Quebec’s giant pension fund, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, 1,485 institutions have now…

A new survey says 84% of Canadian A workers have experienced burnout during the pandemic, with 34% reporting high or extreme levels of stress. The Ceridian poll finds that 21% are looking for new jobs. In the U.S., a record-breaking 38 million quit their jobs in the Great Resignation, a.k.a the Big Quit, of 2021. Hard-pressed bosses who had trouble recruiting talent before the COVID-19 pandemic are now scrambling to cut turnover, reduce employee stress and make their businesses magnets for talent. Fortunately, there’s one solution to all three problems: converting your company to employee ownership. In an era when business success depends on having caring, creative employees, there’s no team like a group of peers who trust each other, set objectives together – and share the rewards. In the…

Mark Podlasly is a member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation and the director of economic policy at the First Nations Major Projects Coalition. At the peak of the summer, my nation, the Nlaka'pamux, one of the Indigenous Peoples of south-central British Columbia, used to know when the salmon had returned to local rivers by the annual blooming of the waxz'ethlap, or wild mock-orange shrub. This flower’s annual bloom along the shores of the Thompson River used to tell us when to prepare our salmon nets and fish-drying racks toharvest what is one of our most important protein sources. However, because of the impacts of climate change on the lands and waters in our territories, this annual bloom is no longer synchronized with the salmon’s journey up the rivers to spawn. The…

Mike Scott writes about business, finance, clean energy and sustainability. The global pandemic continued to highlight society’s inequalities in 2021, while heat waves, wildfires and floods reminded us of the urgency of the climate crisis. It was a year when environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues took centre stage in business, government and all walks of life. Approximately 90% of countries are now covered by some kind of net-zero target, as are hundreds of the largest publicly traded companies. At November’s UN climate summit, US$130 trillion of assets were committed to this goal. Again this year, the Corporate Knights Global 100 most sustainable corporations are progressing faster than their peers. Members of the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI), a global equity index, derive just 30% of their earnings from…

Fasten your seat belt. Annual shareholder meeting season is coming up, and North America’s biggest companies can expect a bumpy ride. Activist shareholders are gearing up to challenge more corporations on how they manage diversity, equity and inclusion. What used to be a box-checking exercise has gained real urgency after two social upheavals – the unequal impacts of COVID-19 and the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in the spring of 2020 – revealed the enduring hold of systemic racism in North America. It’s no longer enough for companies to form diversity committees or hold inclusion workshops. Activist investors, mainly on the pension fund side, are demanding that big firms conduct intensive “racial equity audits” by outside experts to discover all the overt and hidden biases…

Canadian firm looks to harness fusion energy After 70 years of frustration with governmentled fusion projects, a British Columbia company, General Fusion (GF), says it’s finally developing the world’s first fusion power plant. Sure, cynics say fusion is always 10 years away. But some major investors are now showing up, including Jeff Bezos and Tobi Lütke, founders of e-commerce giants Amazon and Shopify. Proponents say this technology, in theory, can create energy that’s cheaper than nuclear, solar or wind by fusing the nuclei of two hydrogen isotopes. Founded in Burnaby in 2002, GF just announced it has raised US$130 million, bringing its total capital to $300 million. That’s enough to start construction of a demonstration fusion plant in the U.K., in partnership with the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. GF hopes…

Jessica Scott-Reid is a freelance writer covering animal rights and welfare and plant-based food topics. She is also a co-host of the Canadian animal law podcast Paw & Order. As global leaders gathered in Glasgow to negotiate the latest UN climate agreement, a small Colorado-based company struck a quietly disruptive deal with one of the world’s largest pet food manufacturers. Bond Pet Foods announced in November an industry-first partnership with Hill’s Pet Nutrition (a subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive) to develop “cultured meat proteins” – meat grown in a lab. “This alternative protein source marks a step forward on our sustainability journey to use science to help provide the best possible care for pets,” Hills said in a statement. Bond first announced the creation of “the world’s first animal-free, cultured chicken meat…

Asian Development Bank One encouraging outcome of the UN climate summit in November was a clear recognition that the days of coal-fired power are numbered. The Glasgow Climate Pact that came out of the summit is the first multilateral climate agreement that explicitly notes the need to move away from the black rock that still generates about 36% of the world’s electricity. Even so, the pact leaves much to be desired. The final wording was watered down in the face of fierce lobbying by big coal producers and consumers, notably India and China. Signatories committed in the end only to “phase down” rather than “phase out” the use of coal. Given such foot-dragging, the spotlight now falls on who is willing – or not – to back up the Glasgow…

The recently concluded UN climate summit in Glasgow, COP26, brought governments together to fulfil the goals of the Paris Agreement and highlight the urgent need for breakthrough action. The 1.5°C scenario (which would limit average global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels) has an accelerated timeline for climate action under which countries will revisit and strengthen their 2030 targets to be more aligned. At COP26, over 200 nations agreed to “phase down” coal, and more than 100 world leaders committed to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. Countries also reached a deal on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which will govern international carbon markets and determine how countries that exceed emissions targets sell credits to polluting nations. Sustainable technology and innovations will be key to the decarbonisation journey. New…

Daniel Driscoll is a political economist and PhD candidate at the University of California San Diego. “Why must this revolution happen in “Wwinter?” Raphaël quipped, raising his twinkling eyes from his hands, hovering over the trashcan bonfire. I chuckled and asked whether he had been coming to many of the weekend protests against France’s carbon tax. “Not all of them, because I often work on Saturdays. I’m a bus driver.” Raphaël explained that he lived outside of Paris, and the spike in gas prices was too much for his family to bear. “The tax is nothing for people living in Paris. They all have the metro. All my family in the country side felt this immediately.” “Yes, we care about the climate, but justice, too,” he explains. “It’s the same…

Shawn McCarthy is an Ottawa-based writer who focuses on climate change and the low-carbon energy economy. Canada will have to double the generation of clean, renewable electricity over the next eight years and dramatically accelerate the electrification of transportation and heating of buildings to meet international commitments to battle climate change, the head of research at Corporate Knights says. “The race to net-zero will be a defining feature of the 21st-century global economy, but Canada’s climate change response is absolutely stuck at the starting gate,” Ralph Torrie told a webinar on December 1. “The share of our electricity supply provided by clean, renewable power is stagnating when we need it to be galloping forward, and the share of fossil fuel use in our total energy is stalled when we need…

As the number of severe weather events continues to rise across Canada and globally, it’s evident that the fight against climate change is a constant threat to our world’s health, safety and sustainability. At the recent United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, diplomats from nearly 200 countries struck a major agreement to intensify the fight against climate change – establishing a consensus that more must be done to protect the planet. Canada is making strides to address climate change, pledging ambitious commitments to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, to accelerate a path toward a safe and prosperous net-zero future by 2050. But achieving a net-zero future requires that every sector of the economy play a role. There is a growing…