Corporate Knights Winter 2025

The right to be green Re: “Call of the Wild: Can Young Green Republicans Wake Their Party Up to Climate Change?” In Canada, conservatives like [former prime minister] Brian Mulroney were also leaders in environmental issues. Lack of care for the environment isn’t a long-term trait of the right, and it doesn’t need to be going forward.  —Brian Hanna, via LinkedIn CK: We couldn’t agree more. Conservatives from U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt to Canada’s Mulroney and former British PM Boris Johnson have championed landmark environmental policies. We hope young green Republicans succeed in finding political influence within their party. Tried, tested and cruel RE: “Canada’s Plan to Phase Out Animal Testing Suffers a Setback” (from corporateknights.com). Thank you for the in-depth coverage of this topic – an integral need that…

Most people think President Trump 2.0 will be a disaster for the climate. There is much evidence to justify this sentiment. Case in point: his pick for energy secretary, oil wildcatter Chris Wright, said last year, “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition, either.” But what if a different outcome is possible? To explore this question in a clear-eyed way, two things matter: how much can a president tip the scale on climate solutions, and in which direction will it tip? Let’s follow the money: the United States accounts for 15% of global investments in climate solutions, so 85% of the action is elsewhere (mostly China). Also, don’t forget that while the executive branch of the U.S. government can be a powerful…

New York City’s new congestion charge really is begging for motorist analogies. It stalled. It sputtered out of the gate. Its hazards are still blinking. But for now, the path should be clear for the first vehicletoll plan of its kind in the United States to take effect in early January. Maybe. An idea that has been fiercely debated for decades, the current version of the toll imposes a $9 charge on passenger vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street. Motorcycles are charged less, while sightseeing buses and trucks pay more. “We’ll unclog our streets, reduce pollution and deliver better public transit for millions of New Yorkers,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at a press conference in November, as her administration hustled to implement the charge before President Donald Trump,…

Economists say that the cost of building a safer, net-zero planet by 2050 should come to US$3.5 trillion a year – a fraction of the world’s economic output, yet still a far cry from current investment levels. But there will be no energy transition unless we can also train enough people to do the jobs needed for that cleaner future – from farming to finance. And the world is underperforming here, too, according to a new study by workplace specialists LinkedIn. Based on data from more than a billion members in 43 countries, LinkedIn’s 2024 Global Green Skills Report projects that a full half of the jobs required by the green economy in 2050 will lack qualified candidates. “This data is a wake-up call, and there’s no more time to…

Searching for the protein of the future? Try your nearest duck pond, which in warmer weather is likely blanketed with the food sector’s next miracle ingredient: Lemna, also known as water lentils, also known as duckweed. Yes, it’s those tiny green plants that grow wild on the water’s surface, and their unique potential as an ingredient in animal-free products has been getting researchers and investors excited. Duckweed isn’t tasty – unless you’re a duck – but the flavour is at least inoffensive, and it packs a powerful nutritional punch. The plant’s miniature leaves contain uniquely high concentrations of rubisco, a ubiquitous protein that has been recognized by scientists as ideal for human consumption, according to the standards of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Duckweed’s protein density and high yield…

Last April, negotiators from 175 nations met in Ottawa to hammer out the details of the world’s first global treaty to end plastic waste. That fourth of five rounds of negotiations ended indecisively, with no agreement on the contentious issue of imposing firm caps on plastic production. Hope percolated in August, when the Biden administration signalled that the United States, one of the world’s biggest plastic producers, would back a global target on plastic production. Then, in the weeks leading up to the final round of plastic treaty negotiations in Busan, South Korea, in November, that hope evaporated as the Biden administration backtracked on its promise and described reductions in plastic production as an aspirational “North Star” goal. “I thought we were on the same page in terms of capping…