It’s too early to predict how COVID-19 will reshape the future. The travel, entertainment, hospitality and personal-services sectors have already been devastated. A Canadian Federation of Independent Business survey found that 32% of owners who had shut down their businesses in March were unsure if they would ever reopen.

The media has also identified the first winners of this global reckoning. Setting aside for a moment the immeasurable personal tragedies caused by the virus, here are some preliminary results:

• Greater concern for the environment could be COVID’s legacy, wrote columnist Gwynne Dyer. “The clean air over China’s cities in the past month, thanks to an almost total shutdown of the big sources of pollution, has saved 20 times as many Chinese lives as COVID-19 has taken . . . People will remember this when the filthy air comes back and want something done about it.”

• Movements for social change may be empowered by governments’ rapid moves to restrict behaviour and unleash financial support. At TheConversation.com, U.K. economist Simon Mair said the virus “is expanding the economic imagination. As governments and citizens take steps that three months ago seemed impossible, our ideas about how the world works could change rapidly.”

• Retail and food workers are finally getting some respect, with companies such as Maple Leaf Foods, Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro and Walmart granting raises to frontline staff, introducing the concept of “hero pay.” Though Corporate Knights asks whether $2 extra an hour is enough for the grocery employees putting their lives on the line. Canadian banks are giving frontline employees an extra $50 a day and additional paid time off; TD Bank Group is giving bonuses of up to $1,000.

• Tycoons such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma and Elon Musk, in most cases, polished their reputations by funding hospitals, medical supplies and research. But the Canadian billionaire community, wrote the Toronto Star’s David Olive, “has hardly been heard from on arguably the greatest crisis Canada has ever faced.”

• Manufacturers of everything from hockey skates to gin began retooling to deliver personal protective equipment to those who need it most. Heavyweights that have stepped up include H&M, Ford, GM, Dyson and Gucci’s parent company, Kering. Several companies have been saluted for establishing COVID relief funds, including Facebook, which set up a US$100 million relief fund for businesses in 30 countries, and meal-delivery companies, whose services helped thousands of restaurants stay open. Facebook also set up an additional US$100 million fund to support news media. Sony, Netflix and Amazon created their own US$100 million global relief funds — though striking Amazon employees say not enough is being done to keep them safe.

And then there are the hidden heroes: the workers delivering essential services across dozens of sectors, as well as anyone who is stepping up to support aging relatives during the crisis, check up on their neighbours, shop for the quarantined, donate money or haul canned goods to food banks. We’re banging on our pots and pans in thanks for you, too.

The post COVID response: Who rode first wave in new culture of conscience? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Described as “the rebel of management theory” by Forbes magazine in 2019, Mintzberg is a tart critic of business schools that teach graduate management education as if it were a science like engineering and medicine. Instead, the management studies professor at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management believes managers become successful leaders through practice and experience. As faculty director for McGill’s International Masters for Health Leadership, Mintzberg leads a program to equip global healthcare professionals with tools to become thoughtful leaders, not number-crunching technocrats.

Now Mintzberg is tackling a very big idea – a global power imbalance he sees as tipped in favour of the private sector at the expense of democracy, civil society and meaningful action on the climate crisis.

In January, with nine like-minded allies, he published a “Declaration of Our Interdependence” to mobilize a global movement to “restore balance in a lopsided world.” Since its release, more than 800 people have signed the declaration inspired by the 16th-century Reformation movement and the American Declaration of Independence.

“The Reformation was about the corruption of the Pope and the corruption of the higher authorities, and [reform] did not start at the top,” says Mintzberg, whose 2015 Rebalancing Society helped lay the foundation for the “interdependence” declaration.

“We are making the case that the problems we face, whether climate change or income disparity and so much else, have a common cause: an imbalance across the sectors of society,” he says.

The declaration’s opening lines make clear the urgency for action: “Now our world has reached the limits of growth driven by the pursuit of individual rights at the expense of shared responsibilities. Faced with the threats of warming, weapons and waste, and the lopsided distribution of wealth, we must declare our interdependence.”

The global coronavirus pandemic illustrates, for good and ill, what is at stake, he says. “Countries seem to be reacting in two ways. One [group] functions in balance, where the sectors cooperate, with governments serving the role of protection, businesses serving the role of supply, and communities serving the role of galvanizing the population. On the other side are those countries where the governments have been starved for funds, businesses are inclined to profiteer, and people are inclined to ignore requests to self-isolate.”

Mintzberg has been thinking about the politics of imbalance for decades.

In 1991, he was in Prague to witness the fall of Communism, where Soviet-dominated states crumbled after centralizing power at the expense of local communities and the private sector.

Today, he argues that Western democracies are similarly out of balance, but for a different reason: too much power held by private interests at the expense of vibrant communities and a well-functioning public sector.

The declaration, says Mintzberg, is a bottom-up “call to action, not to arms” to promote collaboration among private, public and community interests for society’s benefit. His quarrel is not with capitalism “in its place,” he emphasizes, but with “capitalism out of its place and controlling government.”

Along with its lofty goals, the declaration lays out suggestions for “next steps” by individuals, communities, governments and the private sector to reframe beliefs, reverse wrongs and renew rights. For example, individuals should call out socially irresponsible practices by companies. Speak up instead of remaining silent, says Mintzberg.

Those unaffiliated with the declaration praise its lofty ambitions.

“[It] is wishful, hopeful and necessary,” writes retired Ryerson University political scientist Myer Siemiatycki in an email. “At a time when polarization, marginalization and ‘other-ing’ seems rampant, it is important to promote a counter vision. Our environment, economy and politics urgently need to be recalibrated with a message of local, national and global interdependence and equity.”
Mintzberg has no illusions about the effort to recalibrate the status quo.

But it takes only one spark to start a flame, he argues, citing examples from history. In the 16th century, he says, Martin Luther challenged the teachings of the Catholic Church, setting off the Protestant Reformation, while 1960s-era black activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, igniting a national boycott against racial segregation of public services.

Over the next few months, Mintzberg hopes to recruit social influencers – columnists and opinion leaders – and mobilize those now on the sidelines to recognize what’s at stake for them, their children and grandchildren.

“My [concern] about rebalancing society is about decades of regress,” he says. “The issue now is whether we have reached an inflection point [for action].”

Jennifer Lewington is an intrepid reporter and writes regularly on many topics, including business school news.

The post Mintzberg’s Declaration of Our Interdependence appeared first on Corporate Knights.

These sites represent the beginning of a concerted drive by the City of Toronto to develop thousands of units of affordable rental apartments on publicly owned land – a program known as Housing Now that grew from a campaign pledge by Mayor John Tory to build 10,000 residential units on 11 swaths of vacant municipal land, including 3,700 that will be designated “deeply affordable.”

In many European cities, large segments of the population live in rental buildings that sit on public land. Indeed, the so-called Vienna model – a system for building affordable rental apartments on public land that goes back to the 1920s and is lauded for its accessibility – offers compelling proof that quality urban housing isn’t just the product of market forces.

Toronto’s plan has echoes of the Vienna model. The city will leverage its own real estate to attract apartment developers, both for-profit firms and non-profits. But they must be willing to sign on to unusual terms: the city will offer builders prime locations, financial incentives (reduced development charges, for instance) and 99-year lease agreements instead of outright land sales, as normally happens when public land is redeveloped. The quid pro quo is that property managers must guarantee affordable rents for a century. The builders that win the right to develop these first four sites will be made public this spring. CreateTO, the city agency responsible for these projects, expects construction to begin by late 2020 and will soon make other sites available.

While city officials are attaching all sorts of planning conditions to these deals, one in particular stands out: they must satisfy a set of demanding environmental performance benchmarks set out in the 2018 version of the “Toronto Green Standard” (TGS), which lays out the sustainable design requirements for new private and city-owned developments. That should translate into features such as better-insulated walls, less exterior window space, improved heating and ventilation systems and other measures meant to reduce a building’s carbon footprint.

“It’s important that if we have an environmental emergency and we have a homelessness and housing crisis, there’s a way to leverage these sites and [address] both,” says Mark Richardson, spokesperson for HousingNowTO, an advocacy group tracking the rollout of the program.

“The upfront costs may be high for creating more sustainable buildings, but in the long term, the operating costs will be lower.”

Forking out for sustainable affordable housing

Like a growing number of cities, Toronto last fall declared a climate emergency and is developing an ambitious plan to slash building-related emissions by 65% (from 1990 levels) over the next decade. But given mounting public concern about escalating real estate, condo and rental costs, it’s also clear that sustainably designed affordable housing projects, such as those envisioned for the Housing Now sites, have become increasingly critical in meeting the city’s climate and social-inclusion goals.

“Climate change and housing affordability are the two most difficult challenges facing communities and the country,” says Jake Stacey, vice-president of impact banking at Vancity Community Investment Bank (VCIB), which is launching a “green commercial mortgage” this spring to finance projects that combine both objectives.

Older buildings will also have to pull their weight. Hundreds of slab apartment towers constructed in the 1960s and ’70s will require deep energy retrofits (new windows, insulation, LED lights, airtight building envelopes, high-efficiency mechanical systems, etc.) to meet council’s carbon reduction targets. But in the past, financing for such undertakings was elusive. Some of the capital costs can be recouped by reductions in operating costs related to energy efficiency retrofits, but property owners need other sources of financing if they hope to make these fixes without hiking rents.

At various times, public funding programs have helped make the math work, but mostly on the margins. Case in point: since 2000, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund has provided $5.1 million in grants and $31.3 million in loans to a handful of social housing complexes looking to cut emissions.

The Atmospheric Fund (TAF) has provided $10 million in financing for 22 energy-efficiency retrofit projects around the Greater Toronto Area, mostly older apartments, using a profit-sharing formula that sees TAF finance the capital expenditures and keep about 90% of the energy savings. The organization invests from an endowment established by the City of Toronto in the 1990s.

There are also a few sources of private sector financing. VCIB’s lending program has underwritten more than 1,200 rooftop solar and geothermal energy projects for residential buildings. The bank also recently acquired CoPower, which sells green bonds that have financed about 400 energy-efficiency retrofits. VCIB’s commercial green mortgages, says Stacey, will allow property owners to borrow against long-term value growth created in their buildings by energy-efficiency capital upgrades, such as tighter building envelopes, new mechanical systems and LED lighting conversion projects.

Yet new public dollars will likely deliver most of the needed investment. This spring, Ottawa will begin flowing about $300 million from a 2019 federal budget commitment for a sustainable affordable housing program. Toronto Community Housing will receive $1.3 billion from the $55 billion National Housing Strategy for overdue repairs to its portfolio, with a portion of those funds earmarked for energy retrofits. A further $300 million from the federal government will help municipalities offer retrofit financing for low-rise homes, and it seems likely that governments will add even more to these pots of funding to counter the recessionary impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Housing Now philosophy offers a variation on the theme. The city is aiming to entice developers by leasing prime land and providing breaks on development charges and property taxes in exchange for more sustainably designed projects.
This latest version of the TGS, according to one city estimate, will add about 3.5% to overall construction costs. Yet advocates say that such buildings in the long run are financially attractive because they slash energy expen-ses over decades. They also tend to be better constructed, meaning they require less age-related maintenance.

As it turns out, the implicit formula – additional upfront investment in sustainable design in anticipation of lower long-term operating and maintenance costs – is exceptionally well suited to companies and non-profits that own multi-unit residential buildings and don’t intend to sell them any time soon. Yet it remains to be seen how hard Toronto officials will push the Housing Now developers to maximize the sustainability features of their plans. Richardson says CreateTO’s evaluation rubric doesn’t assign enough weight to the green design aspects of the proposals submitted by the development groups vying to build on these four pieces of land. In late February, CreateTO spokesperson Susan O’Neill said it was too soon to comment.

Greening building codes

For many years, sustainable-design activists, especially in North America, complained that building codes were far too lenient and set minimum standards that allowed developers to erect structures that leaked energy in the form of heat. Many of the condo towers that have sprung up in Toronto in recent years fit the critique. Their perfunctory concrete balconies jettison heat, while the wall-sized windows are so cheaply made and shoddily installed that they either radiate cold or transform small apartments into convection ovens, depending on the season and time of day.

Voluntary green building certifications such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system have historically been taken up by only a small percentage of builders. (Since 2004, only 4,350 buildings have been LEED certified in Canada, according to the Canada Green Building Council, which oversees the certification process. To put that figure in context, the country erected nearly 20,000 new buildings in December 2019 alone.) In the meantime, other, less demanding, voluntary standards have come on the market, such as Energy Star, which rates residential dwellings for energy efficiency.

But in the past decade or so, provincial governments in Ontario and BC have revised their building codes to make them more demanding in terms of energy efficiency and performance. Vancouver and Toronto have gone even further with their own municipal codes, joining a growing cohort of cities pushing to achieve or surpass 80% reductions in carbon emissions by 2050.

The TGS aspires to ensure that all new buildings will attain “near zero” emissions by 2030. The code offers builders more stringent voluntary features and then sets out an aggressive timetable for making those optional elements mandatory – a system known as a “step code.” One such change in Toronto’s green building standard: much tougher rules for the so-called wall-to-window ratio, a shift that will effectively end the practice of building towers clad almost entirely in glass.

According to Lisa King, the senior policy planner who oversees the TGS, the 2018 rules have attracted all sorts of builders interested in developing projects that satisfy the code’s tougher voluntary requirements. “What’s exciting, under [the newest version], which is difficult [to satisfy] because it has absolute targets, is that we’re seeing a quick adjustment in the market.” She says numerous proposals have come in from firms developing smaller commercial or office buildings as well as rental buildings.

Passive houses pass on cost savings

One public agency has decided to aim even higher. Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) has embarked on an ambitious plan to build 21 townhouses in Alexandra Park, a downtown affordable-housing complex, that meet the most demanding voluntary targets in the TGS – a set of benchmarks that are virtually the same as “passive house,” a German certification method associated with draft-free structures that have, among other things, thickly insulated walls, state-of-the-art windows and extremely low energy bills.

After an unusual competitive bidding process was completed last year, a consortium led by Tridel and Diamond Schmitt Architects won the contract, estimated to be worth about $10 million. The tender process was out of the ordinary because the two finalists had to present their plans to community members, who voted on the one they wanted.
TCHC architect Michael Lam, who will be the senior construction manager, says the project will be the first of its kind in Greater Toronto.

While residential passive-house developments, both for-profit and non-profit, have gone up in Vancouver, Ottawa and Hamilton, none have been completed in Toronto. “We don’t have a lot of experience with this,” Lam says.

Officials with TCHC, which is in the process of redeveloping and intensifying a number of its housing complexes, looked ahead five or six years and realized that more demanding green building codes, especially for city-owned projects, were inevitable as the TGS evolves. So Lam and his team decided to get ahead of the curve. “We thought, ‘We’ve got an incredible opportunity in our own revitalization projects,’ and this [the townhouses] was a fairly well-delineated project.”

Because certified passive-house projects feature extremely airtight designs, smart heating/cooling and humidity-control systems, natural interior materials that don’t cast off chemical smells, and all sorts of devices tasked with capturing and recycling waste energy (from hot water going down drains or from bathroom ventilation fans, for instance), the design process is far from conventional, Lam explains. The team’s architects, engineers, energy consultants and constructors must all work together to figure out how they’ll create structures that satisfy a demanding set of performance standards. “The objective of the building is so different that it requires a different design process and a different way of thinking about how architect, engineering and energy modelling work together,” says Lam. Detailed designs will be unveiled later this spring, and construction is expected to begin in about a year

An Ottawa non-profit supportive-housing provider, Salus, went down this road a few years ago, with a 40-unit apartment complex for people with mental health issues. The project consists of 300-square-foot apartments with small kitchenettes, about a fifth of which are barrier-free. “At the time, [passive house] was not something that was on the landscape,” says Salus executive director Lisa Ker.

In 2013, Salus was trying to figure out what to do with a piece of donated land when a manager with a national affordable-housing umbrella group suggested they try developing a passive house project. Ker’s advisors predicted that the costs would be 6 to 9% above a more typical building. But, as she points out, Salus was the first in the market, so they had no real basis to evaluate. “We were very much an experiment.”

However, Salus’s donors were very interested, and not just because of the environmental features. As Ker points out, Salus’s clients live on the fringes of society and are generally seen to be contributing little. Living in a cutting-edge project, she says, “was a great opportunity to show they could bring something to the equation.”

Salus’s architect, CSV principal Anthony Leaning, adds that passive house projects are notably comfortable to be in, and so the design could improve clients’ health and well-being. And, he says, the durability of the building materials means such projects “will last a long time.”

CSV is now working on numerous other passive house affordable-housing projects, and Leaning points out that Ottawa’s public housing agency has also begun to promote aggressive environmental standards in its newest projects. Some of the federal government’s $55 billion 10-year National Housing Strategy funding will pay for large-scale energy-efficiency retrofits of older affordable-housing projects that need everything from new boilers to proper windows (in addition to funding 125,000 new housing units). “There’s a shift happening,” Leaning says of the affordable-housing sector’s growing embrace of energy-efficiency design.

Building on lessons learned

This story, of course, isn’t just about the performance of individual buildings. HousingNowTO’s Mark Richardson points out that the best strategy for reducing the emissions associated with any apartment building is to situate it close to a transit stop. Such locational decisions also bring financial dividends because the developer may not need to build a giant, expensive underground parking lot in such projects, provided municipal planning officials waive those requirements.

TCHC’s Michael Lam hopes that as for-profit builders like Tridel gain experience with more environmentally ambitious projects, such as the townhouses in Alexandra Park, they’ll begin to incorporate those energy- and cost-saving features in more market-oriented apartment building projects. “They’re seeing the writing on the wall: ‘Sooner or later, we’ll be asked to do this.’”

Anthony Leaning says municipal governments should be promoting the case for green affordable housing by offering to fast-track the approvals of such projects and waiving development fees.

The Housing Now program that is attracting so much attention certainly has deployed all available carrots and sticks – more demanding minimum-energy and ecological-performance standards, but also breaks on a range of charges, including property taxes. And as with TCHC’s Alexandra Park venture, the eventual winning Housing Now bidders will include both for-profit and non-profit developers, meaning there’s an opportunity for the design lessons to find their way into the private development sector.

VCIB’s Jake Stacey adds that as recently as two years ago, few builders or agencies would have had the chops or the courage to attempt a net-zero or near-zero building, of any sort. But as more organizations gain experience in building or rebuilding affordable housing that meets the ambitious emission-reduction standards we’ll need in the near future, other agencies, developers and financing sources will fall into line.

“There’s a way to do it,” she says. “I want to be out in front of this.”

Toronto journalist John Lorinc writes about cities, sustainability and business.

The post The case for funding more green affordable housing appeared first on Corporate Knights.

For investors with public pension funds who are concerned about animal welfare, knowing a fund’s involvement in potential animal cruelty is crucial, though not always easy to discern.

According to recent research from animal welfare experts, at least six top global pension funds have holdings in potentially cruel companies that slaughter animals for meat, produce other animal products or fall behind in animal welfare standards.

Norway’s pension at back of pack

At the top of the list of funds with holdings in potentially cruel companies is Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), with four holdings of concern worth US$159.7 million. Of that, $61 million is invested in Sanderson Farms, a Fortune 1000 company that, according to its website, has the capacity to “process more than 13.65 million chickens per week.” While the company does have an animal welfare policy of sorts, it refers only to antibiotics and does not address stocking density, painful procedures, breeding or other important animal welfare issues pertaining to chickens.

A 2017 report by the Animal Welfare Institute found that one Sanderson farm had been cited 20 times in the two preceding years for not complying with humane handling standards. One USDA inspector determined that the plant’s slaughtering process was “out of control.”
The other contentious NBIM holdings are Japan’s NH Foods (US$64 million), Mexico’s Industrias Bachoco ($US34.3 million) and Dean Foods in the U.S. (US$0.1 million).

An NBIM spokesperson states the fund has no specific policy regarding animal welfare.

Canada and California pension plans also clued out on cruelty

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board holds a total of US$24 million in potentially cruel companies, including US$13.7 million in NH Foods, US$10.2 million in Sanderson Farms and US$0.1 million in Dean Foods. The fund takes no position on animal welfare and makes no mention of it in its 2017 or 2018 Sustainable Investing Reports.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System and California Public Employees’ Retirement System both have holdings in Sanderson Farms, US$5.6 million and US$7.9 million respectively. Neither has a specific policy regarding animal welfare.

Some funds are starting to consider cruelty

A spokesperson for Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) says that animal-welfare issues are studied as part of their fund’s pre-investment ESG analysis, and “if concerns arise, we proactively engage in dialogue with companies we’re invested in.”

However, CDPQ has three holdings in potentially cruel companies, including US$9.2 million in Industrias Bachoco, US$1.7 million in NH Foods and US$18.5 million in JBS S.A., the largest meat-processing company in the world, which slaughters 13 million animals every day.
JBS S.A. has also not signed on to the Better Chicken Commitment, an initiative supported by major animal protection groups around the world. And according to the 2018 Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare, though the company appears to have an established approach to animal welfare, it “has more work to do to ensure it is effectively implemented.”

New York’s pension fund claims to use more of a shareholder engagement rather than divestment approach. The proxy voting guidelines of the New York State Common Retirement Fund state that “the Fund will support proposals asking a company to report on its animal welfare standards.” In 2018, fund managers wrote to McDonald’s, requesting information on what the company was doing to align its chicken welfare policy with widely accepted best practices like those of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Global Animal Partnership. However, it still holds US$3.6 million in Sanderson Farms.

Which financial institutions are taking the lead?

While pension funds may lag behind when it comes to animal welfare, other financial institutions are stepping up, providing examples of how to approach animal-friendly finances.

Bank Australia, for example, states on its website that it does not lend to “organizations that use intensive animal farming systems like battery caged hens and sow stalls, or organizations that export live animals.”

The Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) has a three-page position statement regarding animal welfare that includes recognizing animals as sentient beings capable of experiencing pain. FMO considers unacceptable farming practices to include “non-enriched battery cages for chickens, the tethering of sows, individual sow stall housing throughout the entire pregnancy, individual pen housing for veal calves beyond the age of eight weeks, forced feeding of geese and ducks.” The agency will not make investments “that substantially involve any of these systems or practices.”

Other financial institutions notable for making animal welfare a priority include Allianz, CDC Group (the UK’s development finance institution), Rabobank, Standard Chartered and Triodos Bank.

Australian Ethical wealth management outright excludes any investment “in current systems of commercial animal agriculture including meat, dairy, eggs and seafood.”

Another option for investors concerned with the treatment of animals: the VEGN ETF, managed by Beyond Investing and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The fund “excludes from consideration companies that harm animals, screening out companies that are involved in animal testing, animal-derived products, as well as animals in sports or entertainment.” Top holdings aren’t so much in, say, plant protein companies like Beyond Meat, but in corporations like Apple, Microsoft and Mastercard that don’t engage in screened practices.

Investor network pushing for change

One global network of investors with $20 trillion in assets under management has been encouraging investors to consider the financial and climate risks of investing in animal cruelty. Jeremy Coller, executive chair of London-based Coller Capital and a well-known name in private equity, developed the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR) initiative five years ago “to put animal welfare on the ESG agenda.” The Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index assesses the 60 largest global meat producers for investors. FAIRR also pressures corporations like Kroger, Walmart and McDonald’s to consider the risks to investors of relying exclusively on animal proteins within their supply chains – and to consider alternatives.

With the widespread rise in interest in meatless products, veganism and animal welfare, the treatment of animals is quickly becoming an important issue in that realm of socially responsible investing. If large pension funds and financial institutions want to keep up with this trend, they will need to become more aware of their involvement in potentially cruel companies and take steps to keep cruelty out of their investments.

Jessica Scott-Reid is a freelance writer and animal advocate. She writes for major media across Canada and the U.S.

The post Is your pension invested in animal cruelty? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Both are mortal threats to humanity, but the coronavirus has the urgency of a bullet coming at our heads, whereas the climate crisis is a slower burn (albeit increasingly prone to blazing flare-ups).

With the coronavirus, time is compressed into minutes, hours, days and months. What we do today can determine if our families, neighbours and communities get deadly ill in the next 14 days. That temporally compressed line that connects our actions to their life-saving impacts has spurred governments around the globe to make the tough decision to lock down their economies and bring the engine of capitalism to a shuddering halt.

With the climate burn, the time scales are longer. If we throw water on the fire today, it could take decades or centuries before the flames are doused.

How to solve this riddle of time? For wisdom, I turned to my friend Nick Parker.

Nick is the prophet of “cleantech.” He coined the term in 2002 and helped catalyze an ecosystem that has since moved mountains of money ($150 billion of venture capital and private equity at last count) to develop cheap and sustainable solutions the world now appears ready to adopt.

Again today, Nick had an answer to the climate riddle. He said we can think about this in three phases.
The first 30 days was about saving our lives. The next 90 days is about keeping the economy on life support. The 900 days after that will be about building the society we want.

As we plan for the next 900 days, there will be no shortage of suggestions for how we can build back better, but it would be a disservice to the moment if we are not clear-eyed about what will drive the recovery. It will be people.

This virus has exposed the brittleness of our economic system, a system that has been downloading costs to the most vulnerable for too long. As we hunker down in our homes, we are sustained by essential workers, so many of whom are not even earning a living wage. In the starkness of our self-isolation we can now see that the people we need the most are often the ones we value the least.

As Mark Carney wrote recently in The Economist, “After decades of risk being downloaded onto individuals, the bill has arrived, and people do not know how to pay it.”

The social contract just came up for renewal, and those who have been getting short-changed are demanding a raise.
The people who have been rigging the game now recognize that the jig is up and are falling into line.

The Financial Times, flagship paper of the Davos class, signed off on the deal with an unsigned editorial this April: “Radical reforms – reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades – will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda, the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix.”

People must be at the front of the line come stimulus time.

Fortunately, thanks in part to the clean innovation wave that Sir Parker’s ripples helped to generate, this could work out just fine for our climate.

If the objective of the economic recovery is to get as many people back to work as fast as possible and lay the foundations for a strong economy capable of digging us out of a debt hole, there may be no more effective strategy than applying a climate lens.

Putting a climate lens on economic stimulus sounds like a constraint or dilution of the primary mission. But rather than a constraint or diluent, it’s more akin to X-ray vision that will help us cut through the fog of old ways to hone in on the most effective investments that will get more people back to work faster while bolstering our long-term economic potential.

That’s because the clean economy is generally more labour-intensive (think retrofits) and has higher – more than double in most cases – compound annual growth rates as compared to the general economy.

This flies in the face of a still popular perception that carbon reduction policies are simply expensive. That might have been true 10 years ago when the cost of clean technologies was high. But since then the relentless march of technological progress has slashed clean technology costs, and they continue to fall.

As it becomes ever-cheaper to make and store clean energy; build smarter, more efficient buildings and industry; and electrify transport (even with oil at negative prices, electricity is still by far the cheaper way to move a car), demand for these products goes up, and those economies that invest accordingly rise to the top.

For these next 900 days, let’s take off the blinders of the past and put on a pair of climate X-ray goggles. They can help guide us through the pandemic portal to another world, one we can be proud to bequeath to our grandchildren.

Toby Heaps is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Corporate Knights. This Editor’s Note appears in the Spring 2020 Issue of Corporate Knights.

The post A new social contract and climate capitalism: Our best shot at building back better appeared first on Corporate Knights.

As EU policy and communications manager for Europe’s association of cities in energy transition, I am here to meet Europe’s energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, along with representatives from businesses, cooperatives, NGOs, industry and think tanks who make up the Coalition for Energy Savings. Simson is responsible for the “renovation wave” component of Europe’s Green Deal, as well as the offshore wind strategy, energy efficiency and other initiatives.

Big changes at an EU level, like the euro, come about as the result of years or decades of painstaking planning. The European Green Deal, in the space of less than 24 months, has gone from NGO wish list to “the new defining mission” of the EU. Faster still has been the EU’s response to the coronavirus. EU leaders have been clear that pandemic response must integrate a “green transition.” And while the urgency of the pandemic will delay some aspects of the Green Deal by weeks or months, the overall package could receive a boost from increased lending and spending as the bloc lays out its plans for economic recovery once the crisis has passed.

Last fall, Canada set the same goal as the EU of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. But they’re not at the same start line. Between 1990 and 2018 the EU reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 23%. Canada’s GHG emissions rose by 18.9% between 1990 and 2017. If Canada is serious about reaching net zero by 2050 it needs to learn everything it can from the Green Deal. Here are eight lessons for Ottawa on how to design its own Green Deal.

1. Ride the “renovation wave”

Renovating Europe’s notoriously drafty old buildings is set to be the flagship program of the Green Deal. Buildings account for 40% of energy use, and the goal is to renovate 3% of buildings annually in the EU over the next decade. It’s an easy idea to sell but harder to do, as current renovation rates languish between 0.4% and 1.2% in EU countries. Expect a focus on public buildings (schools, hospitals) and social housing. Public ownership makes renovation much easier (for more on greening public housing, see p. 14) and the benefits are much greater. Lower energy costs means more money for schools and health, and tackling energy poverty in social housing can bring huge social benefits.

Renovating private homes and apartment buildings with a mix of owners and renters is more complicated and will require carrots and sticks. The carrots will likely come in the form of low-cost financing, energy-efficiency mortgages and schemes to bundle lots of individual renovations into big projects to lower costs. Sticks might include a checklist of things that need to be done in five-year intervals for homeowners: improved insulation, new windows, new heating systems, for instance, that force people to upgrade their property over time. Or, it might be regulations mandating a deep energy retrofit when a building is sold or tenants change. As with the rest of the Green Deal, the details are still being worked out in Brussels. Either way, there could be pushback from property owners when the final proposal comes out in September. New buildings in the EU will be “nearly zero energy buildings” (NZEB) from the end of this year, and the target for net-zero buildings will be 2025 or earlier.

Lesson for Canada: Setting aggressive energy-retrofit targets for buildings will be key to Canada reaching net zero, too. This is one area where Canada can learn by watching what works and what doesn’t in the EU and rapidly rolling out version 2.0 of the renovation wave. Aside from drastically cutting energy consumption, there should be a big boost for the construction industry (already worth $141.6 billion in Canada in 2018) in urban and rural areas – especially amongst people who wouldn’t benefit from data-driven jobs. The Canada Green Building Council, in its Roadmap for Retrofits in Canada, recommends targeting large buildings, especially in Ontario and Alberta, for retrofits to slash GHG emissions by 30% by 2030 and potentially as much as 51% by 2050.

2. Fuel clean tech growth

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the climate crisis a challenge that “we can turn into an economic opportunity . . . Europe has the first-mover advantage. The whole world increasingly needs clean technologies and solutions.” She cited batteries, smart grids, green hydrogen power, offshore wind-power, clean steel and decarbonized gas as industries that “will create innovation, value and jobs.”

Green jobs won’t be just at the manufacturing and construction level. Digitalization is a key part of Europe’s decarbonization strategy. Think smart grids that track when and where electricity is needed and drive down generation, or “5G corridors” for connected and automated mobility. Most excitingly, the EU Commission wants to create a “digital twin” of Earth that would “radically improve Europe’s environmental prediction and crisis management capabilities.” Above all, the goal is to form European digital champions that specialize in monetizing industrial data and ensure those companies are well placed to dominate the field globally.

Lesson for Canada: There’s no decarbonization without digitalization, and this is one area in which Canada could be well placed, with its internationally recognized strength in artificial intelligence. That expertise, however, can be commercialized only if government policy ensures that a market forms quickly enough to maintain a global edge. Canada’s world-class network speeds are also a strong asset in maximizing the technological opportunities of the energy transition, but creaking rural connectivity could leave part of the country behind. The EU is in a similar boat and unlikely to meet its 2013 goal of 100% broadband coverage by the end of this year.

The pandemic may delay aspects of the Green Deal, but the overall package could receive a boost in spending as the EU lays out plans for economic recovery once the crisis has passed.

 

3. Make it right

What and how things get made in the EU is set for a complete overhaul. Some energy-intensive sectors, like steel, chemicals and cement, will get investment to develop new, lower-carbon manufacturing techniques. Using hydrogen to make steel is a good example. Assuming that zero-carbon steel is more expensive than traditionally made steel, a carbon border tax will likely be implemented on imports to make sure they don’t undercut European companies. A “sustainable products” policy will ensure that all products are designed with common principles that prioritize reducing and reusing materials before recycling them (such as the Netherlands’ Fairphone) and prevent environmentally harmful products from being sold. As well, all packaging will have to be reusable or recyclable in an economically viable manner by 2030, with new rules for biodegradable and bio-based plastics.

Lesson for Canada: Canada needs to decide if it wants to sell goods to the world’s largest economy or not. If it does, then it is going to have to read the fine print on the Green Deal closely and change the way it manufactures products. Biofuels, made using Canada’s low-carbon grid, could lead to the production of sustainably sourced aviation biofuels that European airlines will be increasingly anxious to use. Canadian products that don’t meet these emerging standards either won’t be allowed on the market or will be hit with a carbon border tax or something similar. If Canadian manufacturers embrace this change, they will have privileged access to 500 million consumers.

4. Bet the farm on greener food systems

EU food makers are going to be biting off some big changes under the Green Deal. Foods will be grown with drastically fewer pesticides, antibiotics and fertilizers, and sales tax could be lower on things like organic fruit and vegetables. Eating locally produced food is also expected to be strongly encouraged. As the world’s largest importer and exporter of food, the EU is also looking at raising international food standards; in particular, there will be pressure to curtail soybean and beef imports from regions that don’t promote biodiversity or reduce pesticide use.

Lesson for Canada: Canadian farmers are already torn between their biggest market, the U.S., and the higher standards in the EU. Canadian agricultural exports to the EU fell 15% after the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was signed, thanks to Europe’s ban on antibiotics and growth hormones. If Canada wants to improve its trade deficit at all in the coming decades, it will have to raise the bar on greening its farms (see “Seeding Climate Action on Canada’s Farms,” p. 50).

5. Rev into emissions reductions

The Green Deal aims to move substantial amounts of freight off roads and onto rail and rivers. Aviation and maritime fuels face the prospect of new taxes, while emissions from those sectors may soon become subject to payments under the Emissions Trading System. The delicate matter of road-pricing is on the table, and rural EV-charging infrastructure and alternative fuels can look forward to direct financial support. Car emission standards will be reviewed in 2021. Already, tough new standards (set in 2009) that level hefty fines on automakers are being phased in for 2020. The result has been a massive increase in the number of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars available in Europe. Groupe PSA (Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, Vauxhall and others) sold more electric cars in January 2020 than in all of 2019. Of course, the pandemic has since stalled that growth. The main European auto industry association has been lobbying to have stricter emissions standards delayed, but VW, Daimler and BMW have said they plan to hit the ambitious targets.

Lesson for Canada: Canada may not think it has the market size to push car manufacturers, but with more than two million new cars purchased each year, it is a larger market than California, which is setting its own fuel economy standards. Canada can put some teeth in its pledge to ban internal-combustion vehicle sales by 2040 and ensure that its ambitious clean-fuel standard is implemented with a sense of urgency.

Canada could also follow the EU’s lead on setting ambitious standards and levying steep penalties on automakers that fail to keep up with the program. This would result in a massive uptake in electric vehicles without costly cash rebates for EV purchasers. Canadian auto sales to Europe rose 83% in 2018 thanks to CETA; if Canada wants to maintain that growth in the coming years, it will need to encourage more EV production, which is almost non-existent in the passenger market at the moment.

6. Go local to get community support

Europeans might have a reputation for being tree-hugging, planet-loving people, but the scope of these changes promises to challenge even their willingness to embrace sustainability. Senior officials have warned of a “tectonic” shift and compared the Green Deal to changes brought about by the industrial revolution. To cope with this, the Green Deal envisages a big effort to engage with citizens to ensure they “remain a driving force.” This is known as the Climate Pact, and the Covenant of Mayors Europe will play a central role in rooting the Commission’s high-level objectives in the local community.

Lesson for Canada: It’s no secret that parts of Canada are less keen on an energy transition than others. Emulating something similar to the Climate Pact to transform headline ambitions into local improvements in infrastructure, air and water quality and other tangible benefits, particularly in rural farming communities, will go a long way to making a Canadian Green Deal more politically palatable.

Canadian products that don’t meet the EU’s emerging standards either won’t be allowed in or could be hit by a carbon border tax.

 

7. Bank on financially savvy climate spending

The European Commission is more of a regulator than a government. Its strength is setting the rules for the game rather than spending money the way a national government does. Its budget is about 1% of Europe’s gross national income. So the headline of €1 trillion in green financing between 2020 and 2030 is substantial. About half the money comes from the regular EU budget – 25% of the EU budget is expected to be spent on climate action. Then there is an existing fund, which will be rebranded and used to leverage €280 billion and another €143 billion of public and private investment, specifically to help regions most reliant on carbon intensive activities. It’s an impressive amount of financial heft when the total amount of new money is a mere €7.5 billion over the next seven-year budget.

A major player in the leveraging and investment is the European Investment Bank (EIB), which announced in November a phase-out of all fossil fuel funding and a ramp-up to 2025, when 50% of its lending will be spent on climate change projects. It is the EU’s “climate bank.” A “green taxonomy” was agreed upon last year that clearly defined what constitutes a green investment to help funnel interested investors. Non-financial risk disclosure rules will be updated to force companies to come clean on the risks they face and actions they are taking to mitigate climate risk. They propose raising additional money with a new tax on non-recyclable packaging waste and rolling out a market for green bonds.

Lesson for Canada: The figures involved in the energy transition can seem large, but making systemic changes to the financial system can bridge the gap between purse strings and ambition. The Canada Infrastructure Bank already has a similar mandate to the EIB, but reimagining the much larger Business Development Bank of Canada as Canada’s climate bank would be a boon to green businesses.

8. Act soon – it’s cheaper than stalling

Economic opportunities aside, climate change is still a bad thing. The EU Commission estimates that a high warming scenario of more than 3 degrees C will result in GDP losses in EU countries ranging from 2% in northern Europe to more than 8% around the Mediterranean as productivity dives and mortality climbs from heat, forest fires, floods and other natural disasters. Climate neutrality, however, is expected to boost GDP by 2% and create millions of jobs.

Lesson for Canada: Canada is already warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, and average temperatures have increased 3.06 degrees since 1948. The cost of coping with the fallout of a warming world will be far more than the cost of climate neutrality.

The three-hour meeting in the Berlaymont is up, and we’ve barely had enough time to have a shallow discussion of the issues involved in energy efficiency. Much like this article, there just isn’t time and space to go into all the details and all the different initiatives because of the Green Deal’s enormous scope, size and ambition.

Two things are clear though. One, Canada has a lot of catching up to do if it is going to hit net zero by 2050. The head of the Business Council of Canada, Goldy Hyder, agrees, recently telling the government “Let’s get on with it,” with respect to the net-zero target and calling on business, government and labour to “lay down the arms on this issue and find a way forward.”

And two, in the EU’s Green Deal, Canadians have a template that can drastically improve their prospects of getting there.

Green Deal plans

 

There are 47 initiatives listed in the Green Deal communication, with the aim of slashing emissions and creating a climate-neutral continent by 2050.

Here are the top 10 that haven’t already been mentioned.

 

Carbon border tax
A carbon tax, likely on just a few sectors to start, to ensure carbon-intensive industry doesn’t move abroad.

Strategy for smart sector integration
Matching industries with complementary energy profiles – think data centres and district heating.

EU industrial strategy
Creating European champions and funnelling subsidies into priorities like e-mobility, hydrogen, health, the Internet of Things and microelectronics. Decarbonization of energy-intensive sectors such as cement, steel and chemicals.

Circular economy action plan
Designed to decouple resource use from growth. Will halve waste, reduce
embodied carbon in construction and put in place sector-specific plans for
textiles, food and transport.

Waste reforms
Tackle over-packaging, mandatory recycled content. New EU-wide model for
separate waste collection and new rules on waste shipments and illegal exports.

EU biodiversity strategy for 2030
Increase biodiversity-rich land under protection, restore damaged ecosystems, “green” cities and increase urban biodiversity.

EU forest strategy
Increase absorption of CO2, reduce forest fires; focus on afforestation, forest preservation and restoration.

Trans-European Network – energy regulation review
Ensure pan-European energy infrastructure is prioritized: smart grids, hydrogen networks, energy storage and carbon capture, storage and utilization.

Zero-pollution action plan
Tackle urban runoff of microplastics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals; revise air
quality standards; create specific measures to help cities improve air quality.

Research and innovation
“Green Deal Missions” will help deliver large-scale changes in areas such as adaptation to climate change, oceans, cities and soil. This will entail funding research and start-ups and forming industry-government partnerships in batteries, clean hydrogen, circular bio-based sectors, food, urban transport and more.

Adrian Hiel is a Canadian dad, husband and writer who has spent the last 16 years in Brussels imbibing more Tintin, Gueuze and political dysfunction than he ever thought possible.

The post 8 economic recovery lessons for Canada from Europe’s Green Deal appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The business community hasn’t always been an ally of the planet, but it would have a significant role to play in the next half century of environmental action – including developing and deploying solutions, on a global scale, to problems they quite often had a hand in creating.

There is a lot to reflect on from the last 50 years. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s worth remembering we have a pretty good track record of fixing planetary-scale problems when we set our minds to it:

• The destructive pesticide that prompted Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring, DDT, was banned in 34 countries, leading to the dramatic comeback of bald eagles, peregrine falcons and osprey.
• We are just two countries away from the global elimination of lead in gasoline, which the UN says has resulted in US$2.4 trillion in annual benefits, 1.2 million fewer premature deaths, higher overall intelligence and 58 million fewer crimes (thanks to lower levels of lead in people’s blood).
• CFCs, once found in every fridge and aerosol can, were phased out globally, with recent evidence showing that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is beginning to repair itself (though CFCs leaking from old appliances and such have created a recent upswing in emissions).
• Emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide were capped, eliminating the scourge of acid rain that threatened to blacken our forests and kill our lakes.
• Ontario became the first government to ban coal power, eliminating more greenhouse gases than any action to date in North America.

Three things have become clear over the last 50 years:

1. Deadly environmental problems require regulation, often in the form of banning offending pollutants.

2. Unlike, say, the Olympics, the cost of tackling environmental problems usually ends up being less than what anybody thought it would be, as former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers puts it, partly because projected costs are inflated by those who have a vested interest in the status quo and unexpected innovations drive down costs.

3. Business can innovate and deliver solutions at scale when governments get the regulations right.

So in honour of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Corporate Knights, Earth Day Canada and Earth Day Initiative decided to launch an open-nomination process to determine which corporate actions have had the biggest impact on improving the state of affairs on our planet.

The final list includes a few companies that reflect the visionary souls of their environmentalist founders, like Patagonia, Body Shop and Interface flooring. There are also some mad-scientist disruptors and brown-to-green corporate chameleons in the bunch. But by far the most common type of hero is the early mover, those companies that heard the bell tolling before the rest of their peers and made a beeline to change their destructive ways – and, collectively, the trajectory of life on Earth.

Some of the early movers were major emitters under the glare of heavy activist campaigning that brokered peace deals with non-profits and regulators. Others were entrepreneurs who saw which way the wind turbines were blowing or scalers who used their market power to corral large segments of the economy into greener pastures.

Many companies didn’t make the cut. DuPont was nominated for breaking ranks with other chemical giants by backing the Montreal Protocol’s phase-out of ozone-depleting CFCs (a critical move from a company that had made the chemical in great quantities for decades), but it spent years aggressively undermining earlier domestic bans in the U.S. GM was the first North American automaker to say it would make cars that run on both unleaded and leaded gasoline, but the car company (which invented leaded gas in 1921) also fought tooth and nail against regulations that would effectively outlaw leaded fuel altogether. Another nominee, General Electric, made waves when it launched its multibillion-dollar Ecomagination branding initiative in 2005, but it ultimately failed to heed its own marketing and today still earns just a tenth of its revenue from what could be considered “green” sources. And more recently, BlackRock’s newfound climate investment convictions are most welcome, but it’s still the world’s premier funder of destructive fossil fuel activities, and when it has a chance to shift corporate behaviour through shareholder votes, it more often than not has sided with management over the climate.

The final top 50 actions that made the list are examples of moments that reveal the profound impact corporations can have on the planet when they lead change rather than follow it. The Green 50 isn’t an endorsement of a company’s entire corporate legacy. It’s a recognition that one act – one sustainability chief’s initiative, one big-tent collaboration with non-profits, regulators and like-minded companies, one sustainably minded CEO – can shift the tides.

In reality, a whole cohort of players made each action possible – educators and agitators (i.e. persistent scientists, activists and journalists) as well as implementers and navigators (behind-the-scenes public servants and employees). Combined, their efforts have helped clear toxic pollutants, curb gigatonnes of climate-cooking carbon, conserve landfills of waste, preserve acres of forest and save countless species, giving our grandchildren a fighting chance to call a thriving planet home on Earth Day’s 100th anniversary.

In the meantime, the whole purpose of this year’s Earth Day, explains the coordinator of the very first Earth Day, Denis Hayes, in a phone call with Corporate Knights, “is to try to create enough pressure on governments and companies around the world to be aggressive in their leadership on [climate action].”

“In my ideal world,” says Hayes, “we would look back on 2020 as an inflection point for carbon emissions . . . I’d like to see us having designed an economy that can operate with equilibrium.”

While the pandemic is the most urgent threat facing us this year, the climate crisis represents the greatest challenge to the future of humanity – and also vast opportunities for those disruptors and scalers that deliver closed loop, clean economy solutions. We hope this  list will inspire more leadership at a time when the planet and every living entity on it needs it most.

Open nominations for the Green 50 were held in February. In addition, Corporate Knights contacted close to 100 thought leaders in various sectors and industries to get their input. A team of expert advisors* helped reduce the shortlist to 150, then a panel of judges voted on their top 50 picks.

The following judges helped us select the Green 50:

Pierre Lussier, director of Earth Day Canada
John Oppermann, executive director of Earth Day Initiative
Toby Heaps, CEO and co-founder of Corporate Knights
Adria Vasil, managing editor, Corporate Knights

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Patagonia, 1973, First major clothing company to put protecting the planet at core of its brand

Patagonia wasn’t always a green clothing company per se; it made durable clothing for wilderness enthusiasts. The former maker of mountaineering tools had stopped selling climbing pitons because they damaged rock faces. It became the first major clothing brand to donate 10% of profits (and offer training) to grassroots eco groups (1986), the first to make clothes out of recycled pop bottles (1993) and one of the first to convert its entire cotton line to organic cotton (1996). It has stood apart by putting environmental activism at the heart of its branding.

Catalyst: Patagonia’s mountain-climbing founder, Yvon Chouinard, rooted his company in a “leave no trace” philosophy. However, it wasn’t until 1988, when formaldehyde off-gassing from its clothing made workers at one Patagonia store in Boston sick, that Patagonia began investigating the environmental impacts of its supply chain.

Impact: Nearly 70% of its product line now comes from recycled materials, but the company’s impacts reach far beyond its own supply chain. Among its achievements: it co-founded 1% for the Planet (which has 1,200 members in 48 countries that donate 1% of profits to environmental organizations) and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which drives impact reductions at over 200 companies with combined revenues of $500 billion. It’s also a recipient of the 2019 UN Champions of the Earth award.

To Do: 86% of Patagonia’s emissions come from the creation of its product materials. It’s gunning to be carbon neutral by 2025 by using only recycled or renewable materials (including more ocean plastic) and switching to renewable energy in all its operations.

SC Johnson, 1975, First to ban ozone-destroying CFCs from aerosol products

Three years before the U.S. banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosol propellants and more than a decade before the Montreal Protocol called for a global phase-out, SC Johnson became the first aerosol maker to pull all products containing CFCs from shelves.

Catalyst: Mounting scientific evidence, including Nobel Prize–winning research by Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland, triggered a 25% drop in sales in CFC products in the first six months of 1975 and prompted a Natural Resources Defense Council campaign against CFCs.

Impact: As one of the first large companies to take a public stance against a substance that harmed the environment, SC Johnson helped build support among corporations for broader bans.

To Do: The maker of Ziploc, Glade and Drano could green more ingredients and ramp up its use of post-consumer recycled content (at 11% as of last year).

Body Shop, 1976, Jump-started wave of conscious consumerism and cruelty-free cosmetics

Catalyst: Roddick’s travels on what she called the “hippie trail” through the South Pacific and Africa seeded her interest in sourcing natural, fairly traded ingredients.

Impact: The company helped spark consumer activism in generations of young people and helped push the UK government to ban animal testing of cosmetics ingredients in 1998. It says its “community trade” has benefited more than 12,000 workers in 23 countries.

To Do: Body Shop’s 2018 sustainability report admits that only 10% of its ingredients can be deemed “sustainable,” though it pledged to reach 100% by 2020. Post COVID-19, we’d like to see it return to its roots by rolling out product-refill stations in all its 3,000 stores (it’s now at trial phase).

“If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito”     

  – Anita Roddick, Body Shop co-founder

Ballard Power Systems, 1983, Pioneer developer of hydrogen fuel-cell technology

The Canadian company started out developing rechargeable batteries, then, in search of clean energy solutions, switched gears to fuel-cell technology in 1983. A decade later it unveiled a small zero-emissions bus that was powered completely by hydrogen and soon partnered with Ford and Daimler. Co-founder Geoffrey Ballard, a former oil industry engineer, has been called the “father of the fuel cell industry.”

Catalyst: Geoffrey Ballard was working in the oil industry in the 1970s when the oil crisis hit. He became driven to develop environmentally clean energy systems.

Impact: Ballard is credited with kickstarting and expediting the hydrogen movement. The company now says it has 70 to 80% market share of all the fuel-cell buses and trucks deployed globally (including in Germany, California and China).

To Do: Scale production and bring down costs.

HP, 1987, Early leader in e-waste recycling and take-back programs

HP began recycling computer hardware in 1987 and officially launched the HP Planet Partners return-and-recycling program for HP LaserJet print cartridges in 1991.

Catalyst: The dumping of hazardous waste overseas became a hot-button topic in 1986 and led to the signing of the 1989 Basel Convention that propelled legitimate electronic recycling. HP got a head start.

Impact: Through 2018, HP has used recycled plastic to manufacture 4.2 billion ink and toner cartridges, and more than 80% of its ink cartridges now contain between 45 and 70% post-consumer recycled content.

To Do: Last year, HP announced that it plans to increase its recycled plastic content to 30% by 2025. We’d like to see it up its goal to 100% post-consumer or post-industrial recycled content.

IKEA, 1990, Early adapter of Natural Step framework

The Swedish furniture giant was one of the first companies to adopt The Natural Step (TNS) framework as the basic structure for the implementation of its environmental policy and plan.

Catalyst: IKEA approached TNS after it was outed for the high levels of formaldehyde in its particle board furniture in the 1980s and again in the ’90s, at which point sales in Denmark plummeted by 20%. The world’s third largest consumer of wood was also threatened with boycotts over its use of tropical rainforest wood.

Impact: IKEA has since set strict formaldehyde standards and largely banned PVC and heavy metals such as lead from all products. It became a founding member of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in 1993. It now claims that 97% of its wood is FSC–certified or recycled and, with WWF, has helped certify 35 million hectares of forest.

To Do: IKEA’s furniture is notorious for its lack of durability, something it promises to improve upon as it aims to become fully circular by 2030. Scaling up its furniture rental pilots will help it recycle and reuse materials at end of life.

Herman Miller and MBDC, 1990s,  Creation of system for designing cradle-to-cradle products

In the late 1990s, office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller began collaborating with architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart’s McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) to create a system for designing closed-loop “cradle-to-cradle” products.

Catalyst: In 1991, the Environmental Health and Safety group at Herman Miller was drafting its first “Design for the Environment” (DfE) guidelines. Noticing gaps in their knowledge, they later partnered with MBDC (founded in 1995) to develop the cradle-to-cradle (C2C) protocol for material selection.

Impact: The collaboration led to the creation of the DfE product-assessment tool, which evaluates progress toward cradle-to-cradle products, going beyond limitations of life-cycle assessment tools, laying the foundations for today’s circular economy advancements. There have now been more than 600 C2C certifications in 30 countries.

To Do: To date, 76% of Herman Miller products are DfE-approved, but recycled content levels could be improved.

Sony, 1991, Release of the world’s first commercial rechargeable lithium-ion battery

The oil embargo of the 1970s prompted an Exxon scientist to develop the earliest rechargeable lithium-ion battery as a fossil-fuel-free way of storing energy. Exxon shelved that research, but it was later picked up by Sony, which in 1991 released the first commercial lithium-ion battery, enabling a revolutionary shift in portable power storage.

Catalyst: Market opportunities fuelled by two decades of Nobel Prize–winning scientific breakthroughs in lithium-ion batteries.

Impact: This powerful, lightweight, rechargeable battery has been crucial to the mobile technology and electric vehicle revolution. It can also store significant amounts of energy from solar and wind power, making a fossil-fuel-free society possible.

To Do: Considerable work remains to effectively recycle batteries around the world and ensure battery minerals are sourced ethically.

Nichia Corporation, 1993,  Started production of the first high-brightness blue LED light, leading to the development of the first white LED

An employee at Nichia Corporation, Shuji Nakamura, first solved the challenge of creating blue LEDs, which enabled his later invention of the groundbreaking white LED. The invention effectively made Edison’s energy-hogging incandescent light bulb obsolete.

Catalyst: Commercial interests and scientific innovation built upon decades of research, including the work of two Japanese professors who shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics with Nakamura.

Impact: LED bulbs typically use up to 80% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs and can last several years longer. Given that approximately a quarter of the world’s electricity is used to generate light, the economic and environmental impacts of widespread LED use are monumental.

To Do: Nichia originally awarded Nakamura only US$200 for his invention. However, a US$8.1 million settlement was reached in 2005, prompting calls for greater profit sharing between on-staff inventors and Japanese corporations.

BYD, 1995, Founded its first rechargeable-battery factory, setting it on path to become world’s largest electric carmaker

China’s BYD started out by manufacturing rechargeable batteries for electronics and has since become the world’s largest maker of electric vehicles (both consumer and commercial) for the past three years. Its batteries are also enabling bulk storage of renewable energy.

Catalyst: BYD’s founder reportedly started BYD with the goal of edging in on the Japanese-dominated battery market with cheaper made-in-China options.

Impact: BYD’s rechargeable batteries have helped the car industry shift away from gas-powered vehicles. It’s also paving the way to increase global adoption of renewable energy by enabling the storage of solar and wind energy in its batteries.

To Do: BYD’s new fully automated production lines are a shift away from its original factories, operated by migrant workers, where labour rights were a concern. As with all battery producers, ensuring its minerals are sourced ethically should be a top priority.

ABB, 1995, Started production of direct torque variable-speed drives, catalyzing energy efficiency in industrial operations

It wasn’t a glitzy moment in history. ABB had been making variable-speed drives for motors and pumps in the metal, marine and mining industry since the 1970s. Then it developed its first AC industrial drive with direct torque control. It sparked dramatic reductions in power use across a wide array of industries, often chopping energy use in half.

Catalyst: Growing calls for energy savings drove market innovations.

Impact: According to the company, its low-voltage drives saved an estimated 170 terawatt hours of electric power (roughly equal to the needs of 42 million European homes) and reduced global CO2 emissions by 140 million tons in 2008 alone. Today, more than half of ABB’s worldwide revenues are generated by technologies that combat the causes of climate change.

To Do: In 2014, ABB set a goal of having its “eco-efficiency” products account for 60% of total revenue by 2020; in 2019, they were at 57%.

Interface, 1994, Launch of the Mission Zero program

Ray Anderson, founder and CEO of modular carpet company Interface, launched the Mission Zero program in 1994, challenging the company to eliminate any negative impact it had on the environment by 2020 – a radical path for a mainstream industrial business in the mid-1990s.

Catalyst: Anderson read Paul Hawken’s Ecology of Commerce in 1994; he said the book hit him “like a spear in the heart,” opening his eyes to the impacts of business on the environment.

Impact: In 2019, eight years after Anderson’s death, Interface declared Mission Zero accomplished, with dramatically reduced GHG emissions, water usage and waste in the company’s operations. Interface blazed a trail for other companies, in its industry and beyond, to invest in sustainability, proving that it also benefits the bottom line.

To Do: Interface’s next “moonshot” involves making an entirely carbon-negative product – a first step in its new Climate Take Back mission.

Toyota, 1997, Debuted the world’s first mass-produced hybrid electric vehicle

Toyota brought the first mass-market hybrid to the market in Japan in 1997, with demand exploding when the car reached the U.S. a few years later.

Catalyst: Toyota wanted to develop a “global car for the 21st century” to compete against a Clinton-Gore administration push for more fuel-efficient American cars.

Impact: In 2012, the Prius became the bestselling car in California and in 2018 was the bestselling hybrid vehicle in the U.S. Worldwide sales of Toyota hybrids have surpassed 14 million units, and Toyota now sells more than 30 different hybrid models in more than 90 countries and regions across the globe.

To Do: Toyota has focused on hybrids and researching hydrogen cars rather than going all-in on EVs. Considering the speed at which the global transportation fleet is set to become electrified, Toyota has some catching up to do.

Unilever, 1997, Launch of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) with WWF

Unilever and WWF founded the MSC with the goal of curbing overfishing. At the time, Unilever was the leading seafood processor in the world. After international consultations with scientists, academics, activists and industry organizations, the first fisheries were certified in 2000.

Catalyst: Collapse of Grand Banks cod fishery in Canada in the 1990s.

Impact: MSC has compelled both industry and government regulators to become more “proactive over the last decade in addressing sustainability concerns,” says SeaChoice.org. Today, 15% of the world’s wild-caught fish are MSC certified. Unilever’s early involvement encouraged other food companies to sign up for certification.

To Do: MSC wants to see more than a third of global marine catch certified or “engaged” in the process of certification by 2030. Before it scales up, it needs to address critiques by several NGOs, including SeaChoice.org and Greenpeace, which say too many questionable fisheries are allowed to carry the MSC seal.

Cascades Tissue Group, 1977, Pioneer of recycled tissue as a core business

The Lemaire family founded the Drummond Pulp & Fibre company in 1957 with the goal of reusing recovered household and industrial waste. In the 1960s they started making paper out of recycled materials and by the 1970s launched the tissue group, scaling up its pulp recycling.

Catalyst: Recognizing that old paper could be used to create new products.

Impact: Cascades was making recycled paper and tissue products more than a decade before the Forest Stewardship Council came along. It now saves 45 million trees every year by using recycled paper rather than virgin wood pulp and is the largest collector of paper fibres in Canada

To Do: Cascades uses 83% recycled materials in the manufacturing of all its products. We’d love to see that number climb to 100.

Impax Asset Management, 1998, Pioneered investing in environmental solutions and helped bring the idea to scale

Impax was the first significant investment firm dedicated entirely to fuelling the transition to a more sustainable global economy, disrupting the financial status quo at the time of its founding. It pioneered several responsible investing tools and indexes, including the FTSE Environmental Markets classification system, defining and measuring the performance of global environmental markets.

Catalyst: An International Finance Corporation mandate created a market opportunity for mission-driven CEO Ian Simm.

Impact: Impax’s work blazed the trail for today’s explosion in responsible investing, proving that you can invest in environmental solutions while reaping economic benefits.
Today, it has £15.1 billion in assets and is one of the 145 investor companies that have signed the We Are Still In declaration for climate action.

To Do: Scale up distribution and integrate its impact reporting into standard investor materials.

LONGi Solar, 2000, Driver of the solar industry shift to efficient mono wafers

Founded in 2000, LONGi is the world’s first and largest manufacturer of groundbreaking monocrystalline silicon wafers, which was a key factor in optimizing the power-cost ratio of the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry.

Catalyst: Surging demand for solar in Germany in the 1990s fuelled China’s early investments in solar panel development, enabling the creation of companies like LONGi.

Impact: In early 2018, LONGi broke the global record for monocrystalline PERC cell efficiency for the third time in five months, reaching 23.6% efficiency. It has been a significant driver of efficiency and economic improvements in PV manufacturing, bringing the price of solar power down across the globe.

To Do: Eliminate lead from the manufacturing process.

Umicore, 2000s, Transformation from destructive miner to world’s largest recycler of precious metals

Umicore had its origins as a participant in Belgian King Leopold’s exploitation of the Congo in the first half of the 20th century. Today, the forming mining company largely “mines aboveground,” processing e-waste, spent batteries and smelter residues.

Catalyst: Umicore transformed its business model to move away from the increasingly volatile smelting business.

Impact: In 2019, Umicore derived approximately 65% of its revenues from recycling metals. For example, Umicore’s furnace in Hoboken recycles up to 250 million mobile phone batteries, two million e-bike batteries and 35,000 EV batteries a year. Recently, Umicore partnered with Audi to improve its EV battery recycling rate to 90%.

To Do: Decrease the use of virgin minerals while increasing the vigilance of its ethical sourcing, especially given that the cobalt processor was named in a recent U.S. lawsuit against Apple, Dell Microsoft and Tesla over the deaths of children in Congolese cobalt mines.

Tembec, 2001, First and largest Canadian forest-products company to commit to FSC certification

After facing years of protests, Tembec (now Rayonier Advanced Materials) signed a historic accord with WWF, making a company-wide commitment to seek FSC certification on all of its 32 million acres of forest under management.

Catalyst: WWF, Wildlands League.

Impact: Tembec’s leadership broke a decades-long standoff between environmentalists and loggers, paving the way for other industry players to adopt FSC standards. Now Canada is home to five of the world’s 10 largest FSC-certified forests, with more than 53.9 million hectares certified.

To Do: Focus on cleaning up water discharges into the Altamaha River.

Legal & General, 2002, First backer of CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project)

In 2002, this multinational financial services company was the first investor to back CDP’s push to get companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.

Catalyst: The business risks of global warming and growing interest in “responsible investing.”

Impact: More than 525 investors globally, with assets of US$96 trillion, have now signed CDP’s disclosure request, and more than 8,400 companies report on climate change, water security and deforestation.

To Do: Review why its climate-conscious Legal & General Future World Climate Change Equity Factors Index Fund has more oil and gas investments than its comparator benchmark (FTSE All World Index).

Bioregional, 2002,Developed One Planet Living framework for global eco-communities

The UK social enterprise Bioregional, along with WWF, created the One Planet Living framework based on the founders’ experience developing BedZED, the UK’s first large-scale eco-village. Bioregional provides tools and training and works with developers to create sustainable homes and communities around the globe.

Catalyst: Founders recognized that “our over-consumption of resources is the major driving force for environmental degradation.”

Impact: Bioregional has helped more than 50 organizations create their own One Planet Action Plans and has collaborated with developers to create 11,000 One Planet homes. Four cities on three continents are now officially engaging with One Planet Living principles.

To Do: Abu Dhabi’s mega eco-community Masdar City, still under development, was considered a One Planet Living flagship project, but labour rights concerns have stopped it from getting the One Planet label.

Tesla, 2003, Founded with goal of bringing high-performance, zero-emission EVs to the masses

Tesla was started by a group of engineers who wanted to prove that “electric vehicles can be better, quicker and more fun to drive than gasoline cars.” In 2004, they teamed up with PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, who had a shared interest in commercializing a prototype electric sports car called the “tzero” at a time when only hybrid cars were on the market.

Catalyst: After GM forcibly recalled all its electric cars in 2003 and destroyed them, Musk said that “the only chance was to create an EV company, even though it was almost certain to fail.”

Impact: Tesla showed it was possible to make an EV that accelerates as fast as a Ferrari, which influenced legacy and luxury automakers to embrace the commercialization of EVs. In 2007, GM’s vice-chair credited Tesla with inspiring GM’s re-entry into the EV market.

To Do: Tesla is under pressure to reduce its projected water usage at its new Gigafactory in Germany – that and deliver a fully ethical battery.

Walmart, 2005, World’s largest company commits to shrinking its footprint

In 2005, Walmart announced that it was going green, launching zero-waste, 100%-renewable-energy and sustainable-product targets.

Catalyst: Public backlash over predatory pricing, labour abuses and environmental impacts were digging into sales. That and Hurricane Katrina are said to have inspired Walmart CEO Lee Scott to launch a “sweeping sustainability strategy” that also enlisted its 60,000 suppliers.

Impact: One 2014 study found that Walmart was the top-cited retailer driving supplier investments in sustainability. In 2006, Walmart also began to develop “sustainable value networks” in 14 sectors, from seafood to fashion (including co-founding the Sustainable Apparel Coalition with Patagonia), to have a broader industry-wide impact.

To Do: Meeting its science-based climate target (which includes slashing a gigatonne of greenhouse gases from its global value chain by 2030) will be a challenge. Whether it gets to zero waste and 100% renewable energy remains to be seen.

BlaBlaCar, 2006, Established world’s leading long-distance ride-sharing start-up

It all started when Frédéric Mazzella couldn’t catch a train back to Paris for Christmas in 2004. He noticed that France’s roads were filled with drivers alone in their cars, and the idea for an online platform for carpooling was born. By 2019, BlaBlaCar had a valuation of more than US$1 billion.

Catalyst: Founder’s vision of a people-powered travel network enabled by technology.

Impact: BlaBla has grown from five million users in 2013 to 87 million in 22 countries, mostly in Europe but also including Brazil, India and Mexico.
1.6 million tonnes of CO2 were saved by BlaBlaCar carpoolers in 2018 – “as if Paris was free of traffic for a year.” BlaBla has also branched out into bus service in Europe.

To Do: COVID-19 poses existential challenges to carpooling services. Rebuilding once the pandemic is over will be an upward climb.

Seventh Generation, 2007,  Becomes founding member of B Corp

This maker of green cleaning products, founded in Vermont in the late 1980s, was one of the earliest purpose-driven companies. It became a founding B Corporation member in 2007 – certifying its entire social and environmental performance – to “help set the standard for corporate responsibility.”

Catalyst: The company’s decision to become a B Corp was motivated by a drive for transparency and desire to distinguish it from competitors in the growing green-cleaning market.

Impact: Besides selling US$250 million of largely eco-friendly cleaning and personal-care products annually, the company is working to get all its suppliers certified as B Corp by 2020. Now owned by Unilever, Seventh Generation paved the way for other large companies to seek certification (including Patagonia, Ben &Jerry’s and Danone).

To Do: It’s working on making all its plastic bottles from 100% recycled content and decoupling GHG emissions from business growth.

Intel, 2008,  One of the first companies to link employee bonuses to sustainability performance

Since 2008, Intel has linked the annual performance bonuses of its executives and employees to the company’s achievement of sustainability goals such as reductions in GHGs and energy use – effectively making its sustainability goals everyone’s job.

Catalyst: Recognition that achieving sustainability goals is critical to the company’s long-term viability.

Impact: By 2012, the company’s GHGs had dropped 35% on an absolute basis. The company inspired others to follow suit in tying environmental indicators to executive pay; in 2012, 15% of companies had sustainability pay-links, which grew to 24% in 2014, according to Ceres.

To Do: Provide more detail on how bonuses, and what portion, are tied to meeting sustainability goals.

Ørsted, 2009–2019, Transformed its energy generation from 85% fossil fuels to 75% renewables in a decade

In 2009, the former Danish Oil and Natural Gas emitted one third of Denmark’s CO2 emissions, but a radical decision to shift investments away from fossil fuels to renewables cut its emissions by 83% (compared to 2006).

Catalyst: Climate crisis–fuelled backlash against coal in Europe convinced leadership to make big investments in wind, which it doubled down on in 2012 when a debt crisis forced it to sell off its loss-making gas businesses.

Impact: Ørsted’s decision has proved it is possible for large fossil fuel companies to transform themselves in a remarkably short time while also succeeding economically.

To Do: By 2025, Ørsted aims to be carbon neutral in its energy generation and company operations, and by 2040 it aims to do the same for its supply chain and trading activities (phasing out natural gas).

Kimberly-Clark, 2009, Agrees to stop clear-cutting old-growth boreal forest

After years of Greenpeace campaigning, the world’s largest manufacturer of tissue paper products set a goal of getting 100% of its wood pulp from environmentally responsible sources.

Catalyst: Greenpeace, WWF.

Impact: Before 2009, Kimberly-Clark got 90% of its wood fibre from what Greenpeace called “unsustainably managed” forests, most notably the boreal forest in Canada, predominantly via clear-cutting. Since 2009, it has increased its use of environmentally preferred fibres, including FSC-certified fibre, in its global tissue products to 87%.

To Do: The recycled content in K-C’s tissue products is stuck at the same 30% level it was at globally nine years ago. It could learn from Cascades Tissue Group, whose recycled content is 83%.

IBM, 2010, First electronics maker to phase out two “forever chemicals” from its chip manufacturing business

IBM was the first in its industry to fully remove the “forever chemicals” perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) from the company’s chip manufacturing business in 2010, making IBM’s e-waste less toxic.

Catalyst: Pressure from EU and U.S. regulators to phase the two chems out; campaigning by the Environmental Working Group, Greenpeace and others.

Impact: The ban reduced consumer and worker exposure to the persistent toxins. IBM made new formulations available to other companies through technology development alliances.

To Do: In 2018, IBM generated 1,760 tonnes of hazardous waste. Of this, 51% was recycled; 30% was incinerated and 12% ended up in a landfill.

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Sainsbury, 2010, Becomes world’s largest retailer of fair trade products

The British grocer was the UK’s first retailer of fair trade products, starting in 1994, and has been the world’s largest Fairtrade-certified retailer since 2010.

Catalyst: Fairtrade Foundation, set up by church groups and NGOs in 1992; consumer demand.

Impact: In 2017 and ’18, the grocer’s sales of fairly traded products reached more than £380 million, and it sold more than 500 Fairtrade-certified products sourced from around the world, including nothing but 100% Fairtrade bananas (650 million a year) for more than a decade.

To Do: Sainsbury’s decision to drop Fairtrade certification from its private tea brand in 2017 drew criticism for signalling the demise of the Fairtrade label.

Kering, 2011, Publishes first Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L) Account of its Puma division

Kering’s former subsidiary, Puma, pioneered EP&L accounting in 2011, assigning a monetary value to nature’s “services” used by the business – fresh water, clean air, healthy biodiversity – as well as to the company’s negative impacts.

Catalyst: Former Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz was inspired by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study on the economic benefits of biodiversity. Zeitz wanted to “make the point that the current economic model . . . must be radically changed.”

Impact: In 2015, Puma’s parent company, Kering, extended its EP&L scope to all the group’s brands, becoming the first international group to do so and disclose the results. By sharing its methodology in an open source mode, the group encouraged Novo Nordisk, Philips and others to attempt natural capital accounting.

To Do: EP&L and natural capital accounting are yet to be scaled to global, standard accounting procedures.

Plastic Bank, 2013, Turns plastic waste into currency

In 2013, Plastic Bank co-founder David Katz had an epiphany: if waste plastic could be turned into a currency we could tackle global poverty and ocean pollution at the same time. The social enterprise launched the concept of Social Plastic in Haiti in 2015, paying collectors of waste straws, lids and bottles a living wage. The recycled plastic is then sold to 75 brand partners, including Lush and Henkel. In 2019, SC Johnson and Plastic Bank opened eight branches in Indonesia, paying local waste collectors in digital tokens they can use to buy needed goods and services.

Catalyst: Ocean plastic pollution, global poverty.

Impact: Since its founding, Plastic Bank has recovered and recycled more than 6,000 tonnes of ocean-bound plastic and improved the lives of more than 4,300 families living in poverty in Haiti, the Philippines, Indonesia and now Egypt.

To Do: Scale up rapidly to meet the wave of corporate recycled-content commitments through 2025.

Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 2014, Announces that it’s divesting from fossil fuel investments

The heirs to the Standard Oil fortune at the helm of the US$860 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund shook the investment community when they announced they would be joining the divestment movement by ditching oil and coal holdings.

Catalyst: 350.org, Divest Invest, As You Sow, Wallace Global Fund, Green Faith, etc.

Impact: The fund’s announcement kicked off the divestment movement, which has now been embraced by major financial players, representing assets in excess of US$11 trillion at the end of 2019. By June 2019, the fund’s exposure to coal and tar sands has been choked to less than 0.05% of its total portfolio (vs. 1.6% in 2014), with total fossil fuel exposure around 1% (vs. 6.6% in 2014).

To Do: The fund has set a target of allocating 20% of its portfolio to impact investments

Philips, 2014, Pioneered circularity as a service

Philips didn’t invent the light bulb, but it did reinvent how we buy them. Its Light as a Service model installs, maintains and manages a building’s lighting, making it much easier for Philips to reclaim valuable materials at their end of life and put circular economy principles into action.

Catalyst: Philips’s CEO has said, “It’s important to disrupt your business before someone else does.” Philips was a founding member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2013.

Impact: Philips has operated recycling programs for more than 25 years, but turning lighting into a service helped the company design for multiple reuse and recycling. Installing the most energy-efficient lighting systems has helped businesses reduce energy use by up to 70%.

To Do: Philips hopes to decouple its business from resource extraction, but it has a ways to go. Its 2020 targets include generating 15% of sales from circular products and services.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG), 2014, Closure of Ontario’s last coal-fired power plants and launch of solar plant

The closure of Ontario’s coal-fired power plants remains the world’s single largest realized GHG-reduction measure to date. While it was a government decision to shut down coal power in Ontario, OPG was selected as one of the Green 50 for making good on the task with an innovative approach, including partnering with Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation to build a 44-megawatt solar facility at the former home of North America’s largest coal-fired power plant.

Catalyst: The deadly impacts of smog and air pollution on the health of children and adults were highlighted by several groups, including the Ontario Medical Association, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

Impact: The closure was one of the main reasons Ontario achieved its 2014 emissions-reduction target, and it improved air quality noticeably. The move contributed to the development of the province’s renewable energy sector, demonstrating that large energy-
generation shifts are possible in populous, coal-dependent areas.

To Do: Decarbonize the remainder of its fossil fuel assets (natural gas) and invest in storage and charging infrastructure to enable the scaling up of renewables.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), 2015, World’s second-largest asset owner exits coal investments

In 2015, Norway’s parliament issued a unanimous recommendation to divest the country’s sovereign wealth fund from the coal industry. This excluded companies that derived more than 30% of their revenues or their power production from coal, the biggest energy-
related climate change culprit.

Catalyst: Greenpeace, WWF, Future in Our Hands, Urgewald, 350.org, economic interests and public pressure.

Impact: Norway took the lead among sovereign wealth funds to start divesting from the worst fossil fuel, withdrawing billions of euros from the coal industry and depriving fossil fuel companies of financing (thus increasing the cost of capital).

To Do: NBIM was recently told by Norway’s finance ministry to divest from oil exploration and production companies. However, as of early 2020, the fund still owned 307 oil and gas companies valued at US$23 billion (including a $1.7 billion stake in Exxon).

Adidas, 2015, First major shoe company to scale use of ocean plastic

After a groundbreaking 2015 study chronicled the enormity of the ocean plastic crisis, Adidas partnered with environmental organization Parley for the Oceans to transform the waste into sneakers made with at least 75% recycled ocean plastic. It started with 7,000 pairs of shoes, scaling up to 11 million pairs in 2019. In 2020, Adidas aims to produce 15 to 20 million pairs of the revolutionary shoes, as well as boost the recycled content of the polyester in its clothing to 50%.

Catalyst: Ocean plastic crisis, Parley for the Oceans, Greenpeace, Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Impact: Adidas and Parley for the Oceans have stopped more than 2,810 tonnes of plastic waste from entering the ocean by using plastic collected from coastal area cleanups. A number of other large companies have followed suit.

To Do: Adidas now manufactures 400 million pairs of shoes annually; 28% of the polyester in its shoes comes from recycled sources. Adidas is racing to use 100% recycled polyester by 2024.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), 2015, Launched the Green Economy Transition approach

In the run-up to the COP21 meeting in Paris, the EBRD launched its Green Economy Transition (GET) strategy. Its target: that 40% of EBRD’s total investments be in “green climate finance” by 2020, boosting financing in projects that further the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Catalyst: Climate crisis, market opportunities for low-carbon leaders.

Impact: To date, the EBRD has financed 1,900 green projects and signed US$34 billion in green investments, putting it on track to reach its 2020 goal. The landmark initiative – and its success – should encourage other multinational development banks and financial institutions to shift their investments toward the low-carbon economy.

To Do: The bank stopped funding thermal coal and oil exploration but is still financing emissions-heavy natural gas.

Axa, 2015, First major insurance company to begin withdrawing from coal

The French multinational insurance company first announced that it would divest €500 million in coal assets by the end of 2015, then in 2017 said it would stop insuring any new coal construction projects, as well as oil sands and pipeline businesses.

Catalyst: Unfriend Coal coalition of a dozen NGOs, as well as the broader divestment movement.

Impact: Six months after Axa made its announcement in 2015, two other European insurers announced new coal policies. Now, more than 35 insurers with combined assets of US$8.9 trillion (roughly 37% of the insurance industry’s global assets) have adopted some form of coal divestment policies. “Insurers’ retreat from underwriting coal business has left coal-fired generators with a significant reduction in available capacity,” noted risk management firm Willis Towers Watson.

To Do: Axa has stopped insuring most coal projects, but it will continue to insure coal companies until 2030 in Europe and OECD countries, and by 2040 in the rest of the world.

Beyond Meat, 2016, Launches plant-based burger that “bleeds”

Beyond Meat pioneered plant-based meat alternatives that replicate the look and taste of “real meat,” leading to a string of fast food and restaurant collaborations.

Catalyst: Vegan founder Ethan Brown wanted to develop a “Prius for the plate” that could convince fast food lovers to eat less carbon-intensive beef.

Impact: A University of Michigan study found that Beyond Burgers involve 90% fewer GHGs, 99% less water and 46% less energy than beef burgers. By shifting attitudes toward “veggie burgers,” Beyond Meat has fuelled a rise in “flexitarians” – and a stampede of restaurant partnerships racing to put plant protein on the menu (A&W, McDonald’s, Subway, etc.). Beyond Meat’s success has also prompted other large brands, such as Nestlé and Maple Leaf Foods, to invest in plant-based protein.

To Do: Address health concerns over the high levels of sodium in its products.

Alipay, 2016, Launch of the Alipay Ant Forest project (122 million trees and counting)

The Chinese e-commerce and mobile payment platform launched a tree-planting and conservation project on its mobile app, which earned it a 2019 UN Champions of the Earth award. The app rewards its users with “green energy points” that grow into virtual trees when users take steps to reduce their individual carbon footprints, such as biking to work or buying sustainable products. Alipay matches these virtual trees by planting and maintaining real trees and protecting a conservation area with the help of NGOs.

Catalyst: China’s worsening smog and climate crisis.

Impact: Since its launch in 2016, more than 500 million people have used the Ant Forest app and 122 million trees have been planted in northwest China. The company has also funnelled US$8.4 million into financial incentives for farmers to plant trees and develop organic agricultural products. Ant Forest has inspired similar initiatives in the Philippines.

To Do: Maintaining planted trees will be key. Alipay could extend the platform to other countries and regions.

SSAB, LKAB & Vattenfall, 2016, Created HYBRIT initiative for fossil-free steelmaking technology

Together, the three Swedish companies – an industrial steel conglomerate, an iron ore miner and an electricity producer – created this initiative to develop fossil-free steelmaking technology with virtually no carbon footprint by replacing coke and coal with fossil-free electricity and hydrogen. The construction of a pilot plant started in Sweden in 2018.

Catalyst: Industry demand, looming regulations, carbon-pricing projections.

Impact: Steel amounts to 8.3% of all global CO2 emissions, so the technology could have a significant impact. If successful, HYBRIT could reduce Sweden’s national carbon emissions by 10% and Finland’s by 7%.

To Do: Even though progress has been made, the technology is still under development and a market breakthrough is years away.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), 2016, Developed the first comprehensive environmental stress test

ICBC, the largest bank in the world, became the first bank in China to evaluate the impact of environmental policies on credit risks for commercial banks, showing that environmental risks have become one of the most important factors affecting the daily operations of banks.

Catalyst: President Xi Jinping’s call for the development of “green finance” in support of China’s goal of building an “ecological civilization”; the risk of climate-related loan defaults, combined with the “green bankers” movement kicked off by Mark Carney and Ma Jun; and the UN-backed Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System.

Impact: This stress-test tool provides a reference point for banking regulators to consider the impacts of environmental factors on bank risks and better align capital flows with green development.

To Do: Ensure that financing of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the world’s largest infrastructure program, is incorporating rigorous environmental stress testing to avoid locking in high-carbon development. Currently, ICBC is the world’s largest underwriter of coal plant development, much of it along the Belt and Road Initiative.

Google, 2017, Purchased enough renewable energy to match 100% of global operations

Google has become the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable power, reaching its 2012 commitment of purchasing enough renewable energy to match 100% of its operations. It was one of the first corporations to create large-scale, long-term contracts to buy renewable energy directly.

Catalyst: Employee activism, Greenpeace.

Impact: Google’s renewable energy commitment is driving the construction of renewable energy projects around the world and, according to the company, will generate more than US$3.5 billion in capital investment by project developers. It’s now one of 30 major companies that are sourcing 100% of their energy from renewable sources and is one of nearly 200 that are 75% of the way to the We Mean Business coalition’s RE100 pledge.
To Do: Google has made substantial contributions to more than a dozen organizations that campaign against climate legislation. Employee activism has also drawn focus to Google’s contracts with fossil fuel companies.

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, 2017, First major institutional investor in North America to set targets for carbon reduction and climate solutions

In 2017, managers of Quebec’s pension fund announced three overarching climate goals: to factor climate change into every investment decision, to increase low-carbon investments by 50% (by $8 billion) by 2020, and, between 2017 and 2025, to reduce the carbon intensity of the overall portfolio by 25%.

Catalyst: Student and environmental campaign groups and management recognition of the upside potential of investing in measures that address climate change.

Impact: By the end of 2018, CDPQ had linked portfolio manager bonuses to the targets and added more than $10 billion in new low-carbon investments while lowering the portfolio’s carbon intensity by 10%. CDPQ has demonstrated that scaling ambitious climate commitments across a large portfolio can be an opportunity rather than a sacrifice.

To Do: CDPQ has established an enhanced target to increase its low-carbon investments by 80% between 2017 and 2020

TerraCycle, 2019,  Creation of Loop, the closed-loop refillable packaging service for large packaged-goods brands

In early 2019, the global recycling firm TerraCycle unveiled a new circular delivery service for consumers called Loop, a platform that replaces single-use packaging with refillable packaging from major food companies.

Catalyst: Greenpeace’s plastic pollution audits put major packaged-goods companies in the hot seat. TerraCycle’s CEO approached those brands about the Loop concept.

Impact: Although it’s still in the pilot phase, Loop could reduce waste in landfills and result in less plastics use. While independent zero-waste stores are popping up around the world, Loop brings the idea of reusable containers to conventional consumers who would otherwise buy from large packaged-goods brands. (Loop’s partners include Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Coca-Cola and Danone.)

To Do: Loop will need to scale up beyond pilot testing and demonstrate that carbon emissions, such as from trucking, don’t outweigh the environmental benefits of its model.

Maple Leaf Foods, 2019, First major meat company to bet big on plant protein

In the last few years, Maple Leaf Foods has plowed 40% of all new investments into plant protein. In 2019, it announced plans to build the largest plant-protein processing facility in North America, doubling Maple Leaf’s capacity to produce meat alternatives. The company has acquired two plant-based protein brands, Lightlife in 2017 and Field Roast in 2018.

Catalyst: Surging consumer demand for more protein alternatives; backlash from climate-change, food-safety and animal-welfare advocates.

Impact: Almost overnight, Maple Leaf became the largest plant protein company in North America, setting the bar for other meat companies to expand into more sustainable plant-based options and feeding the growing flexitarian and vegan market. The company is also investing in environmental projects throughout North America and recently announced that it is the first major food company in the world to be carbon neutral.

To Do: Though more than 95% of its sales still came from meat products in the last quarter of 2019, Maple Leaf is aiming to build a $3 billion business on plant-based products by 2029. While the company’s energy and GHG emissions are lower than they were five years ago, they’ve been inching back up in the last three years.

KLM, 2019, First major airline to invest in sustainable aviation fuel at scale

In 2019, KLM announced a 10-year contract with the aviation biofuel company SkyNRG for KLM to purchase 75,000 tonnes of crude biofuel per year, the largest such commitment by an airline so far. SkyNRG’s biofuels are notably palm-oil free and sourced mostly from used cooking oil.

Catalyst: Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme (CORSIA), consumer pressure, the “flight-shame” movement in Europe.

Impact: SkyNRG is developing Europe’s first dedicated plant for the production of the fuel in the Netherlands. The production facility will use primarily regional waste and residue streams as feedstock and will, when operational in 2022, be the first of its kind in the world. SkyNRG says the fuel will deliver a CO2 reduction of approximately 85%.

To Do: Despite the environmental benefits of biofuel, it must be scaled up to put a dent in aviation emissions.

Mahindra Group, 2019, One of India’s largest businesses, joins Science Based Targets initiative

The multinational manufacturing conglomerate, one of India’s largest businesses, took a leadership role in India by committing to align its operations with the Paris Agreement. Four of the Mahindra Group’s businesses have now been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative.

Catalyst: Investor pressure, economic interests.

Impact: The Mahindra Group has seen a 76% increase in total renewable energy consumption in 2018 compared to 2017, as well as improvements in recycling and material reuse. In 2018, Mahindra challenged 500 other companies to commit to science-based targets before that year’s Global Climate Action Summit. Nearly 450 answered the call.

To Do: The group has committed to carbon neutrality by 2040. However, many of its companies are in the manufacturing and industrial sectors, so the challenge is significant.

Microsoft, 2020, Largest company in the world by market cap pledges to reverse lifetime CO2 emissions by 2050

Earlier this year, the tech giant pledged to “undo” its lifetime CO2 emissions over the next 30 years, making it the first large corporation to do so. Microsoft had already gone carbon neutral in 2012 and pledged that its CO2 emissions will become carbon negative by 2030.

Catalyst: Employee activism, the climate crisis.

Impact: Microsoft’s actions have pushed the idea of accounting for lifetime emissions into the corporate realm. If successful, by 2050 the company will remove all the carbon it has emitted (either directly or through electricity production) since its founding in 1975.

To Do: Microsoft’s massive data centres operate in part on non-renewable energy. However, the company has announced it will be able to power all its data centres and buildings with renewable energy by 2025.

* Adèle Hurley, Andrew Craig, Andy Behar, Beatrice Olivastri, Blair Feltmate, Bruce Lourie, Céline Bak, Charmaine Love, David Love, David Runnalls, David Wheeler, Frances Edmonds, Frank Frantisak, Geoff Love, Greg Payne, Hazel Henderson, Hunter Lovins, Ivo Mulder, Jane Ambachtsheer, John Cook, John Elkington, Julia Christensen-Hughes, Mark Rudolph, Mark Tercek, Michael de Pencier, Monte Hummel, Nick Parker, Peter Love, Ralph Torrie, Shanta Chatterji Simon Zadek, Tyler Hamilton, Valerie Chort, Vicky Sharpe.

The post Green 50: Top business moves that helped the planet appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The coronavirus is a whole different beast. Within 30 days of the first recorded death in Canada  (an 83-year-old man at North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley Care Centre on March 9), the federal government rolled out direct new spending of $105 billion to deal with the immediate fallout from shutting down vast parts of the economy in an attempt to contain the virus.

Just the $71 billion emergency wage subsidy to get Canadians through the next few months was more than the entire $70 billion the federal government had earmarked to address the climate emergency over the next 10 years – an amount that many considered bountiful just a few months ago.

The difference is the new coronavirus threatens all of our families today, whereas the climate crisis is more of a distant danger  – unless you live in growing wildfire, flood, heat wave, hurricane or drought  zones.

The human tendency to procrastinate is strong, but when the bell tolls, our survival instincts kick in.

Historic job losses triggered by the pandemic, combined with collapsing oil prices, will plunge every province in Canada into recession this year, according to RBC forecasts. As the conversation starts to shift from crisis relief to economic recovery, Canada has an opportunity to recover stronger than ever.

While in the past it has been difficult to make bold moves that would allow Canada to surf the clean economy wave rather than being wiped out by it, the Overton window of what is politically viable has shifted. It’s important that our policies be grounded in the new reality. The sheer scale of expected stimulus over the next two or three years will likely cast the die of our economy for decades to come.

As government makes this once-in-a-generation investment in the economy, it is vital that it look ahead and invest in building an economy that is ready for tomorrow, instead of spending large amounts of public money on infrastructure and technologies that will be outdated within a decade, as Smart Prosperity’s Stewart Elgie points out.

The last time officials at the federal Finance Department had to come up with a stimulus plan was in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008/09. Just 8% of the stimulus had a climate dimension, compared to 12% in the U.S., 38% in China and 59% in the European Union, according to HSBC Global Research.

This time is different: we have a government that was elected with a strong mandate for climate action and a clear 2050 net-zero carbon emissions target. Just don’t expect that, on its own, to have much sway on the finance officials who will be crafting the stimulus. They will be preoccupied with a single objective: get the economy growing and people back to work as quickly as possible.

There is a strong economic argument that a conventional stimulus will not be good enough. If we use yesterday’s playbook, Canadians risk being left behind at a crucial time of transition, as global demand and technology shift in favour of a more efficient low-carbon economy.

Applying a climate lens to the recovery package can help us identify some of the best opportunities to get people back to work immediately while building a more resilient Canada for the long term, ready to capitalize on new global growth trends.

One 2009 study by the International Monetary Fund on climate policy and recovery found that “environmental measures have been a valuable part of fiscal stimulus packages,” emphasizing that “energy efficiency investments are particularly well-suited to stimulus spending,” because they can be executed quickly.

In April, leaders in Canada’s clean energy sector wrote to the prime minister calling for a clean-energy-focused stimulus in order to “build a better, more resilient economy,” noting a special need to invest most in those regions that have been hit hardest by the collapsing oil price, such as Alberta.

Encouragingly, there are signs that clean economy investments could take centre stage in federal economic recovery plans, said a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson in April,

“When the recovery begins, Canada can build a stronger and more resilient economy by investing in a cleaner and healthier future for everyone.”

Inevitably, there will be pushback from some of Canada’s more entrenched interests. The response must be clear and unequivocal: a sustainable path is the only way forward if we want Canada to thrive long term.

As Canadians, this is our moment to think and act big.

In that spirit, today, we are launching a Building Back Better Green Recovery report series with contributions from some of Canada’s most inspired minds. And over the next seven weeks, Corporate Knights and partners will hold a weekly series of live conversations bringing together people with the ideas and the power to explore how Canada can use a renewed climate-based approach to build a stronger, more sustainable economy.

Our web host will be economist and public policy expert Diana Fox Carney.

These conversations will revolve around six themes: Buildings, Power, Transport, Heavy industry, Forests and Energy. Each session will begin with a table-setting analysis prepared by energy and environment expert Ralph Torrie, covering capital requirements, job creation, energy savings, emissions reductions, and the measures required to enable fast rollout.

Our goal: to inspire Canadian decision-makers to seize this opportunity to Build Back Better.

The 60-minute weekly series kicks off on Wednesday, April 22^nd (the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day), at 11 a.m. EDT. The series will continue at the same time each Wednesday through to June 3.

Each event will include reactions and suggestions from expert panelists as well as an opportunity for attendees to make suggestions and ask questions. Following each discussion, updated proposals will be shared with all participants for further refinement to inform a synthesis document to be presented in June.

Here’s the schedule. We hope you can join us.

Building Back Better with a Green Renovation Wave

Wednesday, April 22, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. EDT

Building Back Better by Topping Up our Green Power Sources, Storage and Connections

Wednesday, April 29, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better by Electrifying our Cars, Trucks and Buses

Wednesday, May 6, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better by Greening Heavy Industry

Wednesday, May 13, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better with Forests

Wednesday, May 20, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better by Fueling Innovation in the Energy Sector

Wednesday, May 27, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better: The Wrap and Next Steps

Wednesday, June 3, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

The post The Canada we want: How a green recovery can help us bounce back stronger appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Equality translates into a civil society, one that acts cohesively in the interests of the many. Besieged by division and inaction on the climate crisis, we need solutions that are far broader than technological fixes. A $1 billion per year Indigenous Climate Fund (ICF), if established by the federal government, could offer some multifaceted solutions. What would such a fund look like?

Its first mandate would be to work with Indigenous peoples across Canada to build smart communities (appropriate, energy-efficient infrastructure in remote and urban communities that delivers smart buildings and amenities, clean energy, water and waste management alongside health, education, training, communication and social services). This endowment part of the fund would not be intended to generate standard financial returns; it would use Canadian clean technologies to amplify results of investments already made by federal and other governments.

Its second mandate would be to set up an asset fund to co-invest in global infrastructure assets (together with pension funds and large project developers) that meet strict investing criteria. That criteria would integrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals and recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

Under this umbrella, Indigenous communities may decide to raise additional capital for participation in projects, such as power transmission lines or planting forests for carbon sequestration, thereby helping with Canada’s climate change commitments. This part of the ICF would be the long-term wealth generator, with some of the proceeds redirected to the “smart community” part of the fund, hence increasing the endowment, with the rest cycled back into the asset fund.

The time is ripe for an Indigenous Climate Fund. If Canada gets this right it could support economic reconciliation and equality and address the climate crisis while serving as a model for the world.

 Vicky Sharpe is a corporate director and was the founding president & CEO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

The post The time is ripe for an Indigenous Climate Fund appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Canada can decarbonize its power grid by 2025, electrify home heat and personal vehicles, and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but only with energy efficiency at the centre of the strategy. Today, Canada’s largely clean grid supplies less than 25% of Canada’s energy. The rest comes mostly from natural gas and oil, to heat and power buildings and vehicles. That’s why efficiency is the key to electrification.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are four to five times more efficient than today’s vehicle fleet and cost less to own and operate than their combustion counterparts. Average heat loss from existing buildings is 75% higher than from buildings that have been retrofitted using best practices, while heat pumps are three to five times more efficient than the baseboard heaters and gas furnaces they replace. The cost of greening Canada’s housing stock can be kept to $100 billion or less, perhaps much less, by doing so on a mass scale while modernizing an industry that’s ripe for disruption.

By way of context, Canadian investment in residential buildings runs more than $100 billion annually, in addition to more than $30 billion in household heating fuel and electricity expenditures.

If we drive demand down at the root – cutting costs and creating green-building and EV-manufacturing jobs along the way – provinces that now depend on coal and gas plants can instead import clean electricity from hydro-rich provinces nearby. Enabling that shift with new transmission lines – in addition to 40 gigawatts of new wind capacity – will cost roughly $85 billion. In the interim, it’s the efficiency investments that will keep the grid carbon-free.

 Ralph Torrie is an expert in the field of energy and environment and the president of Torrie Smith Associates

The post Plugging in to energy efficiency key to electrifying Canada’s economy appeared first on Corporate Knights.