American conservationist David Brower ironically observed that “we are at war with nature, and we are winning.” The floods in Pakistan are one front in our clash with the planetary boundaries that define the rules for everything we do, but the war with nature will come to your doorstep soon.

Of course, there is no possibility of winning such a war, and UN Secretary General António Guterres has declared that “making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century and must be the top priority for everyone, everywhere.”

We know how to make that peace. The outlook would be bleaker if we did not know what needs to be done, or if what we needed to do was not also the path to renewed prosperity and economic justice.

The Corporate Knights Climate and Economic Renewal Plan describes a pathway to peace based on energy efficiency, electrification and expanding the supply of carbon-free energy. Some of its key components include:

• Retrofit, modernize and electrify most of the existing nine million residential and commercial buildings across Canada, with a priority on affordability for everyone.

• Rapidly expand the supply of renewable electricity and storage and increase inter-provincial grid connections.

• Increase electric vehicle market shares to 100% of light vehicles and 75% of trucks, with 10 million EVs on the road by 2030 and a fully built-out trans-Canada fast-charging infrastructure, supplemented by 2,000 kilometres of new bicycle rights-of-way and infrastructure support.

• Reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of steel and cement production by 50% or more by 2030.

• Support the economic conversion of Canada’s oil patch to a post-petroleum era by redeploying expertise and resources to growth sectors and high-value-added opportunities such as the burgeoning carbon fibre market.

• Increase the supply of critical minerals while exemplifying the social, ethical and environmental attributes of what mining must become in a sustainable economy.

• Convert 30% of agricultural land to low-till cultivation practices by 2030.

Compared with current climate-change-response spending in Canada of $15 to $25 billion per year, the Corporate Knights plan has capital requirements of $126 billion per year over the next critical decade. This aligns with other estimates that an effective emergency response to climate change will require investments in the order of 5 to 6% of GDP.

How this total is split between public and private sources of capital will depend on policy and will vary by sector, but the overall effort required is still within the range of our previous efforts to respond to existential threats and broken economies. A $126-billion-per-year investment plan for climate and economic renewal is certainly possible in Canada, an economy with an output of $2 trillion per year and capital investments of $450 billion per year, and whose government alone just spent $500 billion in an emergency response to the COVID pandemic.

Unlike most of the expenditures on COVID, many of the investments needed to respond to the climate emergency would not only pay for themselves but would position Canada for decades of economic prosperity. As the world ramps up its efforts to address the climate crisis in the 2020s, it will create a $9-trillion-per-year market for smart building solutions, electric vehicles and related batteries and infrastructure, renewable grid technology, critical minerals, sustainable biotechnologies, plant-based protein and other building blocks of the post-fossil economy.

Just as the successful economies of the 20th century were those that were able to capitalize on fossil fuels and combustion technologies, the successful economies of the 21st century will be those that have the technologies and know-how to operate within planetary boundaries.

As we have witnessed in Pakistan and countless other places in recent months, climate chaos is relentless, unforgiving and on the march. The status quo is no longer the safe option, and it hasn’t been for some time now. And in any case, as David Brower also once remarked, “I don’t think we were built to be safe; I think we were built to try things.”

Ralph Torrie is the research director at Corporate Knights.

Related post:

For more on the plan visit corporateknights.com/investmentplan.

The post The price of making peace with nature appeared first on Corporate Knights.

What’s the most effective way to spend that money? Corporate Knights’ Climate and Economic Renewal Plan lays out six major green investments.

There’s no place like green homes.

To make this country’s buildings more comfortable, affordable and energy-efficient in all weather, we’ll need to spend $57 billion a year on retrofitting and electrifying 10 million homes, plus $22 billion on commercial buildings. That includes phasing out old heating and lighting systems for modern, efficient systems with smart energy management.

Full of (clean) energy.

Around 80% of Canada’s power supply comes from non-emitting technologies (renewables, nuclear and hydro), and the country has a goal to hit 90% by 2030. To get there, Canada will need to spend $24 billion per year on expanded renewable capacity and interprovincial electricity connections to ensure clean electricity supply is evenly distributed.

That new electric vehicle smell.

By 2030, hopefully, there will be 10 million EVs (as well as many more bicycles) on Canadian roads. But to get there, we’ll need to spend $16 billion per year on a range of measures that include building out our charging network. We can encourage cycling by creating an additional 2,000 kilometres of bike lanes.

This transition will run on batteries.

We need to (sustainably) shore up our supply of critical minerals that will go into batteries that power EVs. The global market for lithium-ion batteries is expected to grow to US$135 billion by 2031, and Canada has all the minerals needed to make EV batteries.

Not- so-heavy industry.

To cut emissions from heavy industries like cement and steel by 50% by 2030, we’ll need to spend $5 billion per year. We should also support the burgeoning carbon fibre market (a strong material made from bitumen) to shift Canada’s oil industry into a post-petroleum future.

Bet the farm on climate.

We can help farmers make their operations more sustainable, using regenerative methods (such as planting cover crops) that store more carbon in the ground while cutting back on the overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. This will require a $3-billion-per-year investment.

For more on Corporate Knights’ Climate and Economic Renewal Plan, read ‘The price of making peace with nature,‘ from CK’s research director Ralph Torrie.

The post These 6 green investments would kick-start Canada’s economic renewal appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Reducing that deficit is the main goal of non-profit Industry Immersion Africa (iiAfrica), which is hoping to stem the brain drain of talented students to the West when they are so badly needed on the continent to contribute to the economic transformation of Africa.

Assisted by business professors in Germany and Canada as well as Academics Without Borders, iiAfrica delivers a program that teaches business fundamentals and provides workplace internships to top STEM graduates like Marima.

Since 2017, the Industry Immersion Program has graduated 274 STEM students from 27 African countries. All of them, says iiAfrica managing director David Attipoe, “have remained on the African continent, working for businesses here, and most have gone on to be managers.”

Key to iiAfrica’s early success is a partnership between the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), a Berlin-based private non-profit business school, and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), based in South Africa with campuses in other African countries. Initially, ESMT professors travelled to South Africa to teach business principles to AIMS students for five weeks before the students moved into a three-month (at least) company internship.

More than 80% of graduates have landed meaningful jobs within one year of graduation, according to iiAfrica.

The lure of STEM scholarships

When founding ESMT dean Wulff Plinke was a guest lecturer at AIMS in 2014, he found the students were passionate about math but not, as had been assumed, interested in teaching careers. Instead, he says, “they wanted to use mathematics in the economic world.”

Plinke knew from experience that well-intentioned scholarships from Western institutions often lead African students to stay abroad after their studies instead of returning home.

With iiAfrica’s program, he adds, “it is not in our vision that anyone would leave Africa after the program. We want to bring them into employment, and we did.”

You can educate people until the cows come home, but if the jobs aren’t there, then it gets to be really tough.

–David Dunne, a business professor at the University of Victoria

Currently, students at AIMS campuses in South Africa, Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal and Cameroon and at Strathmore University in Kenya pay no tuition for the program and earn a certificate in business administration. University partners pay for internet access, housing and tutor support.

Marima, who is from Harare, Zimbabwe, joined the program in 2018. She says the business studies curriculum “opened doors to a world that I had no idea existed.” Though well-versed in statistics and math through her AIMS degree, she notes that “you don’t get to learn much about business from those disciplines.”

After the academic component, Marima landed an internship with B. Braun, a German medical and pharmaceutical device company with an office in Harare. After three months, she joined the company full-time and now is a human capital and strategic development manager overseeing a staff of 30 people. She plans to earn a master’s in business administration from the University of Zimbabwe.

A Canadian business school connection

Since 2019, iiAfrica has partnered with Canada’s Academics Without Borders (AWB) to scale up the program across Africa. Business professors from Canada volunteer their time in the classroom and train campus-based African tutors at each participating university, ultimately replacing themselves.

With this train-the-trainer model, African universities build capacity, says AWB executive director Greg Moran. “We try to collaborate with partners in the developing world to make changes they can sustain themselves.”

Like iiAfrica, AWB believes that part of its mission is to stem the exodus of graduates from Africa. One way to do that, says Moran, “is to help them build capacity in their own programs.”

Still, challenges remain: iiAfrica aims to add one African university each year to the program, but too often participating universities lack financial resources to pay their share of costs. As well, as enrolment climbs, so does pressure to secure internships, in-person or virtual.

David Dunne, a business professor at the University of Victoria and a former AWB board chairman who coordinates scale-up efforts with iiAfrica, is developing a template to add African university partners. “You can educate people until the cows come home, but if the jobs aren’t there, then it gets to be really tough.”

Attipoe agrees: “We need a lot of support from organizations around the world who believe in the transformation of STEM graduates in Africa.”

The post How one business program is fighting the brain drain of African graduates to the West appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Previous Top 40 MBA Rankings

2021 Better World MBA

Better World MBA: Top 40 ranking

2020 Better World MBA

2020 Better World MBA ranking results

2019 Better World MBA

2019 Better World MBA results

The post Top 40 MBAs double down on commitments to sustainability appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Laudable, say youth activists, sustainable business leaders and those tracking school performance, but still not good enough to equip tomorrow’s corporate leaders for purpose beyond profit.

“The pace of change is definitely not as fast as it should be given the climate crisis and the social crisis we are in, and the ambition is not high enough,” says Maxime Lakat, executive director of Re_Generation, a youth-led campaign for business schools and companies to incorporate human and ecological wellbeing in decision-making.

No less impatient is Mette Morsing, head of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education, the largest global initiative on transforming leadership to address the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “We know what to do, but progress is slow,” says Morsing, whose organization was founded in 2007 and now has 880 business school signatories. “If you look at business school curriculum, it is still very much driven by an agenda set in another time.”

Including purpose, not just profit, means business schools must prepare a different kind of future corporate leader.

“We want [MBA students] to think not just about profit maximization, shareholder supremacy and short-termism,” says Morsing. “We want them to think long-term, because that is what business needs – to think stakeholder orientation and to think about society at the centre of the stakeholder model, not the corporation.”

As schools reimagine themselves, the corporate-sector response is sometimes paradoxical: eager for a new generation of sustainability leaders but not always translating that aspiration in job postings.

“There is a gap between what is being taught and a company’s human resources and talent acquisition department knowing what is being taught,” observes Bernt Blankholm, founder and chief executive officer of Highered, the career arm of the European Foundation for Management Development, a global business school network. “I wish the recruitment industry would pay better attention to what is being taught,” he says. Too often, he adds, chief executive commitments on sustainability fail to trickle down to job descriptions for operational positions at the firm.

That said, businesses are clearly keen for school curricula that embed sustainability in core courses.

“There is no CEO of a company tomorrow that cannot understand sustainability,” predicts Tim Moerman, sustainability and ESG director for global brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev in Europe. He argues that MBA students, no matter their focus (finance, marketing or supply chain), must be well-versed in carbon emissions, packaging and water, for example, and their social and environmental impact. “If business schools don’t provide these kinds of competencies, students will not have jobs,” he warns.

The pace of change is definitely not as fast as it should be given the climate crisis and the social crisis we are in, and the ambition is not high enough.

-Maxime Lakat, executive director of Re_Generation

Among schools reimagining their MBA programs (see 2022 Better World MBA Top 40 ranking), common patterns emerge: increasing integration of sustainability in core courses, research relevant to the SDGs, and expanded opportunities for students to work with underserved communities.

At the Berlin-based European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), a private non-profit business school, 26% of fulltime MBA content links to ethical, social and environmental issues, including relevant case studies, according to the school. Students can work on social-impact projects at the school’s FUTURE Institute for Sustainable Transformation. In a boon for research, ESMT this year announced industry-funded professorships in sustainable finance, accounting impact measurement, circular business, and energy markets and transition.

“Sustainability is something that is at the core of the survival of the competitiveness of the company,” says ESMT president Jôrg Rocholl. “[Sustainability] now is a fundamental part of the strategic development of a company relating to all markets, from capital to labour, where new employees only want to work for companies that are truly sustainable.”

But are all schools doing enough?

“The answer is clearly no,” says Peter Bakker, president and chief executive of the Switzerland-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development. “I know business schools are moving, and many have added sustainability elements to their curriculum,” says the former global company CEO. “But in the core of the current business curriculum, it is still shareholder value that beats the drum.”

If you look at business school curriculum, it is still very much driven by an agenda set in another time.

–Mette Morsing, head of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education

Reinforcing the profit focus, he observes, are rankings that reward a business school for MBA salaries two years after graduation. “Where you can get the best incomes is at Goldman Sachs and other firms on Wall Street,” says Bakker. “It is not going to be at some sustainability job somewhere.” He calls for a “system-wide conversation on ‘How do we actually measure how much impact a particular MBA has?’”

One alternative is a new global, student-driven assessment that rates, not ranks, a school’s commitment to tackling society’s big problems. In five categories, the Swiss-based Positive Impact Rating (PIR) system groups schools by their level of progress in demonstrating social impact.

Students, positioned as key stakeholders in a school’s mission, rate its curriculum, ped-agogy, student support, culture and societal engagement. They also assess whether schools are living up to their aspirations, identifying what they should do less, or more, of to deliver impact. “Students are right there [at school], and you can involve them,” says Katrin Muff, president of PIR and director of the Institute for Business Sustainability. “Students are amazing change-agents for schools.”

I know business schools are moving, and many have added sustainability elements to their curriculum, but in the core of the current business curriculum, it is still shareholder value that beats the drum.

-Peter Bakker, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Muff, who hopes to expand PIR to 100 schools next year from 46 currently, concedes that progress takes patience. “There are significant barriers to change, much more in the business school and university setting than business.”

One of those barriers is the academic reward system that credits discipline-focused faculty for the number of peer-reviewed citations.

“When we evaluate faculty for hiring or promotion and tenure and salary increases, how often are the criteria being looked at even asking for faculty contributions in terms of social purpose?” asks Wharton School business professor David Reibstein, a board member of the Responsible Research in Business and Management network, which promotes academic work that contributes to social good. “We really need to change that [citation] impact measurement.”

Amid calls for purpose-driven business education is a growing recognition of the role of systems thinking to effect change.

“Business schools are the embodiment of our inability to think in systems; there are many silos,” says Jury Gualandris, a professor of operations management and sustainability at Ivey Business School, whose purpose statement now reads “inspiring leaders for a sustainable and prosperous world.”

As leader of Ivey’s Centre for Building Sustainable Value and its sister organization, the Network for Business Sustainability, Gualandris sees the potential to harness the centre’s interdisciplinary research focus and the network’s problem-solving agenda to tackle complex problems from multiple perspectives. “How do we transition from a silo approach to knowledge to a more integrated approach?” he asks.

Gualandris reflects on how “impact” is not a buzzword in the school’s current material, “but it should be. It communicates well the intention behind what we do.”

In fact, intention, communication and system-wide collaboration will all need to align if business schools are to remain relevant in training tomorrow’s sustainability-savvy leaders.

The post Are MBAs doing enough to equip tomorrow’s CEOs for purpose beyond profit? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

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“The oceans are rising and so are we,” chanted a chorus of climate strikers marching through Manhattan.  

On the same day that Pakistan’s prime minister was pleading with world leaders gathered at the United Nations General Assembly not to leave his country “alone high and dry” to cope with the catastrophic impacts of flooding, outside, thousands of young people were marching to Wall Street demanding climate reparations for poor countries.

With the latest round of global climate strikes planned in roughly 450 countries in late September (including nearly 40 in Canada and 134 in the United States) members of Generation Z and millennials were once again gathering in the streets to make their voices heard.  

Placards and microphones weren’t the only tools they used.  

Ten days earlier, seven Ontario youth appeared in court virtually to challenge the provincial government’s decision to gut its climate targets in 2018.

“We are here today to address the dire situation we find ourselves in [so we can] tell our children that we did all we could, while we could, to change our trajectory,” said co-plaintiff Shaelyn Wabegijig of the Rama First Nation at a press conference ahead of the hearing.  

They’re in good company. Whether they’re legal advocates, entrepreneurs, activists, engineers-in-training or policy geeks, Corporate Knights’ 2022 Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders are using their collective skills to challenge the status quo and bend the arc of history toward a more just and sustainable future.  

Earlier this year, 29-year-old Anishinaabe lawyer Stephanie Willsey helped First Nations communities win an $8-billion class-action lawsuit against the Canadian government to address the ongoing water crisis on reserves. Sanch Gupta and Milton Calderon Donefer have saved 52,000 pounds of food from going to waste and delivered more than 70,000 meals to homeless shelters in eight cities. At 28, Kurtis Layden, senior policy advisor in the Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, has been a key advisor on the federal ban on some single-use plastics, taking effect in 2025.

More than half the world’s population is now under 30 years old. The largest youth generation in history is coming of age while inheriting a planet marred by extreme climate events, a lingering pandemic, armed conflicts and sharply rising inflation. For its 11th annual youth survey, Deloitte surveyed 4,808 Gen Zers and 8,412 millennials across 46 countries and found that they’re “deeply worried” about the state of the world, but Gen Zers and millennials are putting in the work to drive change.  

They’re pressuring their employers, their schools (including MBA programs) and the businesses they support to take environmental action more seriously. (Only 15% of Gen Zers and 14% of millennials strongly agree that businesses are taking substantive actions to address the climate emergency, according to Deloitte.) The two generations marked by rising climate anxiety are also advocating for stronger support for workplace mental health.

For this year’s cohort of Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders, saving the world while safeguarding their own mental health has become critical to making sure their own leadership is sustainable for the long haul. That’s also central to their advice for up-and-coming sustainability leaders.

“I have seen far too many people in the field, including myself, burn out,” says Kait Tyschenko, founder of the Queer Infrastructure Network. They encourage youth in the sustainability space to “listen to their minds and bodies and to take care of themselves.”

Helen Watts, senior director of global partnerships at Student Energy, knows what it’s like to run on fumes while growing an organization to have a million-dollar budget. “We physically, mentally and spiritually cannot sustain this version of ourselves without committing to rest and recovery, taking time to stay connected to our communities and our motivators.”  

One thing the Top 30 Under 30 have in common is that they’re channelling their energies (including climate anxieties) into inspiring, needle-moving solutions, whether that’s fighting for Indigenous rights, building greener buildings and cleaner power, closing the loop on waste, or boosting corporate and government sustainability. Ultimately, they’re standing up for the well-being of all life on this planet – and they’re showing us all how it’s done.

How we found the top 30:

Every April, Corporate Knights opens the 30 Under 30 nominations to the public. An internal team narrowed the list of submissions down to a shortlist of 60, then our panel of judges each submitted their top 30 picks, and we tallied the votes.

Judges

Tabatha Bull | President of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business  

Shilpa Tiwari | Founder of Her Climb and global executive vice-president of social impact and sustainability at Citizen Relations  

Phil De Luna | Sustainability expert at McKinsey, mentor at Creative Destruction Lab, and a 2021 Corporate Knights Top 30 Under 30

Adria Vasil | Managing editor of Corporate Knights and bestselling author of the Ecoholic book series

Want to be on next year’s 30 Under 30? Visit corporateknights.com in April 2023 to nominate any change agents under 30 that you think should be considered for next year’s list.

Stephanie Willsey

29, Toronto/Rama First Nation
Lawyer, McCarthy Tétrault LLP

Roughly 60 Indigenous communities in Canada don’t have access to clean water. But thanks to Stephanie Willsey, a proud Anishinaabe lawyer and active member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, three First Nations received a historic $8-billion settlement agreement earlier this year to rectify their water crises. “To our people, water is life. Water is more than a basic resource. It is a medicine. It is part of ceremony,” says Willsey. She mentors other Indigenous lawyers and law students, as well as Indigenous high school students, so they too can see themselves in the profession. Willsey also provides legal advice at Pro Bono Students Canada’s Indigenous Human Rights Clinics and is a delegate at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Recently named one of Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers, Willsey says, “My goal has always been to use my law degree to help people, and I am so proud to be doing just that.”

Kat Cadungog

27, Calgary
executive director, The Youth Harbour

As an Albertan with friends and family tied to the oil and gas industry, Kate Cadungog feels like she has an “inside scoop” on how to create a more inclusive climate-resilient society. “I’ve always been inspired by narratives that bring people along and unite people, and I owe a lot of my perseverance to the Albertan ‘grit’ that I’ve learned from my peers,” she says. Armed with that experience, Cadungog wants to completely reimagine philanthropic systems and the way we support young climate mobilizers. Under Cadungog’s leadership, The Youth Harbour has raised $1.5 million to support youth-led climate action projects. In just its first year, the group has supported 15 such projects and committed $205,500 in funding to them. “I’m most proud of being able to raise the funds to regrant to youth-led climate movements across what’s currently referred to as Canada and actually getting it to the hands of youth,” she says.

Katie Wheatley

29, Montreal
Head of Canada, UN Principles for Responsible Investment

Incremental progress is Katie Wheatley’s priority. She looks at what she can accomplish in the next week or month as opposed to the next few years. And that’s probably a healthy perspective given that her work focuses on helping pension funds, universities and other institutional investors become responsible investors – a task with challenges that are systemic and long-term. But that doesn’t mean that Wheatley’s work doesn’t have a massive impact. “Changing the way that our financial system works to foster greater transparency and address social and environmental externalities is critical to improving collective well-being in the long-term, and institutional investors can play a significant part in that, given their size and worth,” she says. Her work has included helping Indigenous trusts and investors with aggregate assets of more than $480 million under management to harness their capital for collective good.

Catherine Marot

26, Toronto
CEO, CASE

There’s a story Catherine Marot heard growing up about a man trying to save starfish that had washed up onshore by throwing what he could back into the sea. “A boy comes up to him and asks him why he is bothering, because he’ll never save them all,” she recounts. The man simply bends down, tosses another into the sea and says, “I made a difference to that one.” “This story inspired me on a personal level to take action where I can.” Marot started a solo project saving one takeout container at a time. The daughter of waste-conscious immigrants from South Africa and Zimbabwe eventually started getcase.ca, preventing more than 250,000 black takeout containers from ending up in landfill by sanitizing them and selling them back to restaurants. This also amounts to an approximate savings of 34,644 kilowatt-hours of energy, 97.8 barrels of virgin fossil fuels and 180 cubic yards of landfill space. “Ultimately, I hope to inspire others [so] that we can change the status quo.”

Kurtis Layden

28, Ottawa
senior policy advisor, Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Kurtis Layden was just 15 when he was part of the Canadian delegation to a UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network climate change conference in Denmark. The experience cemented a firm belief in Layden that Canada needed to take a leading role on the international stage when it came to tackling the climate crisis. Since then, he has worked in the offices of three successive environment ministers and has been a key advisor on some of the Liberal government’s main environmental policies, including its ban on some single-use plastics. Once the ban takes effect in 2025, it could eliminate an estimated 1.3 million tonnes of plastic waste over the following decade. “These policies are critical to addressing environmental challenges such as pollution and climate change in Canada at a national scale and to help promote environmental sustainability,” he says.

Pratap Sandhu

27, Vancouver
CEO & director, Pangea Natural Foods

By the age of 21, Pratap Sandhu was already marketing director at his family’s global food company. After he got his MBA from the University of Liverpool, Sandhu decided to branch out on his own, founding Pangea Natural Foods in the spring of 2021. With $1.4 million in seed financing, Sandhu shopped his flagship product, Pangea Plant-Based Patties, to grocers across North America. “I was inspired to create high-quality nutritious products while keeping a clean label,” says Sandhu. Just over one year later, Pangea products are now in more than 300 stores, including select Loblaw and IGA stores. Sandhu’s latest product? Vancouver-made vegan Chikken Nuggets made with three types of pea protein. “We are excited to launch another plant-based product given the immense growth that the sector is experiencing.”

Ethan Talbot Schwartz

27, Toronto/Montreal
consultant, CPCS Transcom

As an associate with JCM Power, Ethan Talbot Schwartz led the development of renewable energy projects in Malawi, the world’s fifth-poorest country. With a background in engineering and diplomacy, honed through a master’s in international relations and a stint at the UN, Schwartz worked for months in the East African nation to advance the development of its first utility-scale wind farm. The project should mitigate more than 175,000 tonnes of CO2 per year while increasing the country’s installed generation capacity by nearly 10%. “A key takeaway from my travels was that I needed to use [the] advantage … of simply being born in a place like Canada as best as I could to make the world a better place.” Schwartz recently started as a consultant with CPCS, where he supports the organization in providing sustainable infrastructure solutions to governments across sub-Saharan Africa. With Pathways to Education, he provides weekly tutoring services to students in math and science while leading lectures on climate change to fill a gap in the current Ontario curriculum. Says Schwartz, “They will be the ones making a difference in tomorrow’s society!”

Samia Sami

24, Regina
engineer-in-training, SaskPower

“In Islam, humans are referred to as ‘khalifa’ (guardians) of the earth,” says Samia Sami. Those teachings have helped shape Sami’s attitude toward her two passions, sustainability and engineering. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, she now designs transmission stations to support the increased use of renewable energy (contributing to Saskatchewan’s goal of generating 50% electricity from renewables by 2030). “I have learned that electrical engineers can make a difference in the ecological footprint of the world.” As well, her work at the University of Saskatchewan reduced the school’s overall greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from 2007 levels, and she has helped 12 Canadian mosques implement sustainability initiatives via the Greening Canadian Mosques program. The Starfish board member is also big on empowering youth. As a chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power and Energy Society student branch chapter, Sami helps students advance their careers in sustainable energy. “It is also important for youth to realize that diversity plays a vital role in our fight against climate change.”

Andy Lam

29, Toronto
manager of climate programs, MaRS Discovery District

When Andy Lam is working late and his friends pressure him to get off early, he has an answer at the ready: “Climate change isn’t going to solve itself.” During his last five years at MaRS Discovery District, Lam has been busy helping Canada’s cleantech entrepreneurs grow their businesses and scale their solutions. “Seeing these innovators take risks and put their careers on the line to make the world a better place also inspired me to join the fight,” he says. That fight? Managing Mission from MaRS: Climate Impact Challenge, which helps 10 Canadian climate tech companies with high potential overcome barriers to adoption. Lam has advice for budding sustainability leaders: “Be solution-oriented rather than problem-oriented. We all know that climate change is a big issue, that pollution is a big issue, but we need to start focusing on how we’ll resolve them and begin actioning.”

Leah Perry

29, Burlington, ON
senior manager, cleantech, venture services, MaRS Discovery District

With less than 20% of Canadian cleantech companies having a female founder, Leah Perry wants to create not only a more sustainable world but one that is also led by a diverse mix of leaders. “It has been amazing to work alongside these amazing women founders to help accelerate their technology to the market,” says Perry, who leads the Women in Cleantech Accelerator at MaRS Discovery District. Raised by two environmentalists, she’s dedicated to ensuring women have equal opportunity to succeed in our net-zero future. The Schulich School of Business grad has been actively involved in the cleantech capital ecosystem since 2015, beginning as a founding member of the cleantech team at Export Development Canada and now as manager of cleantech venture services at MaRS. “There are more jobs in sustainability and impact than there ever have been,” says Perry. “A better world doesn’t just have to be a side hustle. Find a job that embodies your beliefs and you can spend every day chasing your mission.”

Marco Folino

27, Vancouver
manager of sustainable investing, BentallGreenOak

When Marco Folino started working as a management consultant, he found that there were rarely enough sustainability experts to help companies considering integrating ESG into their strategic goals. That’s when he decided to pursue a career in sustainability. Folino now manages sustainability programs for property management firm BentallGreenOak, which has US$80 billion in assets under management. Through this work, Folino has helped deliver custom ESG action plans for more than 120 million square feet of real estate properties across North America. He’s also provided climate adaptation plans for more than 90 million square feet of properties. Last year, Folino’s firm made a commitment to make its operations and assets under management net-zero by 2050 or earlier – a challenge he’s embracing with open arms. “Real accomplishments come when you have a relentless drive to succeed despite many failed attempts. This often means turning over every stone until you find the one that has what you’re looking for,” he says. 

Kait Tyschenko

27, Toronto/London
founder, Queer Infrastructure Network

Kait Tyschenko began their career in the environmental non-profit realm and was soon drawn to the construction sector’s low-carbon potential. Working at two of Canada’s largest construction companies, Pomerleau and EllisDon, Tyschenko focused on scaling up sustainability- and equity-driven innovations. These included community engagement programs, an Indigenous-relations roadmap, a sustainable-construction training program, and R&D exploring the powers of life-cycle assessment to reduce the embodied carbon of building projects. “I work tirelessly to ensure that the sustainability and impact projects that I lead have an equity-informed and -integrated lens,” they say. Tyschenko is the founder of the Queer Infrastructure Network, a group working to improve LGBTQ2S+ inclusion, visibility and safety in the Canadian infrastructure sector. “We cannot do the work we need to do without being kind and understanding with one another,” says Tyschenko, who is queer and trans-nonbinary. 

Alex Cool-Fergus

29, Gatineau, QC
outreach & engagement advisor, Federation of Canadian Municipalities

Alex Cool-Fergus calls herself “a municipal nerd innovating to build a more sustainable world.” Having witnessed her neighbours and parents win a campaign to protect local greenspace when she was a child, she got interested in both movement-building and sustainability. “Municipalities are the most ambitious level of government for climate mitigation and adaptation yet have the fewest resources to achieve their goals,” says Cool-Fergus, who has spent most of her career working with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ climate programs, including the Global Covenant of Mayors and the Green Municipal Fund. From cofounding a bike co-op at the University of Sherbrooke to helping 10 municipal candidates in Gatineau get elected with ambitious climate platforms, Cool-Fergus has stayed focused on creating a resilient and inclusive world. “As a young woman of colour, I quickly understood that it is essential to apply an equity and reconciliation lens to all sustainability policies.” The avid cyclist also sits on the board of the CREDDO, the largest environmental non-profit in the Outaouais region.

Helen Watts

28, Toronto
senior director of global partnerships, Student Energy

Right out of her undergraduate degree, Helen Watts became the head of fundraising for what would become the world’s largest organization working with young people on the energy transition. Over the next five years she drove the expansion of Student Energy’s global partnerships, growing the youth-led organization’s budget by 680% to help turn it into a multimillion-dollar organization and managing a team that supports a network of 44 funding and strategic partners. “I don’t come from a typical energy or climate background,” says the history major, who is frank about experiencing imposter syndrome when she started in this field. “I’m really passionate now about bridging the gap for young people who don’t feel they have the knowledge or experience to participate in climate and clean energy.” In 2018, Watts co-founded an accelerator for young people in low-income, high-climate-risk countries working on climate start-ups. Now, she’s focused on raising accessible funding for youth-led clean energy projects through the Student Energy Solutions Movement in partnership with the UN. “We need everyone at the table and in this fight with unique solutions to get where we need to be on the energy transition,” she says.

Mark Soberman

29, Vienna, Austria
director of research & development, Evanesce

Mark Soberman says he’s always been sensitive to the impact of human activity on the natural world. So it’s fitting that he is now working on the cutting-edge of sustainable packaging at Evanesce Packaging Solutions, a compostable packaging company based in Vancouver. (He’s currently conducting R&D at a partner lab in Vienna.) In the hope of helping to rid the world of single-use plastics, he is leading the development of Evanesce’s proprietary plant-based packaging material that biodegrades in up to 90 days. And if all goes to plan, he sees the company’s products – which are made of starch, cellulose fibre and agricultural byproducts – diverting thousands of tonnes of waste from landfill to industrial composting, where it can be used to grow plants and take more CO2 out of the air. “I firmly believe in waste reduction and working on leaving the world a better place than I found it,” he says.

Nabeela Merchant

29, Hamilton, ON
founder, Canadian Women in Venture Capital; senior associate, TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good

Nabeela Merchant knows well that every individual action – no matter how small – contributes to collective action. “Big things can grow out of small, consistent steps. That’s the power of compounded action,” she says. What started as a casual dinner she organized in 2018 has grown into Canadian Women in Venture Capital – a national group that looks to empower and connect women in the industry. Through this work, Merchant has contributed to helping more than 350 women get the support they need to succeed in an industry that has been dominated by men. While she was the initial igniter of the community, she is quick to give credit to the larger collective of women who have made it thrive. She began her career in investing five years ago and, as an early-stage investor at the $100-million TELUS Pollinator Fund, has focused on investments that look to tackle the climate crisis, inequality and barriers to healthcare.

Theresa Westhaver

29, Treaty 6 and 8 in the traditional territory of the Secwépemc Nehiyaw, Stoney, Métis, Dene-zaa, and Aseniwuche Winewak (now known as Jasper National Park)
Indigenous liaison, Jasper National Park, & co-founder, Howl Experience

Theresa Westhaver’s parents taught her that we’re all visitors to the animals’ homeland. Her father was a park warden and her mother a park interpreter. She has followed in their footsteps, as she now works as an Indigenous liaison for Parks Canada and teaches other young people about conservation through an educational non-profit called Howl Experience. “Without personal connection to place, people will not be inspired to protect and care for it. This guides the work that I do,” she says. As if that wasn’t enough to keep the single mom busy, she also runs a small business, called Mountain Stek’lep (formerly Left Coast Collective), which sells upcycled beadwork. She hopes that the impact of her work “ripples down to the next seven generations. If at least one youth is empowered to learn opportunities and leadership roles that they may not have otherwise seen themselves in, I would see that as being meaningful change.”

Shivani Chotalia

29, Toronto/Edmonton
director of development & partnerships, NRStor

Growing up in Edmonton, sandwiched between the oil industry and the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, Shivani Chotalia felt a growing sense of responsibility for building the world she wanted to see. “It became clear to me that the way we manage our economy needs to be aligned with stewarding the natural ecosystems that support us all.” As a director at one of Canada’s leading energy-storage project developers, NRStor, she’s particularly proud of contributing to its “partnerships first” approach with First Nations communities. NRStor and Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation are launching one of the largest energy-storage facilities in North America. “We can use our projects as an avenue to enable greater Indigenous ownership and economic benefits resulting from our transition to clean energy.” The engineer and financial professional, with a background in international development, also mentors Indigenous youth with Outside Looking In and in 2020 became the youngest board member of Environmental Defence.

Theresa Dearden

28, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea/Salt Spring Island, B.C.
technical lead, Natural Resource Management Hub, UNDP Papua New Guinea

It’s hard enough for most people to fully grasp the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of Papua New Guinea, a nation where more than 800 languages are spoken. Theresa Dearden helps communities in the country transcend cultural barriers to improve sustainable development. The first-generation Canadian (with parents from Thailand and the U.K.) designs user-friendly, open-source digital tools, including a phone app called Lukim Gather, that allow communities to monitor and report social or environmental issues (such as deforestation or pollution) to policy-makers. “We need good data in order to be able to avoid devastating climate change [and] biodiversity loss,” she says. She hopes to spread the idea that you don’t need to be a tech guru or biologist to collect data that can change the world. “Preservation of these ecosystems is vital for mitigating climate change at a global level.”

Jonathan Edwards

29, Aurora, ON
principal research scientist, CERT Systems

Jonathan Edwards was drawn to sustainability work after learning about climate change in high school. He realized how crucial cleantech was to the future of the world and decided to devote his career to it. His work at start-up CERT Systems focuses on converting carbon dioxide into fuels and chemical feedstocks using only water and electricity. Edwards says that while the climate crisis can be daunting, the world needs to see a huge scale-up of cleantech to meet its 2050 emissions targets. “When you feel that you or your technology [are] very small compared to this global challenge, recognize that you are not alone and that you have a tremendous opportunity before you. Plan for growth, but don’t be afraid to take that first step,” he says. Over the next five years, Edwards and his team will further develop their technology for commercialization.

Anoosha Lalani

27, Toronto/Pakistan
manager of ESG reporting & assurance, KPMG

Born in Pakistan, then raised in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia before arriving in Canada for university, Anoosha Lalani has seen firsthand what happens when people cling to the idea that climate change affects only those far away. “I’m passionate about climate change because I believe equity does not exist without sustainability.” As ESG manager at KPMG, Lalani supports multibillion-dollar companies to develop operating models that actively work toward building a greener future. “What I like most about my job is that I can support organizations trying to make the shift from viewing ESG as simply a marketing exercise to embedding it within their strategy and ensuring effective disclosure.” As a passionate public speaker, novelist, Ocean Wise alumni ambassador and World Economic Forum Global Shaper, Lalani encourages youth to keep telling their climate stories and using their skills to move the needle. “Every inch counts!”

Pierre-Laurent Macridis

28, Montreal
Associate Principal, Asset Management, Fondaction

Pierre-Laurent Macridis tries to develop solutions that will tackle a problem in the most efficient way. And he hopes that the impact-investing management firm he helped launch this summer will play an important role in closing the US$2.5-trillion funding gap needed to achieve the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. His work has helped catalyze more than $500 million in impact investing, primarily targeted toward climate change. He’s also managed funds and financed businesses that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.3 million tonnes. But most importantly, Macridis has mentored more than 20 young people pursuing careers in sustainability-related fields. To inspire his mentees, Macridis reminds them that Rome was not built in a day, nor alone: “Don’t be afraid to dream big and find your peers with whom you can shoot for the moon, because even if you miss it, you’ll land amongst the stars.”

Jasveen Brar

27, Calgary
executive director, Youth Climate Lab

Jasveen Brar was on a university research trip in Antarctica years ago when she saw something that changed her life: a plastic water bottle left between two penguin rookeries in the otherwise pristine landscape. “To see something of our man-made creation at the ends of [the] earth was shocking. I knew that we needed to do more [and] I needed to do more to leave our planet in a better place,” she says. After she returned from her trip, she changed her degree to pursue sustainability. Last year, the former Ocean Wise manager became the executive director of Youth Climate Lab, a non-profit that has raised more than US$450,000 to support youth-led climate action. The lab gives youth the skills, financial access and policy knowledge to become climate leaders. As she becomes an “older youth,” Brar hopes she’ll be able to “leave this space in a better place for future youth and to pave a better, more just and resilient future together.”

Erin Andrews

27, Toronto
executive director, Impact Zero

Erin Andrews’s best advice for tomorrow’s youth sustainability leaders is to find a community of people who inspire you. She founded Impact Zero to do just that. The Toronto-based organization brings businesses, consumers and entrepreneurs together with the goal of creating a circular economy. But Andrews says that no single organization on its own will make the circular economy a reality. “The only option is empowerment, real collaboration and resource-sharing,” she says. Andrews built the organization from scratch, working tirelessly to bring more attention to the idea of a circular economy in Toronto. She says that the circular economy can provide huge emission-reduction opportunities and that we just need to empower people to bring these solutions to life. Since 2020, Impact Zero has informed thousands of people about circularity and connected them with circular businesses through a directory it created. The group has also helped launch seven circular start-ups.

Eric Lam

26, Gatineau, QC
economic advisor on energy transition and finance, Environment and Climate Change Canada

Between 2019 and 2021, private banks and financial institutions invested US$1.5 trillion in coal. Eric Lam is trying to put a stop to that. He’s the private finance lead for Team Canada in the Powering Past Coal Alliance, a joint initiative between Canada and the U.K. that works to phase out global coal power generation. “There’s a lot of talk about greenwashing with all of these financial institutions pledging to meet net-zero by 2050 … I am working to get financial institutions to actually take action on their net-zero commitments.” He also advises public banks on greening their investments. He admits that working in sustainability can be demoralizing, especially when banks keep telling him “no.” Says Lam, “It’s important to remember that by working in this field, you are part of a movement that is doing as much as we can within the means that we have.”

Sabreen Salman

29, Toronto
director of ESG reporting & measurement, Export Development Canada

Sabreen Salman had always enjoyed math and was working toward a degree in business at Schulich, specializing in financial accounting, when she was introduced to the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Since then, she’s risen in the ranks as a sustainability professional and ESG manager in the financial industry. She’s now director of ESG reporting and disclosures at Export Development Canada (EDC). ”ESG disclosures and reporting have come a long way from voluntary ‘CSR reporting’ to now being a business imperative expected by investors, shareholders and stakeholders.” Her work at EDC and in industry groups has helped create essential ESG standards. Over the next five years, Salman hopes to see ESG embedded in all areas of business, and she wants to play a part in helping companies reach that goal. “I want to play my role in this transition to help educate and empower teams sitting outside of ESG to really understand their ESG impacts and embed it in their work,” she says.

Devesh Bharadwaj

28, Victoria
CEO, Pani Energy

Water is more than just what comes out of a tap or what is needed to flush the toilet. It’s what we use to grow the food we eat, manufacture the products we use and produce the energy we consume. Growing up in India, Devesh Bharadwaj saw the critical role that water, and a lack of access to it, plays in the health and development of communities. “Every drop of that water and wastewater needs to be treated and fit for purpose, and that treatment takes its own toll on the environment.” After completing a mechanical engineering degree in Canada, he started building an industry-transforming software-as-service company called Pani Energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated by water and wastewater treatment processes. “We’re aiming to cut down on 500 megatons of emissions per year from the sector by 2032.” So far, the company has raised more than $8 million working with worldwide partners from across the industry to get as many treatment plants as possible on board in this mission. The mantra that drives him: “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.” Adds Bharadwaj, “Find a problem that is meaningful, that excites you and is worth solving.”

Jamie Mark

28, Toronto
chief operating officer, Exactus Energy

Jamie Mark was one of the first employees hired by Exactus Energy after its
founding in 2016. Exactus was a small start-up back then, providing engineering
and design services for solar providers. “We started with a handful of employees in
a garage and our team size is now approaching 200.” At the beginning, the
engineering grad designed solar panel layouts herself. Now, as chief operating officer,
she leads six different teams across four countries, having helped build the firm
from the ground up into a leader in solar engineering and design in North America.
“Complacency is dangerous,” says Mark, who has had to constantly adapt and be
open to change in an industry known as the “solarcoaster.” “The status quo and our
comfortable routines are not going to cut it anymore. We need to question how both
our own day-to-day actions and how existing policy and systems are impacting our
planet and start making changes to combat these impacts.”

Sanch Gupta & Milton Calderon Donefer

Both 25, Toronto
co-founders, MealCare

When Sanch Gupta and Milton Calderon Donefer were students at McGill University, they often sat in a school cafeteria until closing, when they saw staff throw out trays of fresh meals. Around the same time, they talked to many unhoused people in downtown Montreal who needed food. They founded MealCare to tackle both issues. “Every day, MealCare makes a tangible impact both in reducing the environmental impact of food waste, as well as helping people in our communities not go hungry,” says Calderon Donefer. With chapters in eight cities, MealCare has already saved shelters more than $300,000 and delivered more than 70,000 meals to the hungry. “Growing up in Canada, it was shocking to me that one in seven people suffer from food insecurity, and I wanted to use my privileged position to help underserved members of my community,” says Gupta. “We believe food is essential and should be available to every human being, especially when we as a nation have an abundance of it.”

Shaelyn Wabegijig

25, Rama First Nation/Lekwungen Territory, Victoria
master’s student in Indigenous governance at the University of Victoria

Since Shaelyn Wabegijig was five years old, she wanted to change the world. “I have always questioned the way the world is,” she says. When she attended university, she connected with the local Anishinaabeg community and learned about teachings such as Ginawaydaganuk (all is related) and Mino Bimaadiziwin (to live the good life) that confirmed her feelings of responsibility to live in a way that respected the planet. The 25-year-old master’s student is now one of seven youths suing the Ontario government for lowering its emission-reductions targets in 2018. “I hope our court case sets a precedent, putting into law that governments have the obligation to protect citizens from climate change and that all people and future generations have the right to a safe and habitable environment.” Before she left to pursue her master’s, Wabegijig was a program and outreach coordinator at Kawartha World Issues Centre, where she worked to assert Indigenous-led conservation in Ontario and empower youth and Indigenous Peoples to steward their lands for future generations.

The post The fight for a better tomorrow: Canada’s top 30 under 30 sustainability leaders of 2022 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

And it’s not just the government betting big on renewable energy; the country’s two biggest corporations – Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Adani Group (AG) – and the rival billionaires who lead them have raised expectations with their renewable giga-plans.

Speaking at RIL’s annual general meeting on August 29, chairman Mukesh Ambani, now India’s second-richest man, said the oil-to-chemicals major may double its investment in clean-energy hardware manufacturing once its current plans are achieved. Last year, RIL unveiled a $10-billion plan (all figures in U.S. dollars) over the next three years to set up four factories in Jamnagar, Gujarat, to make solar panels, electrolyzers, fuel cells and batteries. This is a part of RIL’s 15-year vision to become a leading new-energy and -materials company, with plans to be net-zero by 2035.

Not to be outdone, on September 27, AG chair Gautam Adani, who recently overtook Ambani as India’s richest man and became the world’s second-wealthiest, announced at a Forbes conference in Singapore that the group plans to invest more than $100 billion in the next decade, of which 70% will be in the energy transition space.

“We are already the world’s largest solar player, and we intend to do far more,” Adani said.

The investments are big news for entrepreneurs who have made their fortunes off fossil fuels. Adani Enterprises, AG’s flagship entity, is the country’s biggest coal trader, and the RIL conglomerate owns the world’s largest oil refining hub.

Not that investing in renewables is entirely new for either billionaire. Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL), owned by AG, is already one of the largest renewables companies in India, with a current project portfolio of 20,434 megawatts – enough to power 16.7 million households. AGEL develops, builds, owns, operates and maintains utility-scale grid-connected solar- and wind-farm projects.

Adani’s foray into the green energy business began in 2015, when he announced the world’s largest solar power plant, 648 megawatts at Kamuthi, Ramanathapuram. That same year, Ambani first indicated his interest in moving into the renewable-energy space. Coinciding with India’s move to launch an International Solar Alliance, the world’s top industrialists, including Bill Gates, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata and Jack Ma, announced the Breakthrough Energy group, an international coalition of 28 investors formed to bring companies that have the potential to deliver affordable, reliable and carbon-free power from the research lab to the market.

We are already the world’s largest solar player, and we intend to do far more.

Gautam Adani, chair of Adani Group

It is not difficult to gauge why RIL and AG are competing to lead India’s growth in renewables. First, there has been a global shift toward renewable energy, thanks to sustained climate advocacy, forcing many oil and mining majors to enter the sector. The energy sector accounts for around 40% of India’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and the oil industry, 25%. Decarbonizing both sectors, Adani and Ambani’s bread and butter, will have to be a priority if India is to reach its goal of being net-zero by 2070.

Second, the Indian government has unveiled ambitious policies across the renewable-energy value chain, which are attractive for capital. For example, in its annual budget for 2022/2023, the Indian government outlined plans to spend an additional $2.6 billion to boost local manufacturing of solar modules to cut imports from China. In August, India committed to cutting the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% from 2005 levels by 2030, as well as ensuring that half of its installed electricity generation capacity will be non-fossil-fuel-based by 2030.

Finally, ESG (environmental, social and governance) factors are becoming crucial for companies because of regulatory frameworks and are changing the priorities of banks, as well as institutional and retail investors. “Last year, around $1.7 trillion of ESG financing, both bonds and loans, were issued globally,” explains Shantanu Srivastava, an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).  “Ambani and Adani know the trend better than anyone else.”

“RIL is an oil and gas major, and that’s its reliable source of money. But they know that the business doesn’t have too many growth triggers in the long run. AG, a relatively newer company, is looking for the next growth triggers,” says Srivastava. “Besides, listed companies would always want to let shareholders know that they are betting big on future growth. The future growth is in the renewable energy sector.”

The exciting aspect of India’s renewables story is that while these two corporate behemoths are ratcheting up investment in the sector, they are mostly eyeing different segments of the pie to achieve their climate-business goals.

Amit Kumar, senior fellow at World Resources Institute (WRI) India, explains that while both Ambani’s and Adani’s green plans include setting up giant factories for photovoltaics (PVs) and green hydrogen, Adani is also accelerating investments in the generation, distribution and transmission of renewable energy. “Both are playing to their core strengths,” Kumar says.

Still, he adds, “The ‘race’ between the two giants is important because it can bring down the costs of PVs and [green hydrogen]. It will benefit the whole world.”

Green hydrogen, black coal

RIL is not new to hydrogen. It is one of the largest producers of grey hydrogen (produced from fossil fuels) globally. However, the company wants to transition from grey to green hydrogen (produced using renewables) by 2025. Last year, RIL’s clean-energy arm, Reliance New Energy Solar, signed an agreement with Denmark-based Stiesdal to develop new technology to manufacture hydrogen electrolyzers in India, which, among other things, will reduce the price of green hydrogen to $1 per kilogram (from the current $4 to $6 per kilo) by the end of the decade.

On September 7, Adani stepped into the green hydrogen ring, announcing that the group aims to produce three million tonnes of green hydrogen a year by 2030, compared to the earlier target of 2.5 million tonnes. (In June, French energy giant TotalEnergies bought a 25% stake in Adani New Energy for $12.5 billion to produce and commercialize green hydrogen.)

However, the two businessmen are not putting all their eggs into the green energy basket. Both are still investing heavily in their fossil fuel businesses.

At RIL’s August AGM, Ambani announced it will invest Rs 75,000 crore (one crore equals 10 million rupees, or US$9.38 billion) in the next five years in expanding the company’s oil-chemical business. According to RIL’s 2021/2022 annual report, a mere 3.12 million of the company’s 530.2 million gigajoules of energy consumption was renewable.

According to market data from CoalMint, Adani’s AG dramatically increased its coal imports last year, bringing in 1.4 million tonnes this June, up from 154,000 tonnes the previous year.

Then there is Adani’s controversial Carmichael project in Queensland, Australia. The coal reserves of more than 11 billion tonnes are enough to meet India’s entire coal needs for 12 years. Adani was initially expected to extract up to 60 million tonnes of coal per year from the mine; however, the Financial Times reports that the company, facing intense protest, has downgraded that plan to 10 million tonnes. The process of mining that coal will produce 240,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a statement from the company.

Coal currently contributes to almost 70% of India’s electricity production, though that share has been declining.

At the India Global Forum on June 30, Adani defended his investments in coal, saying that any shift away from cheaper fossil fuels “should not crush the aspirations of the thousands that lack electricity.”

A just transition?

Coal concerns aside, many in India fear that the RIL/AG-led consolidation of the renewable-energy sector may lead to a duopoly and hamper the dream of a just transition.

Then there are the potential environmental and social costs – displacement, land acquisition, disruption of biodiversity and agriculture – of such massive renewable development.

Ulka Kelkar, director of WRI India’s climate program, recently analyzed maps for all renewable-energy projects across the globe and found that most new renewable projects in India are being built over farmland and biodiversity-rich grasslands. “It is arable land. [It] may or may not be yielding much, but the fact is, India’s new renewable-energy projects are replacing agriculture land and grasslands,” she says.

Safeguards to ensure inclusive development must be put in place, says Ashwin Gambhir, a fellow at energy non-profit Prayas. “Devising a renewable-energy-specific land-use policy that encourages long-term land leasing to benefit communities can be planned.”

According to a World Economic Forum white paper, India’s decarbonization journey represents upwards of a $15-trillion opportunity by 2070, with the potential to create as many as 50 million new jobs. The first $1 trillion of this opportunity could potentially materialize with concerted action within this decade.

A recently released Mercom report said that foreign direct investment in India’s renewable-energy sector in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022/2023 saw an increase of 269% compared to the same period last year.

While this is good news, ultimately, the pace of the transition away from fossil fuels will depend on how quickly green hydrogen and renewable-energy storage costs come down. Despite the present constraints and future uncertainty, India’s renewable-energy sector is pushing ahead. And it’s not just Ambani and Adani. A legacy player, Tata Power, announced at its 103rd AGM in July that it plans to spend Rs 750 billion (US$9.5 billion) to expand the capacity of its renewable-energy business over the next five years. Then there is state-run NTPC and other robust private players such as ReNew Power and Suzlon, to name a few.

With so many ambitious players in the fray and more in the offing, India’s renewables race has truly begun.

K. Dasgupta is a journalist based in Kolkata, India. She writes about climate and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The post Who wants to be India’s greenest billionaire? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

But its home won’t be in progressive California or liberal New York. It’s being built in conservative Wyoming, maybe the most beet-red state in the country. In the 2020 presidential election, Wyoming favoured Donald Trump by 43 percentage points – the largest margin for the former president in any state. The Cowboy State is known for its enormous wide-open spaces, national parks such as Yellowstone, ranchers and lots and lots of coal.

And yet, the energy transition is quietly happening here. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, Wyoming had more wind-energy project capacity in advanced development or under construction than any other state in the second quarter of 2022, with 6.5 gigawatts (Chokecherry will contribute almost half of this). Wyoming isn’t alone in this regard among conservative states that have historically had fossil-fuel-focused economies. Oil-friendly Texas had the second-highest wind project capacity in advanced development or under construction, with around four gigawatts. Massachusetts – a blue state with a Republican governor since 2015 – came in third.

“It’s not really whether we’re going to transition or not. It’s what are we going to transition to,” says Jonathan Naughton, a co-director of the Wind Energy Research Center at the University of Wyoming.

When it comes to solar, Texas leads the nation in projects under advanced development or under construction, with 7.9 gigawatts of capacity in these late stages, according to S&P. California came in second, followed by Ohio and North Carolina.

Part of the reason that rural – and more conservative – parts of the country are attracting investments in renewables is geography. Rural states simply have the space to install new infrastructure. Texas has huge tracts of undeveloped land, an arid climate and plentiful sunshine for solar panels. In south-central Wyoming, where the Chokecherry project is being built, there is also a notch in the Continental Divide, which creates a funnel of constant high-speed wind. The Department of Energy built some of its first wind turbines here in the 1980s.

But while renewable energy projects are being built at record levels in Wyoming, the state’s government is having a hard time letting go of its dependency on fossil fuels.

A hard habit to break

The first coal deposits were found in Wyoming around 1840, before it was even a state. Union Pacific built its railroad through Wyoming in the 19th century and had major interests in the area, as it powered its locomotives with coal. Around the turn of the century, oil production started in the region. Ever since, fossil fuels have been a significant part of the state’s economy, though the numbers are sliding. In 2011, there were more than 25,000 workers in the state employed in mining (including oil and gas), which made up about 15% of Wyoming’s workforce at the time. Last year, mining accounted for 5.6% of jobs.

Today, Wyoming is still the country’s largest coal producer and is one of the 10 largest oil and gas producers. Since the state’s roughly 580,000 residents can burn only so much, most of its fossil fuels are shipped out of state. For decades, Wyoming has taxed that exported energy, riding the booms and busts of these commodities, using the revenue to pay its bills and keep taxes low for its residents. Over the years, revenue from coal has gone to building schools, recreation centres and other public infrastructure. The state is now collecting hundreds of millions of dollars less a year in taxes from coal than it was in 2011. Rebounding oil prices help – for now – but with coal prices facing long-term collapse, some economists in Wyoming say it’s time to diversify the state’s economy to avoid the worst of the potential economic hardship that could accompany the eventual sunsetting of fossil fuels.

Robert Godby, an energy economist and a professor at the University of Wyoming, estimates that a family of three in Casper, Wyoming (one of the state’s largest cities), pays an average of US$3,000 in taxes a year but receives about US$28,000 to $30,000 in state services. “In terms of the public services people get, they’re getting in the order of 10 times what they pay for. And that’s a circle that’s hard to square. When revenues are declining, you’ve got some tough choices,” he says, adding that replacing those revenues might eventually mean taxing residents, which is a political non-starter in Wyoming. “Politically, it’s a losing game.”

The Chokecherry wind project is expected to bring in US$850 million in taxes over a 20-year period, but Godby isn’t convinced that the revenues from coal can be replaced by wind alone. Unlike coal reserves, if the state raised taxes on wind electricity generation, economists say it could push energy companies simply to build wind farms elsewhere. They fear that there is less of a premium on Wyoming’s wind than there was in the past, since technological advances have enabled turbines to function in more places than they used to.

It’s not really whether we’re going to transition or not. It’s what are we going to transition to.

-Jonathan Naughton, co-director of the Wind Energy Research Center at the University of Wyoming

Coal mines have also been big employers for small towns in Wyoming for decades. They still employ around 4,300 people in the state. And as of June, oil and gas jobs totalled 8,600. It wouldn’t be possible to replace all those jobs with wind ones, says Naughton, as most of the labour needed for a wind project comes upfront with its development and construction. After construction, Chokecherry is expected to provide only 114 jobs in operations and maintenance once up and running. However, Naughton sees the wind industry as one part of Wyoming’s future economy.

Because of its cheap electricity, Wyoming is a good place for energy-intensive industries, such as data centres, which also require colder temperatures. Naughton also sees potential in smaller industrial operations, such as aluminum smelting facilities that would employ a few hundred.

Economists are hopeful that some coal plants could be converted into demonstration plants for carbon capture or green hydrogen production facilities. There are signs that new industries are already moving into the state. Bill Gates’s TerraPower is set to build a demonstration sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in Kemmerer – a small community where a coal-fired power plant is set to close. TerraPower says it plans to employ former coal workers from the area.

In September, cleantech company CarbonCapture announced a partnership with Frontier Carbon Solutions that will build the world’s largest direct air capture (DAC) carbon removal and storage facility in Wyoming, promising “well-paying energy transition-related jobs.” Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, who has been an avid supporter of both coal and carbon capture technology, sees carbon removal as a way of preserving the fossil fuel industry while achieving net-zero carbon emissions.

“We’re really trying to get ourselves positioned to be the place of first choice for industry as they emerge with new climate technologies,” Gordon told Reuters.

Blow the coals

Gordon is also the same governor who has championed legal attempts to keep coal-fired power plants from shutting down. Last year, state lawmakers passed legislation that would force utilities to take extra steps before retiring coal plants. The state legislature also passed a law that set up a US$1.2-million fund the governor can use to sue other states that want to use electricity powered by renewable energy instead of Wyoming’s coal.

Energy experts say this is largely just a way to delay what is bound to happen, as the energy transition picks up steam. “We cannot self-determine whether people continue to buy our coal or not. That’s up to others. But we have a hundred percent control over whether we install wind or not,” says Naughton, who adds that the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy is occurring whether the state likes it or not and that Wyoming needs to respond. “The fear is that if we don’t choose, it’s just going to happen to us.”

Godby says that he understands why politicians are trying to delay the closure of these plants, since “when you’re pushed up against a cliff, you don’t just allow yourself to be pushed off,” but that it’s “just a matter of gaining time. You’re delaying the inevitable and hoping that something changes.”

Moving past partisanship

While elected officials are doing all they can to breathe life into a dying industry, public opinion in Wyoming is not unfavourable toward renewables. According to a 2020 poll by the University of Wyoming, around 69% of respondents said they support solar, and 66% said they support wind. Natural gas received 83% support, oil received 71% and coal, 63%.

Michelle Moore, the CEO of non-profit Groundswell and the author of Rural Renaissance, says that the renewable energy projects happening in states like Wyoming, Texas and Tennessee show how “practicality can triumph over politics.” She adds that the benefits both red and blue states are seeing from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed by Congress this summer, demonstrate how out of sync some partisan politicians are with the experience of most Americans.

“Though not a single Republican in Congress voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, Republican-led states including Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina are seeing the benefits of the bill’s Made in America electric vehicle provisions, which are driving billions in new manufacturing investments and thousands of good-paying jobs into the states,” says Moore, who was also a sustainability official in the Obama White House.

The bill included $369 billion for climate and clean energy policies, with $9.7 billion specifically for rural cooperative electricity utilities to expand local renewables. It also provides tax incentives for building new renewable-energy projects in communities whose economies have historically depended on fossil fuels. As well, the act has raised the federal tax credit for direct air capture projects like CarbonCapture’s venture in Wyoming from $50 per ton to $180 per ton, making it more financially palatable.

So, the clean energy transition is already well underway in red America. Energy experts agree that it’s time for states like Wyoming to get behind it and move forward toward a more sustainable future, instead of clinging to the past.

“After all, we’re all in this together,” says Moore.

The post When red states go green appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Since 2019, that slogan has been a rallying cry for the music industry. It’s been amplified by major artists like Billie Eilish, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and Thom Yorke of Radiohead, who’ve worn or designed shirts with those apocalyptic words. It’s shown up on the backdrops of arena tours, on award-show red carpets, on album compilations and playlists.

The catchphrase is part of a campaign by the global non-profit organization Music Declares Emergency (MDE), which has gathered big-name musicians across the world to pledge action in the face of the climate crisis.

But as festivals are cancelled because of wildfires, bands are forced to reroute tours because of road floodings, and large outdoor concerts become major risks for heat stroke, the music industry is starting to wake up to urgent omens. More than just a fashion statement, the sector’s eco-enthusiasm has to come with concrete, identifiable actions. They have to do it together – not just the musicians onstage, but also promoters, labels, record manufacturers, merchandisers, concert promoters and record labels. And they have to do it quickly.

Late last year, in the wake of COP26, the U.K.’s Association of Independent Music launched the Music Climate Pact, which was signed by all three major labels – Universal, Warner and Sony – along with large indies like Secretly Group and Ninja Tune. Agreeing to work collectively, the pact includes a commitment from each signatory to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 and achieve a 50% reduction by 2030.

For an industry with many interlocking stakeholders, one that relies on vast amounts of energy-intensive manufacturing, streaming and travel, the challenge is figuring out how to meet their agreed-upon targets.

“Being green and sustainable is a shared value for a lot of people in the music industry, but no one really knows how to do it,” says Ben Swanson, co-founder of the Bloomington, Indiana–based record label Secretly Canadian and Secretly Group, which also represents other large American indie labels, including Jagjaguwar, Numero Group and Dead Oceans. “In terms of implementation, it’s still a relatively new concept.”

Swanson and his colleagues at Secretly Canadian have tried various eco-conscious initiatives over the years, including minimizing product packaging and avoiding pressing more CDs and records than they can sell (with some “missteps,” Swanson admits), but always wanted to be more strategic and intentional about it.

So, last year, on the label’s 25th anniversary, they hired climate consultant Jen Cregar of Terra Lumina and published an official Sustainability Plan. In it, they calculated their actual carbon footprint (116 MTCO2e, or metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, in 2021) and pledged to become “carbon negative” by their 30th anniversary in 2026 – a more ambitious goal than the Music Climate Pact that they also signed.

Swanson admits it won’t be a perfect estimate, but keeping track and staying transparent about the numbers will make it easier to improve upon them, both for themselves and for others following in their footsteps.

As an example, he points to Big Time, the 2022 album by singer/songwriter Angel Olsen. Aiming to create a carbon-negative album release, they calculated the “cradle-to-grave” carbon impact of both a CD and vinyl LP from manufacturing to shipping, from its life in a fan’s stereo to its likely afterlife in a landfill 100 years from now. With a quantifiable number, they then built in the price of carbon offsets supporting the Medford Spring Grassland Conservation Project in Bent County, Colorado. Offsetting is an inexact science, Swanson admits, and it’s not as sustainable as avoiding the output in the first place, but it creates a replicable – and improvable – template for future releases for both their label and others.

“Being green is a shared value for a lot of people in the music industry, but no one really knows how to do it.”

—Ben Swanson, Secretly Group

Secretly Group was part of a panel at the Canadian Music Climate Summit in Toronto earlier this fall about labels and sustainability. Organized by the Canadian wing of MDE, the summit was a daylong conference and concert ahead of November’s COP27 in Egypt. With panels about green touring and concerts, the role of artists, funding and diversity, and a keynote by David Suzuki, it was intended to give musicians the tools to take actions in their own practices – something they are often reluctant to do for fear of being labelled hypocrites, given their touring lifestyles.

But, more importantly, it was an attempt to get the “right people in the room,” says organizer and climate activist Kim Fry. “The musicians, for the most part, are on board,” she says. “It’s the labels, the managers, the tour managers, the venues.”

She knows from experience through her daughter, Brighid Fry, one of the co-founders of MDE Canada. Her folk-rock duo, Housewife (formerly Moscow Apartment), has made sustainability an integral part of their practice. But as an emerging act, one led by two 20-year-old women, they don’t have the power to enact big, sweeping change on a structural level. They’re using the power they do have, though, especially when it comes to advocacy. Last year, Brighid co-authored an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and this year she’s written a similar one directed at the decision-makers behind the scenes in the music industry, asking them to use their power for climate action.

“I just don’t think there’s really an excuse [not to],” she says. “Because if the people on the public side of the industry want it and the audiences want it, then why isn’t it being followed through behind the scenes?”

As an artist, she can do things like using green riders – asking for sustainable options like refillable water options both front- and backstage and strongly encouraging venues to use renewable energy. She can negotiate a sustainability clause into her record contract. She can work with T-shirt makers that use water-based ink and closed-loop manufacturing. All are recommendations within MDE’s Music Industry Climate Pack, which offers 10 steps for sustainability for artists, venues, merch, labels, touring and fans. But if the venues, promoters, engineers, labels, lawyers, audiences and multinational corporations don’t cooperate, there’s only so much performers can do.

While major pop stars can afford to rent or buy electric tour buses and fight against radius clauses that restrict playing multiple shows in one market, it’s harder and costlier for smaller acts. And those major acts carry a much larger carbon footprint. After being identified as a band with one of the biggest carbon footprints, the members of Coldplay paused touring in 2019 until they could work out how their tour “can not only be sustainable [but] how can it be actively beneficial.” Earlier this year Coldplay announced that its air travel would be powered by green jet fuel but was then accused of greenwashing for partnering with Neste, whose controversial “sustainable aviation fuel” might not be entirely green.

Even if a stadium act takes an electric bus to a concert, they also have to account for the travel of the tens and hundreds of thousands of fans to get there. (Some have encouraged fans with contests, discounts and other initiatives to carpool or take public transit.)

Building on work done by British organization Julie’s Bicycle over the last decade, the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts recently launched Creative Green Tools Canada – a free and user-friendly interface to calculate the carbon footprint of a tour, concert or festival. Devon Hardy, the program’s director, says she hopes it normalizes tracking emissions for music events. “Even just the act of collecting that data can make folks more aware of their behaviours and start changing them,” she writes in an email.

One of the goals of the Toronto Music Climate Summit was to make people aware of tools like these, says Kim Fry. Many in the Canadian music industry don’t look beyond the usual arts funders such as SOCAN to realize there is money available from the federal government for green initiatives. The Ministry of Transportation’s Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program, for instance, has funding that could be used for tour travel.

In general, Canada is lagging behind other countries like the U.K., Australia and even the U.S. when it comes to sustainability in the music industry, Fry argues. There are a few potential reasons for that. Touring is harder in Canada because it’s so geographically spread out. The industry is small and slow to change. And many of the major events and award shows are sponsored by Canada’s big banks, which are some of the largest investors in carbon-burning oil and gas projects.

“If the music industry thinks it’s immune to the impacts of climate, it’s so naive,” she says. “We want them to understand the severity of the emergency we’re all facing.”

Richard Trapunski is the former associate music editor at Toronto’s NOW Magazine and reports on culture and business for various publications.

The post The music industry changes its tune on climate change appeared first on Corporate Knights.

How one company cut more carbon than any other on the planet

BY Naomi Buck

How Europe’s largest utility managed to shrink emissions by more than half over the last decade while growing

Read article

The post The biggest carbon losers appeared first on Corporate Knights.