The new agency, touted as the first of its kind in the world, would supposedly shine a light on alleged human rights abuses by Canadian companies at their foreign operations. Whether investigating the use of forced labour in China’s Xinjiang region, starvation wages at Bangladeshi sweatshops or sickness caused by pollution from mining operations in the Amazon, CORE would bring offenders to heel and help ensure that conditions improved.

Alas, it hasn’t turned out that way.

There has been no shortage of complaints to CORE – 26 in all between March 2021 and early 2023, most of them centred on the use of forced labour by garment companies in China. Yet, as a Globe and Mail investigation found, the agency had not closed the books on a single case as of April 2023. Of the 26 cases brought to its attention, eight were deemed inadmissible, two were withdrawn, and the admissibility of one was still being reviewed. Not one of the remaining 15 had moved beyond the “initial assessment” stage, according to CORE’s latest quarterly report, even though the agency aims to complete that assessment within 90 days. (Besides the Chinese cases, one relates to a company operating in Honduras and another to a company in Bangladesh.)

The agency has been hobbled in a number of ways. The government has backed away from its initial promise to give CORE investigative powers, such as compelling companies to produce relevant documents. Also, CORE has no way of enforcing whatever conclusions its investigations may come to, and its activities remain confined to just three sectors: mining, oil and gas, and garment manufacturing.

An advisory council on responsible business conduct, designed to work in collaboration with CORE, collapsed in mid-2019 when 14 members representing human-rights organizations and labour unions quit on the same day, saying they had lost confidence in the government’s commitment to corporate accountability. CORE’s latest annual report makes no mention of reviving the panel.

“We’re very disappointed right now,” Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, told the Globe earlier this year. “This is not what we had advocated for. We’re not recommending the office to communities that we engage with.”

The agency defended itself in its last annual report by noting that much of its work has “an iceberg effect,” with companies often making long-lasting undertakings that remain “under the surface for a period of time” – an assertion strangely at odds with its early promise of transparency.

The post Zero: Canada’s watchdog for corporate abuses fails to act appeared first on Corporate Knights.

At the “hero” end of the spectrum, we tip our hats to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a non-profit network of 280 journalists in more than 100 countries who collaborate on cross-border investigative projects. The ICIJ’s mission, as its website puts it, is to convince reporters around the world “to set aside traditional rivalries to uncover corruption, abuses of power and grave harms inflicted on the world’s most vulnerable people.”

Best known for exposing the offshore holdings of scores of politicians and public officials via the Panama Papers, its latest investigations reveal the flaws in environmental auditing and certification programs (including the Forest Stewardship Council) supposedly designed to promote sustainable forestry and combat illegal logging. A team of 140 reporters from 27 countries uncovered forest failures from Canada to Taiwan, the U.S. to Turkey.

One branch of the Deforestation Inc. investigation highlighted the failure of European governments to halt imports of Myanmar teak, a richly coloured wood prized for its resistance to sunlight and salt water. Demand from luxury yacht makers has ravaged the teak forests, and the trade has been infiltrated by organized crime and is now riddled with corruption. As a result, several countries have imposed supposedly tight bans on imports of teak from Myanmar. In 2021, as part of a broader crackdown against the military junta in Yangon, the EU also sanctioned Myanma Timber Enterprise, which has a monopoly on the country’s teak trade.

Yet the ICIJ investigation revealed that more than 3,000 tonnes of wood entered Europe from Myanmar in 2021, often routed through countries with lax border controls, such as Italy, Greece, Croatia and Poland. To make matters worse, customs authorities and timber industry associations have turned a blind eye to the illegal trade. None of this bodes well for the historic EU law passed in March that bars imports of coffee, wood, beef, cocoa, palm oil and soy tied to deforestation, says the ICIJ: “[analysis of] enforcement data raises questions on authorities’ ability to comply with the new requirements.”

The report concludes that the global forest-products industry remains largely unregulated despite what “companies tell consumers and investors about the sourcing of their projects and their commitment to helping end the global climate crisis.” Without the ICIJ’s work, chances are that message would never have been heard.

The post Hero: How journalists exposed cracks in global forestry certifications appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Four years ago, she and her partner, Leo Gillis, moved from Ontario to rural Newfoundland with the intention of starting their own mushroom farm to provide fresh local produce to food-insecure communities. The two experimented with using grow bags – plastic bags with air patches that can help plants germinate and root quickly – for the mushrooms. But it wasn’t working.

One day, Gillis thought he’d just crumple a bag and run it over with the lawnmower in the couple’s backyard, to put the mushroom nutrients into the soil. Instead, the mushroom’s root system “almost broke his lawnmower.”

The pair had discovered the tensile strength of mushrooms and decided to pivot. Within three months they had their first postage-stamp-sized sample piece of flexible material made out of just the root system of fungi, or mycelium. Two years later, their start-up, MycoFutures North Atlantic, is working on large-scale production of a mushroom fabric akin to leather or suede, but without the same environmental concerns.

Lipp and Gillis soon found themselves part of a quietly booming mushroom cleantech and wellness economy. “For many . . . mushrooms signify the future,” Lipp says.

Sprouting mushroom innovations

From the zombie fungus in The Last of Us to Netflix’s popular Fantastic Fungi doc, mushrooms are getting their moment in the sun. We’ve seen investors pour money into psychedelic mushroom start-ups recently, looking to harness their therapeutic potential. But non-magic mushrooms are having a moment, too.

Even the federal government is dabbling in part of the conventional mushroom economy. Last spring, as part of the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, the feds announced an investment of up to $340,000 in Mushrooms Canada to “seize new market opportunities.”

According to Mushrooms Canada, in 2021 Canada ranked second globally (behind Poland) in the value of fresh- or chilled-mushroom exports. Overall, Canada is the eighth-largest mushroom producer in the world; it exports most of that to the U.S., the fourth-largest mushroom producer globally, where mushroom sales brought in more than US$1 billion last year. In total, the mushroom sector is worth more than US$50 billion.

One of the biggest uses of mushrooms (outside of the fresh-food market) is in the wellness industry. Some estimates show that the functional mushroom (meaning mushrooms that advocates say offer health benefits in addition to their nutritional benefits) market hit US$15.3 billion in 2022 and will top $23 billion by 2030. Mushrooms such as shiitake have anti-inflammatory properties and are frequently used in skincare products.

Then there are the mushroom nutraceuticals, or supplements, where reishi, lion’s mane and maitake mushrooms are used to support cognitive health and lower blood sugar levels and inflammation in the body. Food scientists like those at Chinova Bioworks in New Brunswick are making mushroom-based preservatives. Researchers at the University of Manitoba, Stanford University and New York’s Columbia University are looking to capitalize on the same strength that Lipp and her partner found when they nearly broke the lawnmower to make building materials that are twice as strong as concrete. The U.K.-based start-up Biohm is already using mycelium root systems to make net-zero building insulation without petrochemicals.

Like Lipp, luxury retailers such as Hermès, Balenciaga, Mercedes-Benz and Stella McCartney are also experimenting with mushroom-based leather. With Myco​Futures, Lipp’s goal is to make mushrooms accessible for customers looking for affordable, sustainable, bio-based materials and to inspire consumers to think more about the materials they use. “It’s a really valuable lesson for thinking about how we can use our resources more efficiently and in cooperation with what’s around us,” Lipp says. The chemicals used to tan leather are responsible for polluting waterways around the globe, and many leather suppliers have been linked to deforestation. Pleather is not a great alternative either, as it’s just another word for plastic.

MycoFutures is currently in the research and development phase, as Lipp and Gillis find the right balance of moisture in the fabric so that it doesn’t get brittle but is still permeable for needles and fabrication into jewellery, handbags and perhaps furniture. Because they use the root system of the mushrooms, Lipp is also experimenting with growing conditions and beds to create bigger sheets of fabric. “We’re trying to create a dense mat of biomass,” she says.

The next task is experimenting with coatings, dyes and longevity, testing how the mycelium will wear and last, against materials like leather. “If I have a wallet, I don’t want it for a week,” she says. “I want it for a year, two years, five years.”

Wake up and smell the shrooms

While a full mushroom-based wardrobe might be a few years away, mushroom coffee is taking over mugs everywhere, right now. California-based MUD\WTR, which makes a coffee alternative, has grown to a national company, with its products sold in all 50 states, and some high-profile funders, including Alumni Ventures. MUD\WTR CEO Shane Heath created the drink mix when he was experimenting with recipes to give him that morning jolt without the jitters. He started with cacao and chai, and then turned to mushrooms.

“I heard about lion’s mane and its benefits for the mind, cordyceps and its benefits for physical performance, and chaga and reishi for immune support and stress, so I would start my day by mixing together a mug with all of these amazing ingredients,” Heath says via email. Chaga and reishi fungi are both found in forested areas, while cordyceps is a fungus found on insect larvae, like caterpillars. All three mushroom species are purported to have health benefits and have been used in Eastern medicine for centuries.

As more consumers become aware of the many mushrooms available to them, companies like MycoFutures and MUD\WTR have seen increased interest from consumers. Sohaib Qid, CEO of PureShrooms, a Canadian company also creating mushroom coffee, tea and supplements, says there’s a broader acceptance of their products and a “growing awareness of the potential benefits these fungi can offer.”

However, Qid says, as mushrooms get more popular, there have been changes in terms of supply. “We’ve noticed a surge in mushroom farms emerging throughout Canada. While this is a positive development for the industry, the pricing for fruiting body mushrooms in the domestic market remains less competitive compared to other sources in the U.S.,” he says in an email.

For MUD\WTR, expansion into international markets is on the horizon. “It’s an exciting time to be in . . . the mushroom space,” says Heath. “A rising tide raises all boats, and an increase in the popularity of mushrooms is a positive thing for everyone.”

Emily Baron Cadloff is a Halifax-based journalist. She often writes about pop culture, food and education.

The post The fungi start-ups behind a booming mushroom economy appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“If you look behind me, those towers have hundreds of rooms in them, each one of them kind of different,” he observes. “Some of them face the sun, some of them don’t, some of them are occupied or unoccupied.” These structures, moreover, are served by centralized heating and air-conditioning systems, which are fitted with hundreds of sensors, as well as software controllers designed to knit all the tech together, and typically run on natural-gas-powered boilers and chillers. (Building operations, including heating and cooling, account for roughly 27% of global carbon emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.)

BrainBox’s founders reckoned that what was missing, from a technical perspective, was data on what is happening on any given day: the number of bodies coming through the front doors, the weather, and utility rates. The firm built an artificial intelligence algorithm that uses past data about a building’s operations as well as weather patterns to make predictions about the amount of heating, ventilation or air conditioning (HVAC) required at any moment and then transmits this information to the controllers, ideally making the system as energy-efficient as possible.

“The AI is collecting data and learning,” says Ramadori, whose company recently completed a US$20-million deal with the Swiss engineering giant ABB and the province of Quebec that could see its technology deployed in 12,000 buildings across 4,700 cities. “It’s learning that at 8 a.m. in the morning, the sun is coming up and it’s hitting the windows on the south and east side of the building. Those rooms, relative to the ones on the other side of the building, are getting hot when it’s sunny outside, but when it’s cloudy, that doesn’t happen. It’s putting all this data together to understand what is happening in each room. You just have so many more opportunities to optimize.”

The firm claims that its autonomous artificial intelligence HVAC control technology can cut a building’s energy costs by a quarter and carbon emissions by up to 40%. BrainBox AI is tapping into an eager market that includes both property managers concerned about their expenses and investors interested in curbing building emissions with smart technology.

Friend or foe

AI – which is really a blanket term for a large family of predictive algorithms – has lately been careening down a steep slope on the technology hype cycle. The reputational dip comes after several years during which seemingly countless start-ups, venture capital funds and tech ventures were tripping over themselves to add machine learning or neural networks to their offerings. (Some AI systems are rules-based, in that they’re trained to find specific types of data, whereas others, like neural networks, discern patterns by sifting through huge data sets.)

The heavily scrutinized release last fall and winter of several versions of ChatGPT, an OpenAI “large language model,” stoked fears about the imminent arrival of what’s known, rather blandly, as “general artificial intelligence” – that is, machines that can basically think for themselves. A Google engineer got fired for predicting that rapid developments in AI would soon produce a “sentient” system. A New York Times tech reporter revealed that an AI chatbot running on a Microsoft platform had professed love and encouraged him to leave his wife. Stories have filled the media about students turning to ChatGPT to write assignments and software developers discovering that the algorithm is just as good at writing code as they are.

I wouldn’t like to devalue climate change. I wouldn’t like to say, ‘You shouldn’t worry about climate change.’ That’s a huge risk too. But I think this might end up being more urgent.

–Geoffrey Hinton, a University of Toronto professor emeritus

Then, in early May, Geoffrey Hinton, a University of Toronto computer science professor emeritus considered to be the father of neural networks, abruptly quit his gig at Google and declared that the technology he helped invent would soon be more out of control than the climate crisis. Indeed, Hinton’s comparison was revealing: “I wouldn’t like to devalue climate change. I wouldn’t like to say, ‘You shouldn’t worry about climate change.’ That’s a huge risk too,” Hinton said in an interview with Reuters. “But I think this might end up being more urgent.”

However, stories like Ramadori’s suggest that the AI narrative isn’t all dystopian news. There are a growing number of climate-focused AI applications, some of them relatively advanced and others more nascent. They can be found in domains as disparate as smart grids, manufacturing, transit, renewable energy, agriculture and biodiversity monitoring, as well as the forecasting techniques used in climate change models.

“A ton of climate tech companies are working on solutions that leverage AI,” says Ariel Sharir, an impact investing analyst at The Atmospheric Fund. “It is tough to say exactly which are using full AI (systems able to learn by doing) versus which are using predictive analytics (relies on human input and guidance), but it can be assumed that as AI capabilities improve, all systems will move to AI only.” Many have little to do with the natural language processing and “generative” AI that can mimic Shakespeare, concoct digital art or “write” music. For the most part, sustainability-boosting AI applications are trained on more mundane sets of data, like thermostat readings or the vibration patterns in a vehicle’s wheelbase. Some involve sensors that predict when heavy machinery should receive preventive maintenance, ensuring that equipment operates more efficiently.

A ton of climate tech companies are working on solutions that leverage AI.

–Ariel Sharir, impact investing analyst, The Atmospheric Fund

In architecture, some firms are incorporating analytics and AI into their computer-aided design platforms. Jan Buthke, who heads the “augmented architect” practice of LINK Arkitektur, says the Scandinavian firm has developed software that helps architects make “more informed decisions regarding material choices, building orientation, energy efficiency and other critical factors that contribute to a sustainable and efficient design.”

Other approaches have been adopted by transit agencies, such as Germany’s Deutsche Bahn, which uses algorithms to optimize routes, improve delay forecasts and better prepare for ridership peaks. (In the case of the latter, Deutsche Bahn can use these forecasts to deploy more and longer trains to accommodate loads.)

McGill University computer scientist David Rolnick, who specializes in machine learning and climate change, says there are “exciting” AI applications in demand-and-supply forecasting for electrical grids, an increasingly important discipline as utilities begin to incorporate more renewables into their generation portfolios. He cites a U.K. example where the national electricity system operator began incorporating a “deep learning” algorithm to improve its estimates of demand trends. The result was far more accurate forecasts, which meant that the utility didn’t need to have nearly as much surplus generation capacity on hand at any given time – a significant change in an electricity system that relies heavily on natural gas.

The broad applicability of [machine learning] algorithms means that they can be used both in applications that alleviate bottlenecks in addressing climate change, and in applications that may counteract climate action.

–Nature journal

“There is a benefit, essentially, to all stakeholders from cutting energy consumption, which, in many cases, is well aligned with reducing emissions,” says Rolnick, who is the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research AI Chair and co-author of a far-ranging 2021 report on climate change and AI for the Global Partnership on AI.

Rolnick points out that AI has found an entirely separate suite of uses in other climate-related domains, such as ecosystem health, agriculture, biodiversity and climate forecasting. He’s involved in one large-scale project that is using computer vision and extensive deployments of field sensors that attract and photograph nocturnal insects. Computer vision algorithms are trained on databases of images and can be trained to identify, classify and measure what the cameras pick up.

That form of information gathering, Rolnick says, allows scientists to gather much more data over larger areas as a means of tracking what’s happening with collapsing insect populations, which have become the canaries in the coal mine of habitat loss. Those results, in turn, can be compared with satellite images to develop more fine-grain assessments of what’s happening in a particular ecosystem. “Satellite imagery is available everywhere, and field observations are available in some places, and working together with these twin data sources enables us to get a better understanding of ecosystem health and biodiversity,” he says.

AI’s environmental balancing act

Are AI applications for climate change necessarily positive? On the face of it, the answer would seem to be yes. But those who are embedded in AI and its hype cycle caution about “techno-solutionism,” greenwashing and the various unintended consequences of the AI revolution. Some scholars wonder whether the AI revolution will actually hike electricity use as computer networks are given ever larger and more complex tasks. “The carbon footprint of AI research may be significant,” warned a team of British AI scholars in a 2021 paper. A University of Massachusetts Amherst study recently estimated that energy required to train AI models has been growing exponentially.

Then there’s the so-called rebound effect – if AI can improve the energy efficiency of heavy mining equipment, for example, is there a risk that the operators will end up making more use of these vehicles, thus driving up the net fuel consumption? As a study published last year in Nature cautioned, “The broad applicability of [machine learning] algorithms means that they can be used both in applications that alleviate bottlenecks in addressing climate change, and in applications that may counteract climate action.”

Rolnick, who has written extensively about the responsible use of AI, worries about the way rapidly propagating chatbots could turbocharge the spread of climate misinformation. He also frets about the ways in which AI has become a selling point for all sorts of commercial technologies, while other responsible AI advocates warn about the militarization of AI, with all the associated consequences for the planet. “There are businesspeople who are calling themselves AI experts without actually understanding the things they are selling or doing,” he says. “There’s this danger of technologies being sold by people who don’t understand to people who don’t understand. It’s vitally important that everyone using AI algorithms understand what they can and cannot do.”

Ramadori, for his part, not only gets the technology but also sees how his firm has been able to align AI’s promise with desired outcomes, such as making big buildings use much less energy without running afoul of privacy regulations.

“Renewable energy is now cheaper than coal, [but] buildings are woefully behind,” he says. “We’re not replacing them. We’re not tearing them down. We’re not putting up new ones. The ones behind me – they’ll be there when I’m no longer here, right? We’ve got to deal with them at scale. There’s this really difficult challenge in the built environment, to make the large reductions in emissions that we need to make. In this case, AI has just incredible applications.”

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

We asked ChatGPT, who’s the bigger monster, you or climate change?

It had some surprisingly candid things to say.

Read our interview with Chat.

The post Can AI terminate climate change…or is it an even greater threat? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

We killed the story and opted for a Q&A instead.  

Q: Can AI help slow climate change?

A: Yes, AI can help slow climate change by improving our understanding of climate patterns, identifying the sources of emissions and developing solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Here are some ways in which AI can contribute to mitigating climate change:

* Climate modelling: AI can analyze large volumes of climate data to create accurate models that can help us understand how the climate is changing, and how it might change in the future.

* Renewable energy: AI can optimize the use of renewable-energy sources like solar and wind power by predicting energy demand, managing energy storage and reducing wastage.

* Smart grids: AI can help create more efficient and reliable energy grids by analyzing data from sensors and predicting demand and supply patterns.

* Transportation: AI can optimize transportation systems by identifying the most efficient routes, reducing congestion and promoting the use of low-carbon vehicles.

* Agriculture: AI can improve agricultural practices by monitoring soil quality, optimizing irrigation and predicting crop yields, which can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming.

Q: Could AI be the difference between meeting our climate targets and not?

A: While AI is not a panacea, it has the potential to significantly contribute to meeting climate targets by enabling more informed decision-making, optimizing resource usage and accelerating the development and deployment of sustainable solutions. However, it is crucial to deploy AI responsibly, address potential biases, ensure transparency and prioritize ethical considerations to maximize its positive impact on climate action.

Q: Can AI be used to exacerbate climate change?

A: While there is no doubt that AI has the potential to help mitigate the effects of climate change, as AI technologies become more sophisticated they could also be used to optimize and accelerate processes that are harmful to the environment, such as enabling more efficient extraction of fossil fuels. With the help of AI-powered algorithms, companies could potentially extract more oil, gas and coal from the earth, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions and further exacerbating the climate crisis.

Additionally, some have raised concerns about the use of AI in military applications, particularly in the development of autonomous weapons. The use of these weapons could lead to increased conflict and destruction, with potentially devastating environmental consequences.

It’s important to recognize that AI is not inherently good or bad – it’s a tool that can be used for a variety of purposes. However, as with any technology, it’s important to consider the potential risks and ensure that it’s used in a responsible and ethical manner.

Q: Some are concerned that AI itself could doom humanity. What do you think is the bigger threat, climate change or AI?

A: The question of which is the bigger threat to humanity, climate change or AI, is a complex one that does not have a simple answer. Both issues have the potential to cause significant harm to human society, and it’s important to address them both with urgency.

Climate change is a pressing concern that is already having significant impacts on the planet. The rise in global temperatures is causing melting ice caps, sea level rise and extreme weather events, among other consequences. These changes have the potential to disrupt ecosystems, displace communities and lead to widespread food and water insecurity.

On the other hand, AI also poses risks that could potentially have catastrophic consequences for humanity. For example, the development of autonomous weapons or the misuse of AI by malicious actors could lead to widespread conflict and destruction. Additionally, there are concerns about the potential impact of AI on employment and the economy, as well as issues related to privacy and security.

It’s important to recognize that both climate change and AI are complex, multifaceted issues that require sustained attention and action. Addressing either one requires collaboration and innovation from all sectors of society, as well as a willingness to engage in open dialogue and consider a range of perspectives.

Ultimately, it’s not a question of which is the bigger threat, but rather how we can address both issues in a way that supports human well-being and sustainability. This requires a commitment to investing in technological innovation that supports environmental sustainability, as well as a focus on building resilient communities and institutions that can adapt to the challenges posed by both climate change and AI.

Q: Is pausing AI going to help?

A: Pausing AI entirely would not necessarily be the solution to all of humanity’s challenges. AI has the potential to bring about numerous benefits and advancements across various domains, including healthcare, transportation and scientific research. It can enhance efficiency, improve decision-making processes and assist in solving complex problems. However, like any powerful technology, AI should be developed, deployed and regulated responsibly to mitigate potential risks.

Instead of completely halting AI development, it is crucial to focus on ensuring ethical guidelines, responsible governance and robust regulatory frameworks. This approach involves addressing issues such as algorithmic bias, transparency, data privacy and the potential impact on employment. By implementing these measures, we can harness the potential of AI while minimizing negative consequences.

Additionally, using AI to tackle pressing global challenges, such as climate change, can be a valuable tool. AI can aid in analyzing vast amounts of data, optimizing resource usage and developing innovative solutions. For instance, AI algorithms can assist in climate modelling, energy optimization and identifying patterns to aid in sustainable practices.

Ultimately, rather than pausing AI development, it is essential to strike a balance between innovation and responsible implementation. This entails actively addressing concerns, fostering collaboration between stakeholders and promoting research that aims to maximize the benefits of AI while mitigating potential risks. By doing so, we can leverage AI’s potential to positively impact humanity’s well-being and address the challenges we face.

Can AI terminate climate change…or is it an even greater threat?

Read our summer issue cover feature by John Lorinc

The post We asked ChatGPT, who’s the bigger monster, you or climate change? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

In the past few years, energy economics have flipped to the point where renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels. Companies have also discovered that happy, healthy employees, customers and communities create healthier markets – and happier shareholders.

More than ever, Canadian companies are getting this message. Since 2002, Corporate Knights’ ranking of Canada’s Best 50 Corporate Citizens has been tracing public and private companies as well as Crown corporations with more than $1 billion in revenues. Our researchers probe 25 key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess how firms manage their resources, employees and finances in comparison to their peer group, with 50% of each company’s score tied to the percentage of their revenue and investments that qualify as sustainable. For the Best 50, that percentage keeps climbing.

Tellingly, the 2023 list is dominated by renewable-energy players high in sustainable revenue. Topping the Best 50 this year (up from second place in 2022 and 20th in 2021) is a pure-play clean energy company: Innergex Renewable Energy. The Longueuil, Quebec–based renewable-power producer operates 40 hydroelectric facilities, 35 wind farms, 11 solar farms and one energy-storage facility in Canada, the U.S., France and now Chile. It has 11 more projects in the works (see page 52 for profile). In fact, Innergex is the only pure-play renewable-energy company on the Best 50 (giving it 100% sustainable revenue). The company has also continually improved on its disclosure of environmental indicators, which helped it climb to the top of the ranking.

In second place this year (up from third in 2022 and 14th in 2021) is Brookfield Renewable Partners, the renewable-energy platform of Brookfield Corporation, the former Brascan empire (which got its start providing electricity in Brazil). With a market cap of $20.2 billion, more than seven times Innergex’s $2.7 billion, Brookfield Renewable produces 25,400 megawatts of electricity through hydro, wind and solar facilities in Canada, the U.S., Colombia, Brazil, Europe and Asia. The company’s latest annual report says it’s also focusing on investing in “emerging transition asset classes” such as carbon capture and storage, recycling and biogas, “where our initial investment positions us for potential future large-scale decarbonization investment.”

In third place is Hydro-Québec, which was the top company in 2022, 2021 and 2018. While the company largely maintained its sustainable revenue from last year, competition is growing fiercer as more renewable-energy companies jump ahead.

The “most improved” company on the list is Canadian National Railway. It climbed from 35th place to seventh this year thanks to a notable increase in investments mainly aimed at rail network safety and integrity, as well as track infrastructure network resiliency and information technology initiatives. These investments totalled $2.5 billion, or 85% of CN’s total investments, in 2021.

Edmonton engineering firm Stantec scored highest on the Best 50 when it came to the percentage of its executives’ variable pay linked to sustainability targets. With 26,000 employees and 350 offices on six continents, CEO Gord Johnston says the fast-growing company has been focused on building better communities for more than a decade. Initially, “community” meant including parks or public artworks in urban projects or adding water parks to water treatment plants. But over time it came to encompass designing buildings for mental health, promoting accessibility standards far beyond those of local building codes, and partnering with Indigenous communities to stimulate economic development. Johnston says that “we scaled community” to include not just cities, but whole countries, the world and the climate.

How does your company or employer compare to the Best 50?

Here are a few indicators to consider. The average percentage of sustainable revenues achieved by 2023 Best 50 companies is 46.3%, up from 36.8% in 2022, and nearly 10 times the 5% earned by the average large Canadian company (ALCC). They’re sinking more investment money into the green economy, too: the percentage of total investment dollars put toward sustainable investments is just shy of 50% for this year’s Best 50, up from 33.8% in 2022 – and eight times greater than the ALCC’s 6%. Some 78% of Best 50 companies link executive pay to sustainability goals, versus just 40% of other companies.

On the diversity front, the numbers are still far from where they need to be, but the average Best 50 firm has achieved executive gender diversity of 26.8%, versus 21% for the ALCC. The boards of directors of Best 50 companies have a gender diversity rate of 39.3%, versus 31% for the ALCC.Companies are even further behind when it comes to hiring racially diverse leadership.Though board racial diversity among Best 50 companies improved slightly from 8.8% last year to 11.7% this year, executive racial diversity dropped from 12% to 10.6% this year.

Best 50 bring home higher returns

Overall, the data consistently show that shares of the Best 50 outperform their “less-best” industry peers. Corporate Knights researchers compared the stock performance of the public companies on the 2023 Best 50 versus that of the S&P/TSX Composite Index. Since 2002 (the year we published our first Best 50 list), Best 50 companies have rewarded their shareholders with 128% higher returns than the overall composite index. It’s evidence that the “triple bottom line” (profit, people and planet) doesn’t compromise the single bottom line – but expands it.

2023 Best 50 ranking table

*Indicates a tie as a result of a formula correction
**Revised rank due to a formula correction

Winding road to sustainability

But for billion-dollar corporations in particular, sustainability is a journey, and progress is rarely predictable. Rogers’ (no. 29) recent takeover of Shaw Communications, for instance, has been roundly criticized for reducing competition in Canada’s telecom industry. (And Rogers’ decision to pay CEO Tony Staffieri $31.5 million during his first year pretty much blows up the company’s CEO-to-employee pay gap). Rogers’ arch-rival, Telus (no. 10), has been embroiled in a recent labour dispute that left its unions bristling. And Teck Resources (no. 32) has recently been in the news for its controversial plan to splinter off its carbon-heavy coal mines, which have become an ESG liability for investors. Though the Vancouver-headquartered company has installed $1.2 billion worth of water treatment technology in the Elk Valley, “chronic toxicity impacts” persist in Elk Valley waters, according to the B.C. government.

Nonetheless, all three of these companies earned their Best 50 rankings. Teck scored highly in relation to its peers in part because 6.8% of its revenue comes from recycled minerals and minerals needed for the low-carbon transition. Rogers secured the 29th position because 55% of its investments involve improving telecommunications infrastructure, a key component of the energy transition. Rogers also earned points for its energy-efficient data centres and its refurbishing and recycling of used devices. Telus earned 10th spot, as it scored highly against its peers on sustainable revenue and sustainable investment as well as on all four diversity metrics. No company makes the right decision every time. But two decades into the Best 50, the ranking proves that a large number of Canadian companies are willing to evolve and invest in a cleaner, more equitable future.

The real bottom line is that business and the planet constitute a closed ecosystem – in this fragile biosphere the smartest companies know that putting sustainability first is the ultimate key to lasting success.

Rick Spence is a business journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights.

Climate commitments legend

1.5°C: Business Ambition for 1.5C

SBTi: Science Based Targets initiative

FCCA: Fashion Charter for Climate Action

NZAM: Net-Zero Asset Managers Initiative

NZAO: Net-Zero Asset Owners Alliance

NZBA: Net-Zero Banking Alliance

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Now the Quebec government has announced that wind energy will become a larger piece of the province’s energy puzzle – as it will for the rest of the planet. One Longueuil-based company, betting big on wind and solar, is well positioned to fill the rising demand, at home and abroad. And that company has risen to the top of Corporate Knights’ 2023 ranking of Canada’s Best 50 Corporate Citizens. 

Three decades of renewable energy

For more than 30 years, Innergex Renewable Energy has developed, owned and operated clean electricity facilities in Quebec. The company was founded in 1990 after the provincial government called for private sector bids to develop small hydro-generation facilities. A decade later, Innergex began scouting out locations for wind turbines in the Gaspé region, partnering with TransCanada Corporation (now TC Energy) on its first wind energy bid.  

Having acquired B.C.’s Alterra Power Corporation in 2018 and Chile’s Energía Llaima in 2023, Innergex is now the largest independent renewable-energy company in both Canada and Chile, with expansion plans in the U.S. and France. Today, the $870.5-million company has a gross installed capacity of 4,244 megawatts (MW) of wind, solar and hydro – that’s more installed renewable capacity than the entire province of Ontario. And it plans to double that by 2025.

The ambitious energy transition plans of both the U.S. and Canada will require a lot of new clean energy. The U.S. government has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52% by 2030 from 2005 levels, and Canada is aiming for a 40 to 45% reduction. Innergex CEO Michel Letellier plans to take advantage of these greening trade winds. 

“There are few gains to be expected from hydroelectricity,” says Letellier at his Longueuil office on the South Shore of Montreal. Although a third of its facilities rely on hydroelectricity, Innergex plans for a diversified future. “The best sites for dams are occupied. And we won’t get more than 1.5%, maybe 2%, additional output from [existing hydro facilities]. In Quebec, wind power is the most promising.” 

Decarbonization, energy security and independence will translate into growth for renewable-energy producers, confirms Anne Perreault, senior portfolio manager at Desjardins Global Asset Management. “Investors like that Innergex is diversified [solar, wind, hydro and batteries] and operates in several countries. But they have questions about financing growth. Currently, 84% of the credit line is used. So partnerships will need to be formed.”

A solid partner: Hydro-Québec

Since February 2020, Innergex has had a solid partner: Hydro-Québec. The Crown corporation (which topped the Best 50 ranking three of the last four years) paid $661 million in exchange for a 19.9% stake and committed to investing $500 million in joint projects. “The absence of reference shareholders made us too vulnerable to predators. We needed a shareholder who, without necessarily holding a majority stake in the capital of a company, has a stake large enough to influence its decisions,” says Letellier. “Every public company wants to maximize shareholder value. However, in our industry, value is not measured per quarter. We look at the long term. Hydro-Québec protects us from stormy weather.” 

So far, this strategic alliance has resulted in one joint venture: acquiring the 60 MW Curtis Palmer portfolio of run-of-river hydroelectric plants in New York State. “We definitely want to establish other partnerships with Hydro-Québec, both in the U.S. and Quebec,” Letellier says.

On both sides of the U.S.-Canada border the future looks bright: governments are adopting policies and tax credits to encourage the rapid deployment of renewable-energy projects. Through the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and budget measures announced in Canada, governments have trumpeted new incentives for renewables. But tax credits are only part of the equation to transition to renewable energy; transmission lines are critical to move the electricity generated to where it’s in demand. 

“Our biggest challenge, in Canada and the U.S., is the interconnectedness of projects. All the developers aim for the same locations, creating bottlenecks. We desperately need more pipes,” says Letellier, referring to the need for more transition lines. The U.S. Midwest, for example, could be a Klondike for solar and wind power, but the majority of potential customers are in urban areas on the coasts. 

No renewable-energy company will reach its targets without greater distribution capacity, Letellier explains. “Who will build those new transmission lines? Public utility companies? Private sector? This complex ownership structure and construction costs explain the lack of lines.” 

Agreements with 31 Indigenous communities

Also critical to renewable-energy projects are community relationships. Innergex prides itself on its close ties with the communities that live near its projects. Things have changed since the big hydro projects of the 1970s, says Fred Vicaire, CEO of Mi’gmawei Mawiomi Business Corporation, Innergex’s Indigenous partner in Mesgi’g Ugju’s’n wind farm, in Gaspésie. “For many decades, we were just a box to check for companies to say, ‘We can do the project, we consulted with First Nations, and we will give them some royalties.’ We don’t want royalties from companies installing infrastructure in our territory. We want to own the projects 50/50 and get operating revenue from them.” 

The Mesgi’g Ugju’s’n (MU) wind farm, located on public land in the regional county municipality of Avignon in Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, is indeed a 50/50 partnership between the three Mi’gmaq communities (Gesgapegiag, Gespeg and Listuguj) and Innergex. The first phase of MU is a 150 MW project. The second phase will add 102 MW.

Innergex has signed agreements with 31 Indigenous communities. “They go beyond financial terms,” says Vicaire. “These agreements take into account our way of life, including respect for hunting territories and lands used for traditional medicinal plants, for example.” 

There are agreements, and there are agreements, cautions the Innergex CEO. “Unfortunately, over the years, too many renewable-energy companies have lacked transparency, negotiating with two different financial models: one designed for First Nations, showing no profitability, and one for the board and shareholders, which was profitable. An unequal relationship dating back to the fur trade era.” 

“Since the early days, Innergex has believed in the three Ps: people, planet, profit,” he adds. “Every company aims for a return, but we’ve always believed it should be reasonable and never at the expense of the other two Ps.” 

Partnerships can be challenging, especially when the partners don’t have access to the same equity. For the first phase of the MU wind farm, Innergex brought in more equity, says Vicaire. But the second phase “is different,” he says. “We have access to the First Nations Finance Authority. It finances projects at rates below prime, as municipalities would for large infrastructure projects.” 

The green and the greening

Innergex’s relationships with Indigenous communities contribute to a strong “S” in the company’s ESG ratings. They also helped secure its spot at the top of the Best 50 ranking. As a pure-play renewable-energy business, the company scored top marks on sustainable revenue and sustainable investment, which were both at 100%. It also scored in the top quartile on energy productivity and carbon productivity.

Like Premier Legault, Letellier sees batteries in his future. He says that the next frontier for renewables is energy storage – keeping electricity flowing when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Becoming an expert in deploying energy-storage technologies is part of Innergex’s strategic plan for 2020 to 2025. One battery project is already operational near the Yonne wind farm in France. Two others are under development in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. 

“We need all the help we can get to manage consumption,” Letellier says. “And it is clear that one day not so far away, every house will have its battery.”

Diane Bérard is an independent-solutions journalist based in Quebec. 

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The professor – one Louis Chauvin – was a standout in McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management. Wearing nubbly woolen sweaters and a full grey beard, he started each class with a brief meditation before launching into the subject at hand: the social and environmental devastation wrought by the corporate world the students were clamouring to enter. 

Chauvin framed the most urgent issues facing the planet – climate change, waste, pollution, slave and child labour – as accounting failures. Nowhere did these by-products of economic growth appear on balance sheets. He cited the old accounting adage “What gets measured gets managed” and made it clear that the converse also applies.

As a self-described impact-driven millennial, Keyes experienced a moment of existential panic. How would she reconcile her determination to do good in the world with a system so singularly focused on profit and growth? After receiving her designation as a chartered professional accountant (CPA) in 2013, Keyes entered the profession with one part trepidation, nine parts determination. 

As it turns out, her timing was perfect. Now the CEO of ESG Global Advisors, a boutique management consultancy in Toronto that advises companies and investors on environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and strategies, she has seen her team triple in the last year and a half. “I would not have stayed the course in this profession had I not felt that I was making a difference,” she says. 

In the last two decades, accounting has been transformed by the shift in corporate culture that has seen corporate social responsibility move from the margins to centre stage, and sustainability migrate from the marketing office to the banner flying over the entire operation. 

While the scope of work – reporting, auditing, risk assessment and assurances – hasn’t changed, the innards have. Accountants are being asked to measure different things, ask different questions and think in different ways. The bookkeeping that used to form the meat and potatoes of accounting – recording inputs and outputs, tallying profits and losses – now represents a fraction of the work, and the fraction that is doomed to fall, sooner or later, to artificial intelligence. “Integrated” or “sustainability” accounting, as the profession’s more recent iteration is being called, may in fact prove to be its salvation, demanding more nuanced, ambiguous and qualitative thinking: less about accounting for companies’ financials than about demonstrating their accountability – or lack thereof – to all stakeholders, including the planet. 

Of course, sustainability accounting is as prone to manipulation as any other form of the practice. But a survey of the current landscape suggests that there are more dreamers than schemers – and that many of industry’s most ambitious envelope-pushers are women.

For someone like Keyes, the work feels incredibly relevant and exciting. Nonetheless, like many in her profession and despite accolades – in 2022, Keyes was named a fellow by CPA Ontario, as a “trailblazer” in the worlds of ESG and sustainability – she doesn’t want to be called a warrior. 

The rise of activist accountants

The “warrior accountant” moniker has been gaining currency ever since British journalist Gillian Tett suggested, in a 2018 column in the Financial Times, that accountants, once typecast as enablers of capitalist exploitation and tax avoidance, might in fact be climate saviours: that “a new breed of activist warrior accountants could be the biggest revolutionaries of all,” as Tett put it. 

Keyes sees a danger in overstating her profession’s potential impact. “We are one piece of a big puzzle,” she says, estimating that two-thirds of the investment required to achieve net-zero by 2050 will come from the private sector. Accountants can help create transparency and guide decision-making within that sector, but Keyes says the kind of transformational change required to meet climate goals will require all hands – regulators, investors and policy-makers included – on deck.

Susan Todd agrees. A pioneer of sustainability accounting (and living proof that activism in the profession is nothing new), she is impatient to see the practice fully bear fruit. In the “heady” early days, she was convinced that once the best performers were exposed, capital would naturally flow to them. But having worked as a B.C.-based sustainability consultant for the better part of three decades, the president of Solstice Sustainability Works realizes that it’s not that straightforward. 

“You can’t have successful companies in a failed world,” she says, citing a market that lacks “sophistication” and analysts too fixated on short-term financial risks. For her, the term “non-financial disclosures,” often used to describe environmental and social performance, is evidence that the actual value of these factors is still not recognized: that people don’t fully grasp that “these chickens will come home to roost.” 

But there’s no question that things have come a long way since 1997, when Todd was contracted by Vancity to conduct the credit union’s first ever “social audit.” Assessing the co-op’s social responsibility performance, Todd drew on what she had previously considered discrete skill sets – her CPA designation and experience as senior audit manager for KPMG on the one hand and a master’s degree in resource and environmental management from Simon Fraser University on the other.

When I started, I had to explain to companies why they should care about ESG. Now they see reporting as the tail that wags the dog.

 

– Alyson Slater, head of sustainable investments, Manulife

“They didn’t want it done in a fluffy way,” Todd says of her Vancity employers. She found herself burrowing back into her textbooks, returning to first principles as she tried to come up with a meaningful way to measure social impact. 

Todd wasn’t alone. In the 1990s, progressive economists were pushing for what they called full-cost accounting: a triple bottom line that took profits, people and the planet into consideration. But as admirable and important as the project sounded, the tools were missing. Which factors to measure, and what weight to assign to each one? How to quantify labour practices or policies of diversity and inclusion? What value to put on biodiversity loss or water contamination? 

Sustainability standards have come a long way since then, an evolution that Alyson Slater has witnessed firsthand. In 2001, armed with a master’s degree in environmental studies from the University of British Columbia, she began working for the newly formed Boston-based Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Founded in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the GRI grew out of conversations between NGOs, labour unions and ethical investors who were determined to hold corporations responsible for their environmental impacts. Slater helped to formulate the second version of the GRI’s sustainability reporting guidelines, published in 2002. 

GRI now produces the most widely used sustainability reporting standards in the world. Over the span of her career, Slater, who has worked on financial-inclusion and poverty-reduction projects in Asia and is now the Toronto-based head of sustainable investments for Manulife, has seen a sea change in attitudes.

“When I started, I had to explain to companies why they should care about ESG,” she says, adding that many had “transparency jitters” about exposing the dark underbellies of their operations. “Now they see reporting as the tail that wags the dog, driving better performance and reducing risk.” 

Slater says that most companies, no longer afraid of standards, are now pushing for better ones. They’re coming. In April, Slater was named to the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board, a national body tasked with ensuring that the new suite of reporting frameworks being developed by the Frankfurt-based International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) are adapted to the Canadian economic context. Provincial regulators will adopt the standards, once finalized, and roll them out across the country over the coming years. Unlike the GRI standards, which are voluntary, the new ISSB standards are expected to become a mandatory part of the reporting framework Canadian companies use.  

Minding the audit gap

But standards alone won’t save the day. In the U.K. and Europe, where more rigorous reporting standards are already in place, there’s evidence to suggest that the large tax and accounting firms hired to prepare ESG reports are conflicted; if they’re too rigorous in their assessments and irritate management, they risk losing out on further consulting contracts. Recent reports from the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council have pointed to widespread disclosure failures, prompting the council to issue a Statement of Intent on ESG that provides further guidance to accountants. Likewise, the European Central Bank recently reported that “banks do not yet sufficiently incorporate climate risk into their stress-testing frameworks and internal models.”

A damning October 2022 report by the London-based Carbon Tracker think tank found that 98% of 134 companies responsible for 80% of corporate industrial greenhouse gas emissions failed to adequately incorporate climate-related impacts into their financial statements. None of the companies – which are in the high-emissions fossil fuel, mining, manufacturing, automotive and technology sectors – met the measurement requirements of Climate Action 100+, the global investor-led initiative promoting corporate action on climate change. Barbara Davidson, the report’s lead author, attributed the failure to forward-looking assumptions that ignore climate impacts, resulting in statements that “overstated assets, understated liabilities and overstated profits.”

You can’t have successful companies in a failed world.

 

– Susan Todd, president, Solstice Sustainability Works

Net-zero aspirations have also opened up new avenues for creative accounting. Sectors unable to eliminate emissions in the near term will rely on “negative emissions” to deliver what looks like a net-zero balance sheet. In 2021, for instance, oil and gas giant Shell announced that it would be growing its gas business by 20% while still aspiring to climate neutrality: offsetting additional emissions with an expanded network of EV charging stations and carbon capture projects like reforestation. Critics panned the plan, saying it relied on technologies and plantable land that simply don’t exist. 

But overall, the trend in accounting is transformative. Jessica Fries is CEO of Accounting for Sustainability (A4S), an initiative established in 2004 by then–Prince Charles to bring the financial and sustainability communities together to drive change. She has seen it happen before her eyes. While she started her accounting career as a “specialist” in sustainability, Fries now operates in a world where it is part of the day to day. 

It’s a world that she says is in dire need of the hybrid mindset that bridges finance and sustainability and that offers unprecedented leadership opportunities for accountants. Today, Fries says, “accountants can drive sustainability into the heart of organizations.”

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This utility-scale project, several years in the making, will provide backup storage to Canada’s most populous province and is being built by Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation (SNGRDC) and NRStor, a storage start-up, with $50 million in backing from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. (Tesla, Northland Power and Aecon are also partners.) SNGRDC CEO Matt Jamieson (of the Tuscarora Nation) rhymes off the benefits: local jobs, cleantech investment, emission reductions and a major boost for the region’s clean energy infrastructure, in which Six Nations is a significant investor. Indeed, the deployment of grid-scale energy storage projects will allow wind and solar farms to operate at full capacity – something that hasn’t happened in recent years because Ontario’s system operator curtailed the use of renewables in favour of gas plants that can be turned on and off as demand requires. 

But for Jamieson, the Oneida Energy Storage facility’s most salient calling card is that it will kick-start a long overdue investment in a critical piece of the energy transition puzzle that has been overlooked for years. “We are the first movers,” he says of the Indigenous-led project. “We’ve created the utility-scale energy storage market in Ontario.”

The energy transition over the next three decades will be possible only with the deployment of huge electricity storage systems, such as Oneida’s that can hold a charge for up to four hours, as well as other longer-duration storage technologies that can hold energy for 10 hours or longer. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has stated that the rapid scaling up of energy storage systems will be critical to bridge the hour‐to‐hour variability of wind and solar electricity on the grid, “especially as their share of generation increases rapidly in the net zero scenario.” As a 2022 MIT Energy Initiative study put it, “Energy storage enables cost-effective deep decarbonization of electric power systems that rely heavily on wind and solar generation without sacrificing system reliability.”

That goal will require electrical utilities to add tens of thousands of megawatts (MW) of energy storage in large-scale facilities as they expand their portfolio of renewables. Over the past few years, according to IEA data, the U.S., China and Europe have driven up investment in short- and long-term energy storage, with about 6,500 MW installed as of 2021. In the U.S., the world leader, much of that investment has been driven by incentives and building code requirements adopted in states like California and Maryland, with others, like New York, establishing ambitious targets for the next decade. 

Ontario is making an especially big bet on storage to help meet the rising electricity demands of electric vehicles and economic growth during the closure of the Pickering nuclear power station. Last year, the province issued a major request for proposals to acquire 2,500 MW in energy storage through 2027; the Oneida project is part of this push – the largest to date in Canada.

Where the sun doesn’t shine

For many years, electricity storage was limited to one technology: pumped hydro. This old-school technique, which requires a lot of civil engineering and dams that have excess generating capacity, uses surplus or inexpensive electricity to run huge pumps that fill hydro reservoirs. The stored energy can be used later when grid operators decide to release the water, thus driving the turbines that generate new power. However, the rapid investment in wind and solar over the past 15 years has raised the stakes for energy storage technologies. Both of these renewables are intermittent, and so it makes sense for utilities or system operators that want to invest in clean generation to figure out how they can store electricity when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, and then use those stored electrons later, as needed. “There’s a symbiotic relationship between the two,” says Travis Lusney, director of power systems for Power Advisory LLC, a consulting group. 

Storage has another potential climate benefit as well. On very hot afternoons when all the air-conditioning is running flat out, or during other times when electricity demand is particularly high, system operators often rely on natural-gas-fired “peaker plants” to provide top-ups. These facilities can be turned on and off quickly (unlike nuclear plants). If power generated by renewables can be stored and then used when demand surges, the storage technology effectively displaces the burning of fossil fuels, thus reducing emissions.

We are the first movers. We’ve created the utility-scale energy storage market in Ontario.

 

– Matt Jamieson, CEO, Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation

Over the past decade or so, a number of energy storage technologies have been piloted, with varying degrees of success. Early wind entrepreneurs thought to run the current generated by a turbine through water, thereby producing hydrogen that can be compressed, stored and used as a fuel. Other approaches include the capture of waste heat or using surplus power in air compressors, with the highly pressurized gas stored and available for later use as an energy source. Justin Rangooni, executive director of Energy Storage Canada, says there are several other short- and long-duration storage technologies in the research-and-development pipeline, many of which rely on various advanced materials, common metals, and chemicals, from sodium to zinc and aluminum. 

As the technology and the market mature over the next few years, the choice of the mode of energy storage used by utilities or institutions like hospitals will be determined by the application. “What storage is saying is ‘What do you need [and] what are you trying to achieve?’ and then looking at the menu of options in terms of energy storage technology,” says Rangooni.

Growing battery farms 

Battery farms, using large-scale versions of an EV power pack, turn out to be the most scalable solutions for grid operators, and also the most mature from a commercialization perspective. Six Nations’ Jamieson says that during the Oneida planning process, he went to San Francisco to see the plant where Tesla makes the Megapack, and his team also vetted other vendors. “There’s a lot of considerations around emergency-response planning, fire suppression, exposure, protection, earthquake, floods, and all sorts of mitigation tactics have gone into this technology,” he says. “It comes down to the bankability of performance that we’re looking for, to ensure that all stakeholders are satisfied.” Tesla has installed hundreds of megawatts of battery storage capacity in Australia as part of the country’s push to enable utilities to use more renewables without destabilizing grids. 

Six Nations had another crucial perspective that informed its decision to pursue the battery farm deal. For several years, the First Nation has invested heavily in solar and wind farms in southwestern Ontario, including on the site of a huge and now decommissioned coal-fired generating plant. But Jamieson says the income from the renewables has ebbed because of a policy called “curtailment,” which means these facilities may be temporarily taken off-grid because the power they’re producing isn’t needed at that moment. “There’s a deferral of compensation, which doesn’t help the ratepayers,” says Jamieson. 

Six Nations certainly isn’t the only renewables producer that has faced this problem, which occurs specifically because this clean power can’t be stored until it’s needed. Investments in large-scale battery storage will effectively have a double benefit because they’ll enable those wind and solar farms to generate more revenue for the community, Jamieson points out. “We look at this from [the perspective of] where’s the opportunity to enhance the positioning of renewables in the province? Without some sort of an energy storage solution, we will be continually facing this [issue because] of the intermittent nature of how renewables function.”

The sprawling new Oneida battery farm, as he puts it, “is a new tool in the tool kit.”

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

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