It’s a question that’s been tripping up national carbon calculators around the globe since the days of the Kyoto Protocol. From the late 1990s, industry and governments have largely considered burning wood pellets in power stations to be renewable, zero-emitting energy, since planting new trees should, theoretically, absorb enough carbon dioxide to cancel out the emissions that come out of smokestacks as they burn.

But doubts regarding the science behind those claims and the sustainability of the practice have been mounting as more countries ramp up the burning of woody biomass as a replacement for coal.

In October, the world’s largest biomass-burning power generator, Drax Group, was one of 15 companies booted off the S&P Global Clean Energy Index. S&P also ditched the French bioenergy firm Albioma. The reason given: their “carbon-to-revenue footprint” was too large. S&P didn’t offer company-specific details beyond that, saying only that changes to the S&P Global Clean Energy Index were integrated “in order to enhance index diversification, improve transparency, further reduce the index’s carbon footprint, and align the index methodology with market trends and sustainable investing norms.”

That same month, a study led by Princeton University, published in the journal Science, called out a “serious” error in the climate accounting rules widely applied to biomass energy since the Kyoto Protocol. “This accounting erroneously treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral regardless of the source of the biomass…. For example, the clearing of long-established forests to burn wood or to grow energy crops is counted as a 100% reduction in energy emissions despite causing large releases of carbon.

“Burning wood to produce energy can actually worsen climate change, at least through the year 2100 – even if wood displaces coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel.”

 –John Sterman, MIT

The carbon-neutral assumption might be true if you’re using perennial grasses or twigs, but scientists say that tree plantations don’t store as much carbon as natural forests, and regrowth takes time. It could take 40 to 100 years for planted trees to absorb the carbon debt released by biomass power plants (in boreal forests those estimates jump to 100 years).

Back in 2018, MIT scientist John Sterman concluded that “burning wood to produce energy can actually worsen climate change, at least through the year 2100 – even if wood displaces coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel.” In early 2021, the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council affirmed that using woody biomass for power “is not effective in mitigating climate change and may even increase the risk of dangerous climate change.”

Meanwhile, the carbon accounting loophole has fuelled a boom in the biomass industry in Europe, the U.S., Canada and the U.K., where it’s highly subsidized. In the EU, biomass accounts for about 59% of all renewable energy consumption.

Once the largest coal generator in western Europe, Drax now gets two-thirds of its biomass from southeastern U.S. forests and a growing percentage from western Canada. Last April, Drax purchased British Columbia’s Pinnacle Renewable Energy, which the company says should increase its annual operational capacity to 4.9 million tonnes of biomass pellets by 2022, up from 1.6 million tonnes. Drax now owns more than half the pellet mills in B.C.

Pellet makers generally say they don’t cut down whole trees and instead use fallen branches, sawdust and other waste wood, but environmental organizations in both the U.S. and Canada say otherwise. The Natural Resources Defense Council has said that “multiple independent investigations show that wood sourced from clearcuts of mature and biodiverse forests routinely enters Drax’s supply chain.”

Drax says that its biomass meets the “highest sustainability standards” and that, in B.C., “harvesting increased significantly to utilise the dead and dying timber [affected by mountain pipe beetle] as lumber in sawmills whilst it was still viable.”

Ben Parfitt, a researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), takes issue with the statement. “Photographs, videos and publicly available data clearly show that Drax doesn’t discriminate between living or dead trees. It takes whatever it can get its hands on,” says Parfitt, who wrote an investigative report on the pellet industry in April. He adds, “It’s time the B.C. government commissioned an independent expert to investigate.”

Until then, CCPA is calling for a ban on any new pellet mills in the province. The Vancouver-based environmental group Stand.earth has called for a moratorium on the logging of B.C.’s primary forests for pellets. Across the pond, 50 MPs wrote a joint letter to Britain’s energy minister in December, calling the burning of wood to create power a “scandal.”

Drax maintains that its bioenergy has slashed its CO2 emissions from power generation by more than 90% since 2012. The firm is looking into piloting carbon-capture technology, which CEO Will Gardiner says will make the company carbon-negative by 2030.

The post Tree-burning Drax power plants dropped from green energy index appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“When we are facing climate chaos and these big storms come through, we can suck it in,” says Flies, referring to her soil’s ability to miraculously absorb inches of rain that turn neighbouring fields into a mud bath. A decade into working the land organically, she and her husband, like millions of farmers around the globe, were facing hotter summers, more violent storms and more erratic harvests. The former international election observers–turned farmers were looking for solutions to make their property – The New Farm – more resilient to the impacts of the changing climate. That’s when they came across a farming philosophy that turned them into soil evangelists.

The New York Times has called it the yoga of farming. The phrase “regenerative agriculture” was coined in the 1980s but has its roots in Indigenous and small-scale farming traditions around the world. Instead of tilled rows of monoculture crops on depleted soil, regenerative farms follow a few basic tenets: disturb the earth as little as possible (that means putting down tillers and minimizing synthetic pesticides and fertilizers), never leave the soil bare (farmers plant cover crops like clover and legumes between rows) and embrace biodiversity, both aboveground and below. Proponents say that diverse crops and, optionally, carefully rotated grazing livestock help fuel microscopic soil biodiversity, which, combined synergistically with other regenerative practices, increases soil’s water and carbon absorption power. That makes farmsteads like The New Farm notably more flood- and drought-resistant, and potentially more greenhouse gas–absorbent, too.

Now the concepts are spreading like wildfire. You’ll see the term “regenerative agriculture” cropping up in news feeds, on the back of cereal boxes and in celebrity-studded Netflix docs. Big Food players like General Mills, Danone, Unilever and Nestlé are ramping up regenerative pilots around the globe. Apparel brands like Patagonia, Gucci and Timberland are preaching the powers of regenerative farm-to-closet fashion. This past Earth Day, PepsiCo announced it would be implementing regenerative practices across its entire ecological footprint. The new Pepsi challenge? Convert all seven million acres of its ingredient supply by 2030, starting with 500,000 acres by year’s end. The move, it said, would eliminate three million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade. “Today, we’re accelerating our Positive Agriculture agenda, because we know we have to do even more to create truly systemic change,” said Jim Andrew, PepsiCo’s Chief Sustainability Officer.

Whether you buy the sincerity of their press releases or don’t, there’s no denying climate change is threatening the world’s food supply. Illycaffè’s chair, Andrea Illy, has been vocal about the looming reality that by 2050, “about three-fourths of the land used to grow Arabica coffee will not be suitable.” Similar stats threaten a number of global commodities. Food companies are betting on regenerative practices as a win-win to help them future-proof the food sector: the climate-resilient crops stabilize long-term swings in food supplies while helping companies meet net-zero emissions pledges and keep climate-risk-averse investors happy. And farmers – big and small, organic and conventional – who try regenerative on for size say they’re boosting yields and increasing profits, all while healing the planet.

LEAVE NO SOIL UNTURNED

Until she happened upon France’s Ministry of Agriculture initiative on the role of soil in combatting climate change, Flies had no idea she had unwittingly been wrecking her soil’s natural structure through an age-old practice. It turns out tilling the land destroys complex fungal and microbial networks that make up the earth’s life-sustaining microbiome – all while releasing valuable moisture into the air and quietly unleashing billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Flies ended up doing farmer-led research trials on their tilled versus untilled fields with the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario. “What we were finding was we could get on untilled fields a month earlier, [our salad greens] would germinate almost a week faster, [untilled fields] would retain more water in the soil, and our yield was higher,” she says. “We couldn’t believe it.”

Tilling is just one of a number of farming methods that have diminished the soil’s capacity to lock in carbon. Rattan Lal, a professor of soil science at Ohio State University, estimates that agricultural practices have released 135 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Age – emissions that remain there to this day.

The infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930s transformed the American and Canadian Great Plains into “black blizzards” of eroded topsoil after settlers plowed under millions of acres of native grasslands (grasslands that are now one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet) to plant water-intensive cash crops. After years of drought and over-plowing, farm dreams turned to dust and accelerated farming’s great carbon release.

While Prairie farmers of the era were eventually encouraged to plant “a great wall of trees” and set up irrigation systems to restore their soil and put an end to the Dust Bowl, destructive farming practices persist. In the last 30 years alone, one-third of the world’s usable land has been severely degraded, according to the United Nations. Another 75 billion tons of fertile topsoil is lost every year.

An Oxford University–led study published in the journal Science last fall noted that “even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to realize the 2°C target.”

As the researchers concluded, “major changes in how food is produced are needed if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

FEDS INVEST IN CLIMATE-SMART FARMING

Federal estimates reckon that Canada’s crop and livestock farms are responsible for 10% to 12% of Canada’s overall carbon footprint. Part of that comes from fossil-fuel-run farm equipment; another chunk comes from methane produced by cows and liquid manure (used on intensive livestock farms); a large portion comes from petrochemical-based inputs, especially nitrogen fertilizer, which releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that’s 300 times more potent than Co2.

The task at hand is to turn those farm fields back into carbon sinks. A coalition of 20,000 conventional and organic farmers asked the feds to invest $300 million in the 2021 budget to help farmers embrace climate-friendly practices, such as planting cover crops, reducing nitrogen fertilizer and rotating grazing. “We calculated that with a 15% uptake of these practices on farms across Canada we could mitigate 10 million tonnes of carbon,” says Flies, one of the co-founders of the Farmers for Climate Solutions (FCS) coalition. “All of us recognize that for farmers’ sakes, we need more profitable and resilient farms, and for the climate’s sake, we need to reduce our emissions and be part of the solution.”

“All of us recognize that for farmers’ sakes, we need more profitable and resilient farms, and for the climate’s sake, we need to reduce our emissions and be part of the solution.”

–Gillian Flies, Farmers for Climate Solutions

In the spring, Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, signalled that the ministry was on board, announcing that Canada would plow $185 million over the next decade into a new Agricultural Climate Solutions program.

In March, the Trudeau government unveiled draft regulations for its Greenhouse Gas Offset System, specifying that “farmers who reduce or remove GHG emissions through regenerative agriculture practices … may be able to generate offset credits which can then be sold, providing a financial incentive.”

It’s all part of Canada’s $350-million investment over 10 years to help the country’s agri-food sector “meet our emission targets and capture new opportunities in the green economy,” including $165 million in the Agricultural Clean Technology Program, $10 million to get farmers off diesel, and $60 million to protect existing trees and wetlands on farms in the latest federal budget. There’s also a proposed national – albeit so-far voluntary – target to reduce synthetic fertilizer use by 30% below 2020 levels.

All these moves should incentivize more farmers to implement regenerative practices, says Gabrielle Bastien, founder of Quebec-based Regeneration Canada: “The federal budget announcement is great news for the regenerative movement.”

Canada isn’t alone. France has taken a leadership role in using soil to combat climate change since hosting COP21 in Paris in 2015. Recently, the Biden administration signalled its support for regenerative agriculture as part of its response to the climate crisis. Across the pond, Prince Charles backed the movement in an op-ed for The Guardian in May, saying, “We must ensure that Britain’s family farmers have the tools and the confidence to meet the rapid transition to regenerative farming systems that our planet demands.

GROWING REGENERATIVE IN THE WILD WEST OF CARBON CREDITS

There’s no hard data on exactly how many regenerative farms exist in Canada or globally, but what’s certain is that there currently aren’t enough of them to meet corporate pledges. Companies like Wrangler, Kering and others are posting global call-outs to farmers, issuing grants to those who want to participate in regenerative pilot programs. PepsiCo says it’s investing US$10 for every acre that farmers convert to regenerative.

The challenge now is getting everyone to agree on what qualifies as regenerative, particularly in the wild west of carbon credits and net-zero pledges. At this point, there’s no universal standard for regenerative agriculture, though food policy guru Wayne Roberts told Corporate Knights before he died earlier this year that’s part of what he appreciated about regenerative agriculture: its “open-endedness, its lack of clear, binding and dogmatic definitions, its openness to what good people can do as they try to accomplish what’s possible.” He added, “It avoids the problem of turning the perfect into the enemy of the very good, which has been the bane of social change movements for a century.”

A wide array of farm movements currently unite under regenerative agriculture’s banner – including tree-hugger favourites like permaculture and moon-cycle-aligned biodynamic farms that are free of chemical inputs, and, increasingly, large conventional farms experimenting with “regen” basics like no-till and cover crops.

More than a third of U.S. cropland is now considered no-till, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics, with a small but growing number of farmers trying their hands at planting cover crops, which keep carbon from escaping from bare soil while pulling atmospheric nitrogen into the earth, where it acts as a natural fertilizer.

Trey Hill, a third-generation corn and soy farmer on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, thought it was all a bunch of “environmental BS” but decided to take up the state of Maryland’s offer to pay farmers to plant cover crops on bare fields two decades ago.

“I thought it was greenwashing,” he said during a webinar on soil carbon sequestration, organized by the U.S.-based Business Climate Leaders, in May. Until he saw a dramatic difference between two fields. That spring, his business-as-usual fields were unplantable, while the ones green with cover crops left him stunned – they were ready for planting far earlier. “We realized everything we had been taught … was having to be rethought.”

“We realized everything we had been taught … was having to be rethought.”

–Trey Hill, a third-generation corn and soy farmer

Hill now grows a variety of clover, rye, lentils, radishes and turnips in his cornfields as sequestration and regeneration agents. Fast forward to early 2020, when Hill became the first American farmer to participate in a national carbon credit system set up by a Seattle start-up called Nori. Last year, Hill was paid US$115,000 for practices that had sequestered more than 8,000 tons of carbon in the soil over five years. If he can demonstrate that his 10,000 acres are able to store an additional ton of carbon per acre each year, he could pocket another $150,000 annually. Nori’s not alone. Another agri-tech start-up, Indigo Ag, has stated that it hopes to pay regenerative farmers to capture a trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the air, selling offsets to companies like Maple Leaf Foods.

Questions remain about the efficacy of carbon offsets in the climate fight. Can regenerative farms legitimately sequester trillions of tons of carbon dioxide? Are carbon markets for farmers worth the gold rush – both for farmers and investors? Or will buying farm offsets essentially provide cover for heavy-emitting companies to keep polluting? There’s a great deal of scientific debate – and ongoing research in field labs – around just how much carbon soil can sequester, with a growing number of scientists cautioning that regenerative advocates may be overselling soil’s ability to absorb the world’s carbon pollution and effectively reverse climate change.

Sitting on his old family farm half an hour south of Saskatoon one morning in May, Darrin Qualman, director of climate crisis policy at the National Farmers Union (NFU), emphasizes that regenerative farming is “fantastic” at revitalizing soil health and increasing biodiversity and notes that “if we farm better, including regenerative, we can put most of that carbon that farming has released since we plowed the Prairies back in the soil.” That said, he adds, “some suggest you could use soils to suck all of the CO2 from industry, transport, coal and oil out of the atmosphere in decades, and that’s fanciful at best.” It’s a miscalculation that he calls “a potential civilizational error.

DITCHING THE CHEMICAL TREADMILL

Beyond the carbon debate, internal discussions remain over whether chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers should be permitted by regenerative farmers. On his Maryland farm, Hill, like many conventional regenerative farmers, uses chemical herbicides to “terminate cover crops” before planting, but he tells the webinar audience that he’s managed to lower his herbicide rates. One poll found that 92% of no-till farmers planned to use the chemical herbicide glyphosate to keep weeds in check and tamp down cover crops without uprooting them. Which helps explain why agrochemical giants like Bayer (owner of Monsanto) and Syngenta are chatting up the benefits of climate-smart regenerative techniques. Bayer says that while it’s paying U.S. farmers to try no-till and cover crops to sequester carbon, farmers aren’t required to purchase Bayer’s “industry leading crop protection” products to participate in the Bayer Carbon Program. Nonetheless, no-till is undeniably good for business.

“Some suggest you could use soils to suck all of the CO2 from industry, transport, coal and oil out of the atmosphere in decades, and that’s fanciful at best.  [It’s] a potential civilizational error.”

–Darrin Qualman, director of climate crisis policy at the National Farmers Union

Regenerative practitioners, however, say that if farmers continue to incorporate a wide variety of regenerative techniques, they should be able to cut back naturally on their chemical inputs. That’s one reason why regenerative agriculture is said to save farmers money. One study published in 2018 looked at 20 corn farmers and found that nearly a third of conventional farmers’ gross income went toward external inputs, compared to 12% in regenerative fields.

The NFU and FCS, as well as the feds and others, seem to agree that the most critical factor is getting farmers to reduce their nitrogen use. “The big piece that’s driving up farm emissions is not farm fuel use or cattle or anything else. It’s nitrogen,” says Qualman, pointing out that the energy needed to create, transport and apply one tonne of natural-gas-derived nitrogen fertilizer is nearly equal to two tonnes of gasoline. Canadian farms have tripled its use since 1980. Qualman’s 2019 climate report for NFU outlines how farmers have been pushed to adopt a maximum-output, maximum-input production model contingent on pumping degraded soils full of increasingly pricy fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers and pesticides. “Two things happen when farmers become overdependent on purchased inputs: emissions go up and net incomes go down.”

Qualman says he’ll gauge just how serious companies are about both their regenerative and climate commitments by whether they’re driving absolute reductions in nitrogen use

IT’S A HONEY OF AN O

In March 2019, General Mills launched its first regenerative agriculture pilot as part of a pioneering pledge to make one million acres (or 20% to 25% of its ingredient sourcing supply) regenerative by decade’s end. It’s now in its third summer of a three-year pilot consisting of 45 conventional and organic oat growers in the Northern Plains of North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

“We’re doing baseline soil measurements in those fields, sampling organic matter in the soil, as well as measurements around insect and bird diversity and water infiltration [in addition to] soil measurements for carbon sequestration,” says Tom Rabaey, a senior agronomist overseeing the pilots for General Mills. They’re also working with researchers at the University of Manitoba and Saskatchewan who are measuring the GHG-sequestering potential of cover crops.

Rabaey explains how General Mills had been focused largely on carbon footprint analysis and efficiency gains until it started talking to The Nature Conservancy and the Soil Health Institute about the importance of soil health in building resilience in the face of climate change. “Regenerative agriculture is really the lever to help us meet our GHG goal, but [it’s] also a way for us to maintain our supply chain resiliency where we buy our ingredients,” including oats from the Canadian Prairies that go into products like Cheerios, Nature Valley, Annie’s and Cascadian Farm Organic.

“Times were really tough, and farmers were throwing all their income on more inputs, more fertilizer, more pesticides, more efficiency gains, more output per acre.”

–Tom Rabaey, a senior agronomist, regenerative agriculture pilots, General Mills

“Times were really tough, and farmers were throwing all their income on more inputs, more fertilizer, more pesticides, more efficiency gains, more output per acre. We were hearing that,” Rabaey says.

General Mills isn’t point-blank asking farmers to reduce nitrogen and pesticide use, but Rabaey says many farmers in the pilot are doing so on their own. “Usually after the second, third or fourth year, we’re finding that growers start to make those cuts themselves.”

Whether their approach will get nitrogen use down by 30% in line with proposed federal targets is still up in the air. The official figures will be released after this season of data collecting.

BEYOND ORGANIC

While researchers across the continent refine their soil carbon measurement techniques, a handful of certifications have cropped up offering verifiable standards for regenerative farmers. The Soil Carbon Initiative (SCI) cites Danone and Ben & Jerry’s as partners. On the organic side, Dr. Bronner’s, the Rodale Institute, Nature’s Path Organic and Patagonia helped launch a regenerative organic certification (ROC) last fall. The ROC seal takes organic as a baseline but adds clear standards for a living wage and grazing livestock welfare in addition to a whole host of soil-building requirements.

Among their first products on shelves: certified organic regenerative oatmeal by B.C.-headquartered Nature’s Path. “As demand increases, our plan is to transition more products to ROC certification,” says Samantha Falk, director of communications for the cereal company.

Back in Creemore, Flies is working on making The New Farm the first certified regenerative organic vegetable farm in Canada. After that? “We want to train 10,000 farmers as leaders.”

“My dream is we can support farmers to be a part of the solution to climate change,” Flies says. “We have a huge opportunity here to improve livelihoods of our farmers, improve the quality of our food and sequester carbon all at once, if we do it right.”

COMPANIES COMMITTING TO GOING REGENERATIVE

Patagonia: The green pioneers have been spearheading a certified Regenerative Organic seal with the Regenerative Organic Alliance and using certified ingredients to make cotton T-shirts and the like.

Timberland, Vans and NorthFace (VF Corp. companies): All main materials are to be recycled, regenerative or renewable by 2025. Timberland is currently piloting a regenerative rubber supply.

PepsiCo: The company says all seven million acres of PepsiCo’s farm footprint will be regenerative by 2030, more than 500,000 acres in 2021.

General Mills: In 2019, General Mills announced its goal of having one million acres be regenerative by 2030.

Kering: Gucci’s parent company is funding the transition of one million hectares of land to regenerative practices with Conservation International, as well as one million in protected habitat “outside of its direct supply chain.”

Nestlé: The Swiss giant that purchases 1% of the world’s agricultural output expects to source more than 14 million tons of its ingredients through regenerative agriculture by 2030.

Danone: Its North American regenerative soil health pilot, now in its third year, has 82,000 acres enrolled, with a goal of reaching 100,000 acres by 2022.

Wrangler: The clothing manufacturer is launching a Retro Premium “Regenerative Jean.” It has invited farmers from around the world to submit documented evidence of improved soil health to be considered for inclusion in the special collection.

Cargill: The food giant is supporting farmer-led efforts to adopt regenerative practices on 10 million acres of cropland in North America.

Illycaffè: The Italian company is transitioning its entire network of coffee farmers to “virtuous” regenerative agriculture by 2033, its 100th anniversary.

Adria Vasil is the managing editor of Corporate Knights and the bestselling author of the Ecoholic book series.

The post Can climate-smart regenerative farming save the earth? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

All of which has created the perfect petri dish for responsible robo-advisors. More millennials are looking to invest, and a surge of digital platforms are offering up automated, algorithm-driven investment services to help them do just that. Canada’s top robo-advisors say they’ve experienced double-digit growth since the start of the pandemic. Wealthsimple’s client base is up 24%. RBC’s Rajan Bansi called 2020 a “record year” for his bank’s InvestEase app – with RBC’s responsible portfolio a key driver of that growth.

But while environmentally and socially aligned investments are exploding around the world (constituting 40% of global investments), only a handful of Canadian robo-advisors offer “responsible” investing solutions.

If the hippies over at JPMorgan investment bank are right, Canadians are losing out: “Virtually all ESG index funds [those that assess environmental, social and governance factors] outperformed their conventional benchmarks because they were underweight in energy, the worst-performing sector so far this year.”

At this point, anyone who’s particular about aligning their wallet with specific values – like, say, zero waste or animal welfare – isn’t likely to find much comfort in the virtual hands of a robo-advisor. Good Investing’s Tim Nash explains: “Robo-advisors are elegant in their simplicity and offer responsible investors the best way to ‘set it and forget it.’ Unfortunately, their responsible portfolios are ‘one size fits all’ and won’t go far enough for some people.”

If that’s you, you’re better off going the DIY route so you can customize where your retirement savings go, based on your own unique priorities and values. In the meantime, here’s how three of Canada’s top robo-advisors with socially responsible investment (SRI) options stack up.

Wealthsimple

Arguably the hippest of the robo-advisors (just scroll through the lengthy list of influencers in its Instagram feed), Wealthsimple prominently promotes socially responsible investing as its top option for “investing on autopilot.”

Assets under management (AUM): $5 billion
Minimum investment: $0
Total annual fees: 0.62%

★ ★ World-changing impact: Wealthsimple has significantly beefed up screening on its SRI portfolios since our first robo ranking in 2019. It now boots out oil/gas/coal companies and other high-carbon emitters, along with weapons-makers and tobacco companies. It also screens out companies with few women on their boards. So it’s avoiding a lot of the worst companies, but to improve its score here, it needs to do lots more investing in sustainable solutions.

★ ★ Customization: Wealthsimple encourages you to “invest in your values,” but those values are limited to “halal” or the general “socially responsible” option.

★ ★ ★ ★ Transparency: Head to the help centre and you’ll find the full list of company names in its basket of stocks. Easy for the picky investor to peruse.

★ ★ How returns compare to business-as-usual: Its site used to have helpful graphs spelling out how SRI investments have fared compared to “traditional investors.” Today, graphs in the help centre will tell you that the balanced SRI portfolio has grown by a cumulative 34.5% (net of fees) since it was launched on March 24, 2016 (to November 30, 2020). But nothing about how it fared in relation to conventional portfolios.

★ ★ ★ Green cred: Since Wealthsimple stopped relying on external funds, you’ll no longer find the likes of Chevron and Imperial Oil in your portfolio – a relief for anyone concerned about the climate crisis. But zero-wasters aren’t going to dig that Keurig and Coca-Cola are top holdings, and animal lovers are bound to cringe at the 0.59% invested in Canada Goose.

RBC InvestEase

The only Big 5 bank with an SRI robo-advisor. RBC InvestEase’s “responsible investing” option promises to “help drive positive change by investing in companies aligned with your values.”

AUM: N/A
Minimum investment: $100
Total annual fees: 0.66%

★ World-changing impact: Negative screens are more social than environmental: no tobacco, controversial weapons, civilian firearms or companies involved in “very severe controversies” (Wells Fargo was recently booted out for its account fraud scandal). Beyond that, RBC says it chooses companies that “score most favourably in the assessment of environmental, social and governance risk factors,” but to boost this score it’ll need to really ramp up investments in sustainable solutions.

★ Customization: As with most robos, algorithms personalize to risk preference but not to values, other than choosing between “responsible” and, well, not.

★ ★ Transparency: If you dig into the FAQs, you’ll find a list of the ETFs (exchange-traded funds) RBC invests in. They now share the top 10 holdings of those ETFs, but you’ll have to rummage around on other websites to find the full list of companies that make up those ETFs.

★ How returns compare to business-as-usual: InvestEase “believe[s] companies that effectively manage ESG risks over the long-term could achieve superior financial results versus their less-effective peers,” but no evidence is provided. When contacted, RBC reps said that as of December 10, 2020, “the 100% equity portfolio outperformed its standard peer by approximately 100 bps.” Why not post that?

★ Green cred: InvestEase says its portfolios are invested in companies that score the highest on ESG factors. But its “iShares ESG Aware MSCI Canada ETF” banks on a number of Canadian oil, gas and pipeline companies, including Keystone-pusher TC Energy and Imperial Oil. To go fossil-free, skip the robo and ask RBC for its fossil-free ETFs.

Questwealth Portfolios

This popular robo comes courtesy of Questrade Wealth Management, Canada’s largest indie online brokerage firm. It’s had a socially responsible investing option since late 2018.

AUM: $20 billion (Questwealth Portfolios and Questrade)
Minimum investment: $1,000
Total annual fees: 0.38%

★ ★ World-changing impact: Of the bunch, Questwealth invests the most in cleantech solutions. However, there are no negative screens to filter out, say, weapons, tobacco or oil companies, so you will find all three in here. Over half (57%) of its small-holdings account is in a “low carbon” ETF whose holdings include Kinder Morgan, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

★ Customization: Besides adjusting for risk preference, SRI investors can opt for a small- or large-holdings account, but you can’t opt for fossil-free, for instance.

★ ★ Transparency: One improvement since our 2019 ranking: ETF names are now listed front and centre on the home page, but you’ll have to look elsewhere to discover which companies those ETFs are invested in.

★ ★ How returns compare to business-as-usual: Front-page graphs reveal that the SRI portfolios have returned anywhere from 12 to 22% since inception, but there’s no comparison to the broader market. Reps say that in the past year, the SRI portfolios have outperformed the standard portfolios. It would be helpful if this comparison was shared publicly.

★ ★ Green cred: While its SRI small-holdings account puts 27% into a solid cleantech fund, overall its portfolios include a number of fossil fuel and pipeline companies. The presence of Jantzi Social Index ETF only compounds the problem, with some questionable holdings like Imperial Oil (Canada’s Exxon subsidiary).

Correction: Wealthsimple’s world-changing score has been updated.

The post How green are your “responsible” robo-advisors? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

But two days before the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement in December, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg shared a sobering video statement with her 17 million social media followers: “At the current emission rate, our remaining CO2 budgets for 1.5 degrees will be completely gone within seven years, long before we have a chance to deliver on our 2030 or 2050 targets.”

Translation: We’re speeding toward climate catastrophe, and we are running out of time to act.

Forty-eight hours later, on December 12, world leaders beamed in to the virtual UN Climate Ambition Summit, what was meant to be the starting-gun event for the “sprint to Glasgow” (the location of the next big UN climate conference, next fall). But rather than demonstrating the “surge in ambition” the UN had hoped for, dozens of countries delivered a steady stream of incremental pledges and lofty 2050 targets. There was little in the way of short-term action plans aggressive enough to meet them, however.

With mass street protests not an option, Thunberg is rallying her supporters around a new strategy: a public information campaign. It doesn’t sound particularly revolutionary, but, she says, most people are still not aware of how dire the situation is, and we can’t “treat something like a crisis unless we understand the emergency.”

A growing chorus of experts says the 18-year-old is right on the money about climate change having a communication problem. But making people aware and engaged isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Communications researchers warn against telling people that their top concern should be the climate crisis when they have every reason to worry about the impact COVID-19 is having on their health and finances first. They point out that bombarding people with alarming climate facts can catalyze some to act, yes, but it can also backfire.

Psychologist Renee Lertzman tells Yale Climate Connections that frightening facts can trigger anger, anxiety and despair, making people shut down and push information away.

If there’s one thing “pandemic fatigue” has already proven, it’s that the pull to look the other way and return to the rhythm of our normal routines is strong. Isaac Newton would point out it’s the first law of physics. Inertia, after all, is the tendency of an object to resist change in its velocity.

Author George Marshall has spent years writing about how our brains are wired to ignore climate change. He co-founded the U.K.-based climate communications non-profit Climate Outreach to research the most effective strategies for engaging people of all political stripes and values. His team has led research in the U.K., Alberta, the U.S. and across Europe on overcoming polarization through public engagement. Pointing to parallels with mass COVID vaccination programs, he writes that “countries with well-informed citizens will readily accept the vaccine; countries with poorly engaged citizens will foster grassroots resistance. Opposition to vaccines mimics skepticism around climate change, often following exactly the same political fault lines.”

Those fault lines can rip through climate progress at the drop of an election. Populist politicians like former U.S. President Trump, Brazil’s Bolsonaro and Russia’s Putin deftly turned climate policy into a lightning rod for wider social discontent, he notes. Vested interests throw matches on the fire by fuelling disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories. Even France saw its gas tax overturned in 2018 after “yellow jacket” protesters rioted, chanting that government elites were worried about the end of the world while “we’re worried about the end of the month.”

Pandemic fatigue has already proven that the pull to look the other way and return to the rhythm of our normal routines is strong.

Similar protests in Ecuador led to fuel subsidies being reinstated there in 2019. And now that Canada’s carbon price is set to triple in the coming decade, Broadbent Institute policy fellow Brendan Haley worries that carbon pricing is unlikely to receive the required political support it needs to ever reach its 2030 level. “We’re likely to see conservative movements exploit people’s economic insecurities by directing their anger against carbon pricing, as we’ve seen in Ontario and Alberta.”

Building bridges

Besides the promise of a just transition that offers good blue- and green-collar jobs, psychologists, social scientists and communications experts agree that building and sustaining broad public support across the political spectrum will need opportunities-based communication that doesn’t gloss over the hard realities of the challenge ahead, particularly for the working class.

In 2018, Climate Outreach worked with the Calgary-headquartered Pembina Institute and 75 partner organizations to hold 55 workshops that explored ways of engaging Albertans in a constructive climate conservation, looking for common ground and new ways of talking. They were sensitive to the reality that Albertans have been struggling through successive recessions and many have felt angered and alienated by the climate movement. What worked? People responded most positively to cooperative language, respectfully recognizing the contributions fossil fuels made to the Canadian economy, acknowledging the need to diversify the Albertan economy to shift away from overdependency on oil’s boom–bust cycle, and emphasizing that while an energy transition will “not be easy,” renewables could offer the next big economic “boom.”

It’s partly why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s campaign south of the border got political traction by going into Rust Belt states and talking green jobs for the working class and building back better while noting that the “road ahead will not be easy.” But without a vision for the future and a clearly articulated plan for how all Canadians fit into it, as Climate Action Network’s Catherine Abreu recently cautioned, many Canadians won’t know where their prosperity and jobs will come from as we shift away from fossil fuels. “Politicians who are standing in the way of climate action [will] have a leg to stand on as long as those Canadians are convinced that they won’t be able to profit in that future.”

“To generate lasting engagement, we need to deeply engage with people through information and imagery that’s consistent with their values.”

— Yale’s Matthew Goldberg

Social scientists at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication have been studying the science of climate-crisis communication since 2005, with the mission to help governments, media, companies and advocates communicate more effectively. Researchers there recently reviewed key insights from the literature on what leads to enduring change. Yale’s Matthew Goldberg summed up his findings in a nutshell: “To generate lasting engagement, we need to deeply engage with people through information and imagery that is consistent with their values, disposition and group identity.” His advice: “Emphasize personally relevant reasons to care about the environment and emphasize that most other people feel the same way.”

Will 2021 be the turning point for the climate?

Climate scientists are clear that we need to go much further, much faster. Social scientists say we won’t get there without building a broad social mandate fuelled by thoughtful, well-funded public engagement strategies that are tailored to both communities and regions.

Canada, luckily, has a head start. Nearly 80% of Canadians agree that the world is facing a climate emergency, and recent Environics polling revealed that “six in 10 Canadians believe now is the time for the federal government to make major changes to fix long-standing problems in society” such as inequality, racism and the climate crisis.

But as Marshall writes, “If we are realistic about the challenges of reducing emissions, we need to be realistic about what will be required from people. Achieving these targets, transforming personal behaviours and dismantling the global fossil fuel industry will require an exceptional level of public understanding, support and a broad-based mandate for action.”

It turns out that all signatories to the Paris Agreement, including Canada, committed to Article 12: “enhancing climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information.” So far, no wealthy nations have delivered ambitious or well-funded policies for climate change engagement. But as COVID-19 has proven, this would be money well spent, Marshall concludes.

As Bill McKibben recently wrote in The New Yorker, “If civilization is to have a chance … the big, hard breaks with the status quo have to come in the next nine years … It’s clearly physically and financially possible to do what needs to be done. (Much of the cost of the transition can be covered simply because each year we will be spending less to buy fuel.) But beating both inertia and vested interests will be, as usual, the trick.”

The financial clout of those vested interests wanes with each passing year. But as McKibben adds, the rapid action needed will require going far faster than economics alone can push us, and far faster than politicians will find comfortable – even though more of the world’s governments are increasingly saying the right things. “They will need the forces of the past decade – the engineering triumphs and the movement-building – to keep accelerating in order to provide the required push.”

With 10 months until world leaders gather for the next big climate summit, Corporate Knights asked nine luminaries to share their thoughts on how we can break though our climate inertia, mend emerging fault lines and deepen the foundations of public support for the kind of rapid climate action that scientists are calling for. The clock is ticking. If 2021 is to be the turning point for the climate, we’ll need every citizen, business, banker and politician to join the race.

The post Breaking through our climate inertia appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Yet despite all that, today’s young people remain resilient and determined to better the world, as Deloitte’s Global Millennial Survey of millennials and Gen Zs across 43 countries found. “They are deeply affected by the pandemic but seem able to see opportunity in the darkness,” said Deloitte analysts in June, noting that the battle-hardened generation isn’t just “hoping for a better world to emerge after the COVID-19 pandemic releases its grip on society – they want to lead the change.”

Eight months after Canadian schools and workplaces first shuttered, today’s young people know there’s work to be done, and as the world’s future leaders, they’re finding creative ways to do it all during a global pandemic. They’re taking to the streets and to the boardrooms calling for racial justice, they’re pushing their workplaces and businesses to embrace a higher purpose, they’re determined torchbearers of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and they’re making their voices heard, demanding a more equitable, caring and green economic recovery.

When Corporate Knights, with support from Telus, opened up this year’s 30 under 30 nominations to the public, we were overwhelmed by an astonishing list of accomplished candidates. Nominations for the list opened in June with only two requirements: nominees must be under age 30 and either work in Canada or be a Canadian working abroad.

An internal team brought the submissions down to a shortlist of 50, then a panel of judges each submitted their top 30 picks and the votes were tallied. Narrowing the list was harder than ever, but the final 30 sustainability champs are an awe-inspiring group of Indigenous leaders, social entrepreneurs, non-profit founders, cleantech champions and beyond.

The list is in no particular order, but we do offer a word of warning: reading these bios is sure to inspire and energize you to get involved in building back better from the pandemic – and to join the growing roll call of youth leaders shaping the #nextnormal.

There is an army of young sustainability leaders in Canada who deserve recognition for the great work they do. Be sure to let us know about any change-makers under 30 that you think should be considered when nominations open again in the spring of 2021.

Three judges helped us to select this year’s final 30:

Susan Uthayakumar
President, Schneider Electric

Terri Lynn Morrison
Director of strategic partnerships, Indigenous Clean Energy

Adria Vasil
Managing editor of Corporate Knights and bestselling
Ecoholic author

Autumn Peltier
16, Wiikwemkoong First Nation, Anishinabek Nation chief water commissioner

Autumn Peltier was eight when she attended one of her great-aunt Josephine Mandamin’s water ceremonies and ducked out to use the restroom. “I noticed these signs on the wall that read ‘Not for consumption,’ ‘Boil water advisory,’ ‘Not for hand washing.’ I felt sad to see younger kids running around me [who] had no idea what clean water was from a tap.” Five years later, Autumn was addressing the UN General Assembly, urging world leaders to protect our sacred waters. Today, the internationally renowned water advocate is the chief water commissioner of the Wiikwemkoong First Nation (replacing her now-deceased great-aunt), using her platform to advocate for First Nations communities that need help getting clean water and new water-treatment plants. What advice would this water warrior offer to youth who feel hopeless about the future? “Keep using [your] voices to speak up for the future and for the planet. We need to act today and not wait 10 to 15 years.”

Steve Petterson
28, Vancouver, executive director, National Social Value Fund

Steve Petterson’s first plan was to go into traditional investment banking. Then, a third-year social enterprise course at the University of British Columbia set him on a different path. “It was the small spark that quickly became a burning interest in impact investing.” While working as an impact investor at Helder Ventures in Vancouver, Steve created the National Social Value Fund, a non-profit group that provides experiential education programming in the social investment space by empowering youth to run their own community-based impact funds. NSVF now supports youth-led funds in five Canadian cities that invest in social enterprises that are underserved by the current impact-investing market. “There is a gap in the ecosystem right now in being able to support these organizations really well. Our social value fund model is one solution.”

Kehkashan Basu
20, Toronto, founder, Green Hope Foundation

Dubai-raised Toronto resident Kehkashan Basu is a powerful global voice for her generation. This winner of the 2016 International Children’s Peace Prize has spoken at more than 165 United Nations and other global forums across 25 countries. By the time she was 12, she’d founded her own social innovation enterprise, the Green Hope Foundation, whose 208 environment academies have empowered more than 97,000 young people in 15 countries, from the most marginalized sections of civil society. That same year this trailblazer also became the youngest-ever global coordinator for the UN Environment Programme’s Major Group for Children and Youth. She says we need systems in place to enable youth to decide their future for themselves. “[Youth] continue to be marginalised in all forms of decision-making. It is absolutely imperative that we have a seat at the table.” Her five-year plan? Expand Green Hope into 15 more countries and plant one million trees, all by 2025.

Nadine Pinto
27, Toronto, sustainability manager, TreadRight & The Travel Corporation

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the travel industry to an abrupt standstill in 2020, devastating many communities that depend on tourism. Although it’s still unclear when global leisure travel will resume, Nadine Pinto’s work at The Travel Corporation (which owns 40 travel brands in 70 countries) and its non-profit, TreadRight, involves developing ways to ensure that travellers can venture out sustainably when the gates open. Those tools include identifying the carbon footprint of trips, identifying low-emission transportation, sourcing new travel routes to relieve over-tourism, and establishing Make Travel Matter experiences that benefit both the traveller and the destination communities, in line with the UN SDGs. As Nadine explains, “Businesses are well positioned to see through long-term sustainability goals and create real change that has a measurable impact. I’m fortunate to do just that in my work.”

Truzaar Dordi
29, Waterloo, PhD candidate in climate finance, University of Waterloo

“As we approach what will be the largest transfer of wealth in human history, youth will play a pivotal role in how that money is invested,” says Truzaar Dordi. His research, which examines pathways for a just, low-carbon transition through social and financial movements, has earned him an Energy Policy Research Fellowship with the Energy Council of Canada. Truzaar’s research on stranded assets in particular seeks to reconcile Canada’s commitment to the Paris Agreement with its role as a major exporter of oil from the emissions-intensive oil sands. He also co-founded a regional chapter of Sustainable Youth Canada and led a team to host two What can YOUth Do? sustainability conferences, connecting more than 300 community members and 30 local organizations on environmental sustainability.

Cheyenne Sundance
23, Toronto, founder, Sundance Harvest

While travelling and working on a friend’s farm in Cuba, Cheyenne Sundance picked up more than just basic agriculture skills; she learned about radical social change, cooperative farming and what oppression in the food system looks like. Once back in Toronto, Cheyenne says, “I needed to create a new tool for food justice that looked very different from anything being done in my city.” Her food-justice-centred urban farm, Sundance Harvest, now grows food year-round and offers free 12-week training and mentorship programs to low-income marginalized youth. Its graduates are offered resources, including land and seeds, to start their own farms. Cheyenne’s goal is for her community to grow a lifelong connection to the earth, and she wants the most marginalized in the food system, particularly BIPOC, LGBTQ2S+ and disabled youth, to become its leaders. Says Cheyenne, “The fact that I can help jump-start radical projects towards change makes me happy.”

John McNally
26, Ottawa, research associate, Smart Prosperity Institute

John McNally was 17 when he volunteered at a rescue centre for injured wildlife in the Peruvian Amazon. He soon discovered that the lumber used to build the cages to protect the animals was delivered cheaply by poachers, whose livelihoods depended on cutting down trees illegally. That was the moment John realized that inclusive growth and prosperity go hand in hand with environmental sustainability. Today, as a research associate with the Smart Prosperity Institute and one of the lead researchers supporting Canada’s Task Force for a Resilient Recovery, John designs solutions that support progress toward a net-zero transition in Canada’s post-COVID economic recovery. “I’m drawn to the strategy to grow clean competitiveness and jobs across Canada, in particular,” John explains. “This strategy has a comparatively small price tag, but once the economy is recovered, it lays the foundation for further GHG reductions and investment for decades to come.”

Sarah Hanson
24, Ottawa, Youth Forum coordinator, Experiences Canada; North American regional director, Youth4Nature

As an Anishinaabe from Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, Sarah Hanson knows that many Indigenous people don’t see their perspectives on well-being and self-determination reflected in the environmental movement. She is determined to bring an Indigenous voice to some of Canada’s sustainability and youth networks, including as director of participants for Leading Change Canada, in addition to her roles at Experiences Canada and Youth4Nature. “Being an older Indigenous youth, with most of my family still living in my home community, the issues that youth face today are deeply personal to me,” she explains. “I hold the burden of knowledge on the experiences of Indigenous people within what is currently Canada, in spaces that are discussing health, education and well-being without this critical perspective. Practically speaking, this means hours of brainstorming.”

Anastasia Boutziouvis
28, Guelph, specialist, GRE&T Centre, Alectra Utilities

With more Canadians adopting clean grid-edge technologies, be they solar panels or electric vehicles, utility companies are faced with new challenges. The pilot project that Anastasia Boutziouvis manages at Alectra Utilities is working toward solving those challenges while seizing the opportunities that are inherent in clean innovation. Set to launch to a select group of Alectra customers in 2021, GridExchange is a blockchain-backed energy platform that allows customers to make transactions within an energy marketplace, earning rewards and compensation as incentives. As project manager, Anastasia oversees all aspects of the clean energy trading platform, including the web and mobile apps, testing the platform with real energy sources in Alectra’s microgrid lab. “I want to help scale the solutions I’m working on beyond pilot stages to hopefully thousands, and possibly millions, of Canadians over the next five years.”

Taylor McCarten
29, Victoria, founder, Build a Better Earth

After graduating from the University of Victoria’s MBA in Sustainable Innovation program in 2019, Taylor McCarten co-founded Build a Better Earth, a consumer product company that transforms waste into resources. The company’s first product, BinBreeze, is a green-bin additive that encourages households and businesses to compost by controlling odours and fruit flies. With their products already available in Sobeys and Canadian Tire stores, the Build a Better Earth team will pitch their wares on CBC’s Dragon’s Den in the fall, with plans to expand into other grocery retailers and restaurants. On starting a social enterprise from scratch, Taylor says, “If you want to learn how to walk on your own, you have to accept that you will fall flat on your face at times. But once you realize that there’s almost always a way to get back up, the path becomes an easier one to walk.”

Larissa Sequeira
26, Toronto, senior advisor, Mantle314

“Future-oriented organizations are facing growing pressure from investors, peers and consumers for climate action,” Larissa Sequeira explains, “and there isn’t one clear path forward.” In her role as a senior advisor at Mantle314, a Toronto-based climate consultancy, Larissa navigates the risks and opportunities of climate change for public- and private-sector clients. She uses her background in civil engineering to advise large Canadian municipalities on integrating a climate lens into their core operations and to develop strategies for low-carbon, resilient assets. She has secured more than $70 million in intergovernmental funding for climate-resilient infrastructure, and her work with the Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure and the National Research Council of Canada has advanced procurement of lower carbon construction materials across Canada. Larissa also serves on the infrastructure advisory committee for the Principles for Responsible Investment network.

John Lau
25, Ottawa, policy research analyst, Natural Resources Canada

As a clean-energy policy expert, John Lau knows first-hand how much work is involved in ensuring that Canada meets its pledge to be net-zero by 2050. “Achieving net-zero emissions will require significant collaboration,” he says. Besides keeping tabs on how the federal, provincial and territorial governments are implementing the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, John has been working to ensure that Canada’s clean-energy transition enlists participation and support from all Canadians and stakeholders, including industry, Indigenous Peoples and marginalized communities. While meeting our climate goals is a herculean task for government and industry, he finds hope in everyday Canadians. “Canadians from coast to coast are eager to contribute to the transition to a low-carbon economy and are increasingly telling governments that combatting climate change should be at the forefront of policy agendas.”

Dayna Stein
29, Toronto, founder, bare market

Before founding one of Toronto’s first zero-waste stores, Dayna Stein worked as a sustainable food systems consultant. In 2017, she decided to launch a package-free pop-up shop; now bare market is a brick-and-mortar one-stop store for package-free goods. Customers were encouraged to bring their own containers to load up on sustainably sourced food, as well as body-care, home-care and DIY products – until the pandemic brought product refills to a halt. Dayna has now developed a COVID-friendly, low-waste in-store shopping model. While the explosion of single-use plastics during the pandemic has caused a lot of backlash in the zero-waste movement, Dayna hopes that stores like hers can help spark change on larger and more complex waste issues: “Canada needs top-down policies, local funding, monitoring and evaluation reporting, and accountability for corporations and municipalities that don’t comply.”

Maxime Lakat
21, Montreal, chair, Canadian Business Youth Council for Sustainable Development

Maxime Lakat wants to change the perception business leaders have of youth – and ensure that youth have the tools they need to effect change. “The 2030 agenda is about intergenerational equity, valuing the present and future generations, and youth need to be at the table to achieve that world.” Maxime has been advocating for business schools to modernize their curricula to teach students how to harness the $12 trillion in business opportunities that the 2030 UN SDGs represent. As founder and chair of the Canadian Business Youth Council for Sustainable Development and co-president of the Desautels Sustainability Network at McGill University, the 21-year-old co-created the first Montreal Youth Summit on Sustainable Business. Maxime and a coalition of youth organizations have been collaborating with some of the Corporate Knights Best Corporate Citizens in Canada to ensure that youth have an active role in rebuilding Canada’s post-COVID economy.

Cyrielle Noël
28, Montreal, program specialist, Ocean Wise’s Ocean Bridge program

Cyrielle Noël has long been drawn to the enigmatic qualities of both urban spaces and coastal environments and the reciprocal relationship between humans and the environment. With a background in spatial planning, she noticed how most Montrealers are cut off from their urban coastal environment and founded Eau-Dacité Waterway Festival to heal that disconnect through visual and performance-based art. Cyrielle is now a program specialist for Ocean Wise’s Ocean Bridge program, supporting service projects for waterway conservation and health, and experiential environmental education opportunities for youth. “I’m most passionate about promoting youth entrepreneurship and innovation in the ‘blue economy.’ Since Canada has the longest coastline in the world, there is potential to leverage youth talent in order to become a global leader in blue affairs.”

Manvi Bhalla,
Janaya Campbell,
Christina Di Carlo,
Samantha Casey
22–24, Ontario, co-founder and executive team, Shake Up the Establishment

“The greatest misconception we face is the political disengagement of youth,” says Manvi Bhalla, one of the co-founders of Shake Up the Establishment. “Our existence and the support we have received speaks volumes about youth engagement in politics.” Founded in 2019 by a group of University of Guelph alumni, Shake Up the Establishment is a registered national non-profit that disseminates information about the environmental platforms of political parties and candidates and helps improve climate and political literacy through the creation of free, accessible, scientifically backed resources. The group offers easy-to-understand news and information about climate adaptation and mitigation, Indigenous sovereignty, health, and transitioning to a clean economy, in addition to explaining legislation and electoral candidate platforms. Manvi explains, “Our hope is that youth will understand you do not need a political or environmental background to advocate for change.”

Saif Malhem
29, Montreal, project manager, SEED AI; founder, Greien

Saif Malhem is driven to find cleantech solutions to the climate crisis. As an immigrant to Canada from Jordan, he “saw first-hand the commonalities of the human experience,” he says. “I found my purpose in developing and deploying technology with soul, technology that embraces and operationalizes human values.” His journey in cleantech and AI began with an internship at the Clinton Global Initiative, after which he founded Greien, designed to accelerate Canada’s trajectory as a cleantech innovator by matching undergraduate students with cleantech start-ups. While cleantech is on the rise, Saif says deployment is still too slow. “The power of AI lies in augmenting our ability to do more, faster and with higher precision.” He’s led the AI team at ABB Canada and is now bringing together the top three Canadian AI R&D centres to pilot AI-powered cleantech solutions. Says Saif, “Exciting developments are ahead of us!”

Beth Eden
24, Waterloo, SDG and sustainability consultant

In her talks to the United Nations, the U.K. Parliament and various conferences around the globe, Beth Eden works to transform conversations about the climate crisis into action. “Although the climate crisis is a global problem,” she says, “our individual experiences and perceptions of it are very different.” Beth has been heavily focused on bringing the UN SDGs to fruition: through her work at SDSN Youth, part of the UN’s global Sustainable Development Solutions Network; as co-founder of the Impact Alliance at the University of Waterloo; and as co-chair of the impAct initiative for CICan, which works to implement the SDGs at 150 Canadian colleges. As a member of the City of Waterloo’s Sustainability Advisory Committee, Beth co-wrote a climate report advising the city on setting a carbon budget and broadening the scope of its emissions. Those recommendations were unanimously approved by city councillors and led to the declaration of a climate emergency in Waterloo.

Graeme Reed
28, Ottawa, senior advisor, Assembly of First Nations

As an Assembly of First Nations senior advisor of mixed Anishinaabe and European descent, it’s Graeme Reed’s job to hold federal and international policy-makers accountable for ensuring that their climate policies respect and safeguard First Nations rights, jurisdiction and knowledge. That also applies to pandemic-recovery discussions. “The concept of ‘building back better,’” he explains, “is not value-neutral. We must recognize the history of colonization, land dispossession and systemic racism as a starting point to recovery discourse. Canada must support self-determined Indigenous climate leadership in all of these efforts.” Graeme has represented the AFN at three UN climate talks and worked with Chiefs to pass a resolution at the AFN Annual General Assembly declaring a First Nations climate emergency. All the while, he is working on his PhD at the University of Guelph, researching the intersection of Indigenous governance, environmental governance and the climate crisis.

Madeleine Orr
26, Montreal, founder, Sport Ecology Group

During the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Madeleine Orr witnessed first-hand the pollution and waste created during the massive sporting event. In 2019, the assistant professor of sports management at SUNY Cortland founded the Sport Ecology Group, a non-profit academic consortium dedicated to bridging the gap between sport sustainability research and practice. She has since helped major sporting events, including the NCAA Women’s Final Four basketball tournament, to reduce their climate impacts, advising franchises, leagues, managers, athletes and coaches on how to shrink their environmental footprints. She also encourages them to partner with firms that are women- or minority-owned and -operated: “It’s important for sport organizations to leverage their massive platforms and popularity to promote sustainable and equitable solutions and policies.”

Charles Beaudry
27, Montreal and Quebec City, mobilizer, Accélérer 2030 pour le Québec

Quebec currently has no provincial plan or public policies that give organizations an incentive to implement the UN SDGs, but Charles Beaudry, the mobilizer of Accélérer 2030 pour le Québec consortium, has been working on rectifying that by developing a coalition of more than 50+ organizations dedicated to accelerating that mission. “I became interested in the relationships between a variety of stakeholders to achieve common objectives, which eventually led me to this type of work,” Charles says. Unveiled in spring 2020, Accélérer 2030 pour le Québec nurtures partnerships between governments, the private, philanthropic, academic and plural sectors to guide Quebec’s prosperity in alignment with the SDGs and a fair and green recovery. “I hope to grow this movement in Quebec in order to have an international voice for the SDGs, both nationally and internationally.”

Anna-Kay Russell
27, Toronto, director of strategy and governance, Leading Change Canada

Anna-Kay Russell is an environmental policy professional and community leader on a mission: she’s engaging governments, corporations, non-profits and youth in the transition to an equitable, low-carbon world. As the manager of public affairs for WoodGreen Community Services and the co-founder of the Canadian Black Policy Network, Anna-Kay fosters platforms for underrepresented voices in the policy process. “All organizations, including sustainability- and climate-focused ones, need to start looking critically at the spaces they take up and question, ‘Who is here, and who isn’t here but should be?’” Appointed to CivicAction’s Re:Action Task Force, she’s working to ensure that a diverse set of voices are included at the decision-making table as the City of Toronto maps out its COVID-19 recovery plans. Says Russell, “We can’t build back better and achieve a sustainable future if it is not sustainable for all.”

Ahsan Syed
28, London, U.K.; climate change consultant, ERM (Environmental Resources Management)

Ahsan Syed started his career at Cap-Op Energy (now Radicle Balance) in Calgary, helping to decarbonize the oil and gas industry by advising on projects that curb 500,000 tonnes of CO2e annually. During that time, this cleantech enthusiast also served as the projects chair of the Emerging Leaders for Solar Energy Alberta Chapter. Ahsan moved to the U.K. to pursue an MSc in environmental policy at the London School of Economics on a Chevening scholarship, researching corporate-led approaches to managing plastic waste while working at SYSTEMIQ as a circular economy associate. He now works at Environmental Resources Management as a climate change consultant and also advises hydrogen-focused cleantech start-ups in his spare time. His advice? “It’s important to stay nimble and flexible by focusing on the high-level impact, and not on the business idea.”

Dr. Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers
28, Montreal, president, Association québécoise des médecins pour l’environnement

During her first year at medical school, Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers read a scientific study on how climate change would become the greatest threat to public health in the 21st century. “From that moment on, I simply knew I could not be a doctor without investing in that issue,” she says. Since then, she has worked with the World Health Organization on climate and health, advocated for a health focus on the road to the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, and, last summer, co-founded a citizens’ initiative to mobilize Quebec health professionals in the fight against the climate crisis. Recently, she was invited by the Quebec government to sit on a working committee to design the next provincial climate action plan, all while caring for patients. “Our patients are directly impacted by climate change. If the only way to deliver our treatment is through political and systemic changes, then we ought to do it.”

Tristan Surman
21, Montreal, founder, My Media Creative

In today’s media landscape, resource-rich media empires disproportionately capture our limited attention, while resource-constrained non-profits struggle to get their messages out. That’s why Tristan Surman founded My Media Creative (which provides low-cost or free creative services to non-profits, social enterprises, community organizations and activist groups) with a mission to rebalance society by amplifying underrepresented voices. My Media Creative has run 26 marketing and media campaigns for 22 organizations. Tristan’s advice to young people who want to be more critical consumers of media? “Learn to make things,” he says. “Whether it’s movies or websites or marketing campaigns, once you learn what goes into making media, you will be a much more critical consumer of it. Beyond that, take classes, diversify your content diet and engage with multiple perspectives in person.”

Nabil Ali
28, Toronto, director of programs, International Development and Relief Foundation (IDRF)

As a child of refugees, Nabil Ali always felt a personal connection to the neglect of children in refugee camps. The international development grad moved to Somalia to administer long-term development and humanitarian relief projects for people affected by drought and conflict. He’s also organized the trucking of fresh water to schools in Gaza, helped Rohingya refugees access food and permanent shelters in Bangladesh, and, when the pandemic hit, he helped the IDRF pivot to bring medical support, clean water and food parcels to those in need. Throughout all this, Nabil says, “The questions I continue to ask myself are: What will it take for us to become better humans who are supportive to one another? What can I do to help, so children worldwide never have to think about losing their parents to conflict or never finishing school? These questions drive my work.”

Anjum Sultana
29, Toronto, director of public policy and strategic communications, YWCA Canada

Anjum Sultana was taught from a young age that if you see a barrier, it’s up to you to try to remove it. For Anjum, that means advocating for justice and equity for women and racialized and immigrant communities. “As COVID-19 is showing us, existential threats to humanity, whether it be pandemics or climate change, pose [greater] risks to women and gender-diverse people, as well as Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities.” She has leveraged her expertise to co-author a Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Canada, advocate for the establishment of the Gender Equality Office at the City of Toronto, and push for gender-responsiveness in Canada’s National Housing Strategy. Anjum represented Canada at the 2019 G7 Youth Summit in Paris through Young Diplomats of Canada and uses her voice to advocate for inclusive climate action: “We cannot have true action on climate change without addressing the root causes and impacts of systemic racism and sexism.”

Cedric Gray-Lehoux
28, Quebec City, spokesperson, First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Youth Network

At last year’s Global Climate March in Montreal, organizer and Indigenous youth representative Cedric Gray-Lehoux addressed the crowd of 500,000, alongside Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, with a powerful message: “If we do not protect Mother Earth, Mother Earth will not protect us.” Cedric first became involved with the First Nations Youth Network as a volunteer and ended up being elected its spokesperson. Since then, Cedric has become a leading voice for climate action in Quebec, teaming up with Concordia University on a consultation of First Nations youth across the province, in addition to working as an advisor on justice initiatives at the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission. “As youth, it is our duty to come together and protect the land so that our seven future generations can all have access to a healthy Mother Earth. The very well-being of our peoples relies on this connection.”

Luna Yu
26, Toronto, CEO, Genecis Bioindustries

Genecis was founded in 2017 after Luna Yu and her team recognized that about a third of food becomes organic waste, representing a significant contribution to carbon emissions and a major under-utilization of resources. The award-winning company offers a true circular economy model, for instance by taking food waste from French food-services giant Sodexo and using bacteria to convert that food waste into bioplastics for compostable food containers, packaging and 3D printing materials. While women in the traditionally male-dominated tech sector still battle inequity, Luna sees the silver lining to being a woman in the technology start-up space in Canada. “In fact, it has been an advantage,” she explains. “There are an abundance of resources and programs like NRCan [Natural Resources Canada] and MaRS’s Women in Cleantech Challenge, which exclusively support female entrepreneurs and have supported our success.”

Chúk Odenigbo
27, Gatineau/Calgary, co-founder, The Poison and The Apple; director, Future Ancestors Services

As a Franco-Albertan from Calgary and a Black Canadian, Chúk Odenigbo says he never saw himself reflected in the environmental movement. “I grew up thinking that an environmentalist was someone who wanted to conserve nature at the expense of humanity and progress.” The doctoral student in medical geography at the University of Ottawa co-founded the non-profit The Poison and The Apple to create cultural change by finding innovative ways to help people connect with nature so they, too, can become stewards for the environment. Having worked in a variety of sectors, including oil and gas, fashion, and academia, the director of Future Ancestors Services, an Indigenous- and Black-owned, youth-led enterprise, now offers speaking, training and research services on the importance of being a good ancestor for future generations. “My green dream is to have Canadians see themselves as a part of nature.”

This project was made possible with the support of our sponsor

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Just when the movement against single-use plastic was picking up steam, COVID-19 scared us into consuming 250 to 300% more single-use plastic than we used pre-pandemic, according to estimates from the International Solid Waste Association. A good chunk of that has been tough to avoid: particularly the 129 billion face masks and 65 billion gloves now used globally every month. Of course, we’re also valiantly fulfilling our civic duty to stay home and binge-watch Netflix while ordering record levels of plastic-wrapped deliveries – which explains how Uber Eats revenue grew by 103% in the second quarter of this year and Amazon earnings surged by 40%. Not surprisingly, Ontario reported that residential waste was up the equivalent of “more than 600 full garbage trucks” for the period of March 9 to April 13 alone.

It’s no wonder that while the global lockdown sent oil profits plunging, some oil refiners are betting big on a more promising long-term market: petroleum-based plastics. As Oilprice.org recently noted, from India to China, “Asian oil producers have begun to double down on massive integrated refineries capable of converting more than a million barrels of oil per day into petrochemicals, the key building blocks of plastics.” With plastic set to become the largest driver of oil demand, the sector’s emissions could reach a whopping 1.34 gigatons per year by 2030 –that’s equivalent to the emissions released by more than 295 new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants, according to the Center for International Environmental Law. 

Summer 2020 has also delivered a string of disheartening reports on some of the victims of our plastic habits. This week, the Associated Press reported that as Big Oil pivots to plastic, it’s also pressuring Africa to accept a flood of plastic waste. And according to research published last month in Nature, more than 10 times as much plastic debris is hidden beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean than we previously thought. That includes about 200 million tonnes of microplastic particles swirling around the frigid Atlantic. Also hot off the summer newswire: micro and nanoplastics are turning up in every human organ and tissue sample, as well as those of shark and seafood, tested. Did I mention that even without COVID, the annual flow of plastic into the ocean is on track to nearly triple from 2016 to 2040? 

Worse still, a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts and Systemiq concluded that even if governments around the world meet all their pre-pandemic commitments to ban plastic straws and bags and major corporations stick with their pledges to ensure that all their plastic is recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025, it will put only a 7% dent in all the plastic destined to pour into our seas by 2040. 

But honestly, there’s only so much doom-scrolling the average person can handle before we need some clear signs from business, government and civil society that plastic pollution solutions are at hand. 

So now what? Building back better by closing the loop on plastic

Thankfully, there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. Incoming federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has signalled that her government plans to push ahead with a green economic recovery when Parliament reconvenes in September, joining the EU, South Korea, Chile and other nations that are pledging to build back more sustainably. 

To shift from our current reality, where Canada sends 87% of plastics to landfill every year (trashing $7.8 billion worth of plastics annually), to a thriving zero-waste economy, that green recovery package will need to tie stimulus spending to low-carbon, circular-economy goals. In Ontario, a coalition of 52 environmental groups has put forward a number of ideas the whole country should consider. They’re urging Ontario to start making recycling mandatory for industrial, institutional and commercial sectors (now responsible for 65% of all waste) and to ensure that all recycling costs are covered by packaging producers, not cash-strapped municipalities. The groups – including the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation and dozens of green non-profits – are also pushing for incentives for producers to design out waste as well as minimum-recycled-content targets. 

The Recycling Council of Ontario says that mandating strong minimum-recycled-content requirements will help revive Canada’s domestic recycling infrastructure. Plastic just so happens to be Canada’s fastest growing manufacturing sector – but much of that ($10 billion worth annually) is focused on making virgin plastic, according to a study commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada. Rapidly falling oil prices have only made virgin plastic cheaper, which has been bad news for recycled plastic. To combat that imbalance, the EU is moving to slap a tax on non-recycled plastic packaging in the new year. A Corporate Knights white paper on building back better by greening industry suggests that the federal government can encourage new circular, zero-waste facilities with tax incentives, as well as clear regulations and procurement policies that support zero-waste businesses. 

An upcoming Oceana Canada report has more helpful advice for the feds, like banning all trade of virtually unrecyclable plastics to developing countries so we stop fuelling plastic pollution problems around the globe. 

If the feds want to build back better, advocates all seem to agree on one thing: Canada needs to move ahead with its commitment to ban unnecessary single-use plastic products by next year. In the early days of the pandemic, the plastic industry urged North American cities, states, provinces and grocery chains to put their plastic bag bans on pause, calling them “a public safety risk.” It’s since become clear that plastic lobbyists were wrong about a couple of things. Studies have found that COVID lives three times longer on plastic surfaces (including disposable bags and food wrappers) than paper. And, either way, scrubbing down our plastic-wrapped groceries with disinfectant wipes has turned out to be more misdirected anxiety than anything else, since COVID is largely an airborne virus. (More than 100 virologists, epidemiologists and doctors from 18 countries released a statement in June noting that “single-use plastic is not inherently safer than reusables.”)

But COVID-19 has made Canadians nervous. New polling from Dalhousie University found that while 79% of Canadians still want stronger regulations on plastic, many of us admit to buying more single-use plastic food packaging during the pandemic, and 52% feel regulations should wait until after COVID-19 is resolved. Nonetheless, jurisdictions from New York to Newfoundland and Labrador are now moving ahead with bans on single-use plastic bags that were paused during the pandemic. Some, like PEI and Sobeys, never suspended their bans – and neither should the rest of Canada. 

Combine those bans on problematic plastic with deeper systemic shifts to a fully circular economy and the Pew/Systemiq study suggests that the amount of plastic flowing into the oceans could be slashed by up to 80% over the next 20 years. That would be good news for the Great Lakes too, which are now flooded with 10,000 tonnes of plastic every year.

This time last year, hundreds of mayors, heads of state and CEOs around the world were tripping over each other to proclaim that they had seen and heard the public’s outcry against plastic pollution. Fast forward 12 months and there’s no denying that COVID-19 has set back the movement against single-use plastics, but the pandemic could, in the long run, be helpful – 

– if we take this breather to reflect, hit reset and build the future we want. That means Canada needs to ensure our economic recovery plans have green strings attached – fully reusable strings, of course. 

Back at Woodbine Beach, a couple of us pull out garbage bags and stop to pick up whatever litter we can, trying to stem the flow of trash washing into our waterways.  We’re heading back for another clean-up Sept. 20. It’s a small act, but if business and government pitch in to build a truly zero-waste economy that spits out less single-use straws, cups, forks and, yes, masks, we can start turning the tide. 

A version of this story appeared in the Toronto Star.

The post Curing the plastic pollution pandemic appeared first on Corporate Knights.

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

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

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

Three things have become clear over the last 50 years:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following judges helped us select the Green 50:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  – Anita Roddick, Body Shop co-founder

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

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

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

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

To Do: Scale production and bring down costs.

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

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

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

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

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

IKEA, 1990, Early adapter of Natural Step framework

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catalyst: Growing calls for energy savings drove market innovations.

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

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

Interface, 1994, Launch of the Mission Zero program

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Do: Eliminate lead from the manufacturing process.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catalyst: WWF, Wildlands League.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seventh Generation, 2007,  Becomes founding member of B Corp

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catalyst: Greenpeace, WWF.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plastic Bank, 2013, Turns plastic waste into currency

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

Catalyst: Ocean plastic pollution, global poverty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philips, 2014, Pioneered circularity as a service

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catalyst: China’s worsening smog and climate crisis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catalyst: Employee activism, Greenpeace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catalyst: Investor pressure, economic interests.

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

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

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

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

Catalyst: Employee activism, the climate crisis.

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

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

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

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

Of course, that was before the coronavirus began pummelling the economy. COVID-19 is only deepening our desire to support companies that behave nobly and put people and planet ahead of profits.

It just so happens that corporations with better environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores are proving themselves to be more financially resilient during the pandemic. Yes, sustainably minded funds have taken a big hit because of COVID-19, but Bloomberg found that they have been outperforming their conventional peers. Bloomberg’s analysis of 2,800 responsible investing (or RI, also known as sustainable, socially responsible or ethical investing) funds globally found that the average RI fund has fallen by about 12% this year as of March 12. That stings, but it’s just half the decrease seen by the S&P 500 Index over the same period.

According to Ipsos polling released by RBC Global Asset Management in January, two thirds of Canadians surveyed say they’re interested in RI. Nearly three out of four believe RI is “the way of the future.”

So why do so few Canadian banks offer any sustainably focused investing options?

Most bank advisors are poorly informed about ethical options

Corporate Knights anonymously visited Toronto branches of the Big Five banks in January and inquired about ethical investing. While some bank advisors were enthusiastic and fairly well informed, many advisors didn’t know whether their banks offered ethical investments or what those offerings entailed. Some advisors downright discouraged us from putting our savings into RIs. Notably, BMO and RBC were the only two banks that had dedicated RI funds.

The Toronto-based Responsible Investment Association (RIA) did its own polling with Ipsos in 2019 and found that while 79% of Canadian respondents would like their financial services provider to inform them about RI options, only 23% have been asked by their banks if they’re interested in RI. That helps explain why only a quarter of Canadians say they already have responsible investments, according to stats from Wealthsimple, BMO and the RIA.

In the U.S., meanwhile, new investments into sustainable funds quadrupled in 2019 compared to 2018 (pulling in a record US$20.6 billion in new money last year), and European investments doubled to a record-busting €120 billion, according to Morningstar.

Push to regulate the wild west of green investing

The tricky part for would-be purchasers is figuring out what investments genuinely align with their values. One CIBC branch advisor told Corporate Knights that “all the mutual funds we offer have gone through these ESG checks.” Ditto for all of RBC’s funds around the globe. That doesn’t mean they screen out any dubious companies or sectors. Only exclusionary funds with negative screens do that – and they may just screen out, say, tobacco and gambling but not thermal coal and oil. Part of the problem is there’s no universal standard for how terms like “ESG,” “low carbon” and “fossil-fuel free” are defined or applied, leaving funds vulnerable to “impact washing.”

Many Canadian ethical fund managers choose not to screen out fossil-fuel companies, instead investing in those they consider sector leaders. Which is fine for some responsible investors – if funds are transparent about it. But after the RIA received flak for listing fossil-fuel-free funds in its directory that were later exposed to contain oil and gas companies, the association is now considering creating a certification process for RI funds in Canada.

It gets even more muddled when retail investors start exploring the wider world of self-directed online trading accounts and robo-advisors (digital platforms such as apps that rely on software to offer financial advice), which often offer access to a number of American and international ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. (Branch-level bank advisors are generally not able to sell ETFs despite their booming popularity.) One ETF known as iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF was called out for having holdings in Shell, Chevron and a number of other high-carbon companies.

To counter potential “impact washing” in Europe, the EU sets standards for the labelling of financial products, mandating that financial advisors disclose the sustainability risks of a finance product to investors, “regardless of the sustainability preferences of the end investors.”

Canada’s federally convened Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance recommended we do something similar here. The panel (which included Tiff Macklem, a Scotiabank director and Rotman School of Management dean, as well as RBC director Andy Chisholm) recommended that Finance Canada create “financial incentive for Canadians to invest in accredited climate-conscious products through their registered savings plans.”

How green are the banks’ own investments and loan books?

Many climate-conscious investors will also want to know just how their banks are dishing out their own money. All five banks have signed on to the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, promising to fold ESG factors into investment decisions, though research by Corporate Knights has found that while the Big Five invest billions in sustainable-solution companies, they also invest billions in controversial weapons, for-profit prisons and severe environmental violators, as well as a number of other themes that would register as egregious on many responsible investors’ radars. All five also have loan books bulging with fossil fuels in relation to their renewable energy lending, putting them at odds with global money trends.

With former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney cautioning that firms that ignore the climate crisis “will go bankrupt without question,” Canadians should be able to readily invest their retirement savings in environmentally-conscious options, sustainable finance champions say

With even central bankers now warning of climate-induced systemic financial crisis and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney cautioning that firms that ignore the climate crisis “will go bankrupt without question,” Canadians should be able to readily invest their retirement savings in climate-conscious options, sustainable-finance champions say.mo

In the meantime, the first RRSP deadline of the new decade gives Canadians a chance to rethink their finances, knowing there are now some options on the shelf that allow them to bank on a sustainable future.

Big Five ethical investing report card

We visited Toronto-area branches of the Big Five banks and asked advisors what ethical or sustainable investment options they offered. Here’s what we found:

Scotiabank

Ethical options: No responsible funds available in branch, though Scotiabank said in a statement that it has “considered” ESG factors in the investment process, and added, “Scotia iTRADE offers sustainable investing tools [online].”

Fossil-fuel-free or climate-conscious funds: No.

Knowledge of adviser: The personal banking adviser was unaware of any sustainable options and returned five minutes later to confirm that no options exist that the bank’s financial advisers were aware of.

Cost of values-aligned portfolio: N/A.

Bank loans and investments (clean vs. dirty): Scotiabank dishes out the second-most oil and gas loans ($14.8 billion), compared to zilch in loans to renewables.

Score: D-

TD Canada Trust

Ethical options: TD Canada discontinued its sustainability funds in 2013, and at this point there are no specific RI-themed­ funds available to Canadians at branch level. TD did not respond to our request for comment.

Fossil-fuel-free or climate-conscious funds: No.

Sustainability knowledge of advisor: One bank advisor was blunt, saying “To be completely honest, most socially aware investment funds don’t make a lot of profit. As such, we don’t have funds that invest in these companies.”

Cost of values-aligned portfolio: N/A.

Bank loans and investments (clean vs. dirty): TD has the smallest oil-and-gas loan book of the Big Five, but its investment book is another story. Among the Big Five, it has the worst ratio of investments in sustainable-solution companies to harmful companies.

Score: D-

CIBC

Ethical options: No specific RI funds. CIBC’s VP of Public Affairs says that “ESG factors are included in our investment process across all funds.”

Fossil-fuel-free or climate-conscious funds: No.

Sustainability knowledge of advisor: Initially, the branch manager said that CIBC has some ethical funds that “don’t invest in tobacco companies or oil companies,” but the manager and a financial advisor weren’t aware of specifics, so they placed a phone call. “We don’t get asked this question frequently,” the manager said. After their call, the manager updated earlier comments: “The good news is there’s no specific mutual funds that actually do that since all the mutual funds we offer have gone through these ESG checks.”

Cost of values-aligned portfolio: N/A.

Bank loans and investments (clean vs. dirty): CIBC says all its funds are filtered through an ESG lens, but it has $2.7 billion, or 6.4% of assets, invested in companies flagged for harmful products and activities, including palm oil deforestation and severe human rights violations. On the bright side, the bank has 9.4% of its investments in companies tagged as sustainable-solution providers, because they earn more than a fifth of their revenue from themes like renewable energy and electric cars. On the loan side, CIBC’s exposure to oil and gas companies is almost five times as large as its renewable energy book.

Score: D

RBC

Ethical options: RBC’s Vision line uses ESG filters to determine holdings while screening out weapons makers, as well as traditional sin stocks like tobacco and alcohol. RBC Vision also has a Women’s Leadership fund.

Fossil-fuel-free or climate-conscious funds: Yes: the RBC Vision Fossil Fuel Free Global Equity Fund. Though a financial planner at one branch said the bank doesn’t offer entirely fossil-free options, suggesting that omitting a whole sector could limit the opportunity to grow. RBC’s Vision Fossil Fuel Free fund actually outperformed RBC’s Global Equity Fund in both 2018 and 2019.

Knowledge of adviser: The financial planner was well versed in the Vision line (besides fossil-free funds) and enthusiastic about the Vision balanced fund, saying it has outperformed RBC’s regular balanced fund (“being green is saving companies a lot of money down the road”).

Cost of values-aligned portfolio: Varies, but many are slightly lower than conventional funds.

Bank loans and investments (clean vs. dirty): Canada’s largest bank has the highest total amount of oil-and-gas loan exposure on its books ($16.4 billion). That’s more than seven times more than its renewable loans, which gets it into trouble with environmental activists, though it also has the biggest ratio of investments in sustainable solutions to harmful companies among the Big Five.

Score: C+

BMO

Ethical options: Branches offer BMO’s Sustainable Opportunities Global Equities mutual fund, as well as a Women in Leadership fund. There are eight new ESG ETFs for self-directed online accounts.

Fossil-fuel-free or climate-conscious funds: Yes: the BMO Sustainable Opportunities fund.

Knowledge of adviser: The personal bank associate was enthusiastic about BMO’s sustainable opportunities fund, explaining that she invests in it herself, but she cautioned that it is mid-to-high risk and is best for longer-term investments. A financial planner follows up via email to discuss ESG options further.

Cost of values-aligned portfolio: Fees vary, but the Sustainable Opportunities fund has a somewhat lower fee than comparable BMO funds. The ESG ETF fees are also priced lower than many non-RI equivalents.

Bank loans and investments (clean vs. dirty): BMO has both the biggest renewable-energy loan book and sustainable-solutions investment book among the Big Five, but it has the largest amount invested in companies classified as “harmful.”

Score: B-

A version of this article appeared in the Toronto Star.

*Note: This article was updated for the Spring Issue of Corporate Knights magazine.

** Sustainable solution investments includes 512 companies in the Corporate Knights database that earn more than 20% of their revenues from products or services (such as reneable energy, energy efficiency, electric cars, public transit and organic food) that benefit the environment or society as tracked by Corporate Knights Radar.

*** Harmful investments include 451 companies in thermal coal, weapons, for-profit prisons, as well as companies with severe human rights and environmental violations, and other types of egregious products and misconduct tracked by Corporate Knights Radar.

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The brawny marketing stunts carried a simple message: electric cars aren’t just for tree-hugging Leaf, Prius and Bolt lovers anymore. The message is timely, with global leaders (including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) committing to carbon pollution targets of “net zero” by 2050, tough new emissions standards coming out of Europe, and a smattering of governments following Norway’s early lead on banning gas-powered-car sales as soon as 2025. For the vast majority of automakers that have cautiously dipped their toes in the EV market, the race to net zero is officially on. But environmental and human rights advocates, along with international heavyweights at the World Bank and World Economic Forum, say there’s an elephant in the showroom. The EV revolution has been racking up a whole supply chain of trouble around the globe (including a recent lawsuit) related to an onslaught of often-contentious new mines opening to meet surging battery-metal demand, not to mention the coming tide of e-waste from old batteries.

If we want to fix this before e-cars take over the roads (30% of car sales should be electric across the EU and North America by 2030, analysts forecast), the time to ensure it’s done right is now. A handful of companies are trying to get out ahead of looming environmental and social risks. So who will be the first to develop a fully ethical battery, and can car companies ensure the EV revolution is green from end to end?

Lithium mines in Chile, Open Commons

The clean-energy mining boom

The transport sector is currently the fastest-growing contributor to the climate crisis, according to the World Resources Institute (with road, rail, air and marine transport accounting for 24% of global CO2 emissions in 2016). Electrified transport – powered by low-carbon grids – could help clear deadly air pollution and cut millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. In the shift from burning planet-cooking fossil fuels to generating and storing clean energy in batteries for our cars and, increasingly, our homes, one thing is certain: batteries are driving demand for more minerals in the low-carbon transition.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that by decade’s end the battery market will be worth $116 billion annually (not including investments in supply chains), up from $14.6 billion in 2017. Trailblazing EV manufacturer Tesla and others have warned that underinvestment in the mineral supply chain will lead to a shortage of nickel and other EV battery minerals down the road. In its 2017 report The Growing Role of Minerals and Metals for a Low Carbon Future, the World Bank forecasted that global demand for low-carbon-economy minerals such as lithium, graphite and nickel will skyrocket by 965%, 383% and 108% respectively by 2050. But two years later, as the World Bank noted that growing demand for minerals offers an “opportunity for mineral-rich developing countries to develop,” it cautioned that “significant challenges will likely emerge if the climate-driven clean energy transition is not managed responsibly and sustainably.”
But those challenges were already lurking.

Cobalt mining, Congo. Image courtesy of Amnesty International

The dark side of green minerals

Amnesty International first thrust the dark side of mining for car- and smartphone-battery minerals into the spotlight in 2016 with a damning investigation into the child labour-plagued cobalt mines of war-torn Congo (home to 60% of global cobalt reserves). Then in late 2019, the issue hit the front pages again when a landmark lawsuit was launched against Tesla and a handful of tech giants on behalf of 14 Congolese families who say their children were seriously injured or killed working in cobalt mines earlier in the year.

With cobalt dubbed the “blood diamond of batteries,” Tesla and others have been slashing their use of the controversial mineral and replacing it with nickel in a move that’s said to prolong range per change. Not that cutting and running from the Congo will help those mining in poverty, say activists, and without tough responsible mining standards in place, other EV minerals end up being called out for bad behaviour, too. The Washington Post recently reported that nickel mines in Indonesia are turning the oceans there red. The draining of water reserves for vast lithium mines in the salt plains of Latin America has been fingered for fuelling water wars, social unrest and mine strikes in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. And a new frontier of destructive deep-sea mining for several green economy minerals has prompted the nation of Fiji, along with Greenpeace and others, to call for an immediate moratorium on the nascent practice.

At a MiningWatch conference in Ottawa in November, the human and environmental implications of this new extractive rush were front and centre. Representatives from Chile, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Congo and northern Canada took the stage one by one, concerned about the green transition being used as justification for running roughshod over their ecosystems and human rights. “The floor is dropping on standards in Peru,” said Ana Leyva Valera, executive director of CooperAcción, through a translator. With increased demand for green technology minerals, she said, “we have to make sure there are not more sacrifice zones.”

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has studied what it calls “green conflict minerals” (cobalt, nickel, lithium, rare earths and aluminum). The problem with green economy minerals, says IISD analyst Clare Church, is that they’re often found in countries with fragile governments, making their extraction prone to violence, conflict and human rights abuses. But like nearly every other speaker at the conference, Church goes out of her way to make one point clear: “This is not to say the transition [to a clean economy] can’t happen – it must happen.”

The question, say the IISD and others, is whether green economy minerals – and the companies that source them – can help fuel thriving, peaceful and sustainable development in communities with key mineral reserves – rather than exacerbating local unrest.

It’s a challenge Amnesty threw at carmakers at an EV summit in Norway last spring: can the auto industry develop the world’s first fully ethical battery within five years? In a statement, Amnesty’s secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, said car companies “have the resources and expertise to create energy solutions that are truly clean and fair.”

Perhaps because cars need such a large volume of minerals compared to, say, a smartphone (EV batteries weigh in at roughly 500 kilos per car), and perhaps because EV owners tend to be a fairly conscientious bunch, EVs – and the companies that make them – are now driving demand for more ethical mineral sources.

CAR COMPANIES (FINALLY) BET BIG ON EVS

A Reuters analysis found that global automakers plan to spend a combined US$300 billion on EVs over the next decade. In the last year, carmakers made some major cash commitments:

Audi is accelerating EV spending to €12 billion by 2024 and plans to offer 30 electrified (20 fully electric) vehicles by 2025.

BMW is funnelling €10 billion into new battery-cell contracts for its upcoming electric cars. It hadn’t launched a new all-electric car in seven years, but three new ones are coming online by 2021.

Hyundai just committed US$17 billion for electric and driverless cars by 2025 (less than half of that will go to EVs, so roughly US$8 billion).

Fiat Chrysler has committed to investing €9 billion to launch more than 30 electrified cars by 2022.

Volkswagen plans to spend €60 billion on rolling out 75 fully electric models and 60 hybrid vehicles over the next five years.

GM announced a US$2.3 billion joint venture with South Korea’s LG Chem to build an EV battery factory, in addition to spending US$3 billion to build an electric pickup factory in Detroit as part of its plan to add 20 new battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles by 2023.

Ford in 2018, said it plans to spend US$11 billion by 2022 to produce 40 new electrified cars.

Nissan is pumping US$9 billion into China alone to bring more EVs to that country and plans to introduce more than 20 electric models by 2022.

Toyota earlier in 2019, said that by 2025 all models will have electrified versions. It’s spending US$2 billion on developing EVs in Indonesia alone through 2023.

Daimler in 2018, announced plans to buy €20 billion worth of battery cells for its EVs by 2030. Its entire Mercedes product range will be electrified by 2022.

Volvo will launch a new electric car every year through 2025, when it will phase out gas-only car sales entirely. Volvo told Corporate Knights it doesn’t disclose its spending on EVs.

So, which car companies are coming clean?

One route to cleaner EVs involves boosting transparency. A few leading car companies – BMW, Daimler and Renault, as well as Samsung and Apple – have started publishing supply chain data. (While Tesla doesn’t disclose cobalt suppliers, it does publish lists of its tungsten, tantalum and tin suppliers, as mandated by California law regarding officially designated conflict minerals.)

Supplier disclosure is an important first step in shedding light on shadowy supply chains – something leading sneaker and clothing brands started doing years ago in response to sweatshop scandals.

Following the unveiling of Volvo’s first fully electric car, the XC40 Recharge, this past fall, the Swedish carmaker announced that it will begin using a blockchain platform (essentially a decentralized digital ledger) to trace its cobalt. Volvo Canada’s Matt Girgis tells Corporate Knights that while Volvo has long been marketed as the safest car in the world, it’s now trying to position itself as the safest car for the planet. Making sure its minerals are “clear and safe from unethical issues,” as its blockchain partner put it, is particularly pressing now that, as of 2020, all new Volvo models will be hybrids or plug-ins, with gas-only vehicles phased out by 2025.

It’s a sign of the times that the world’s largest cobalt miner, Glencore, announced in December that it too will start using blockchain for better traceability (days before it was named as the main supplier in the Congolese lawsuit). Glencore and Fiat Chrysler are now the newest members of the Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network, joining Volvo, VW and Ford.

Not that blockchain alone will solve human rights or environmental violations. “Blockchain is a powerful tool for tracking,” says Aimee Boulanger, executive director of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), “but only if the information going in is quality” – that is, independently verified so that responsible practices are met throughout the supply chain.

There’s a hustle right now to show we can do this right, with mines that better respect communities and the environment near those mines.

–Aimee Boulanger, IRMA

Up-and-coming IRMA positions itself as the most rigorous third-party mining standard to emerge. It aims to do for mining what Forest Stewardship Council certification has done for forestry by creating a trusted standard for sustainable paper and wood products. Microsoft, Tiffany and Anglo American are already IRMA members; BMW is the first carmaker to sign up. To date, most mine certifiers have been industry-run and/or lacked teeth. Case in point: the World Bank’s recently launched Climate-Smart Mining Facility fund was slammed by a coalition of more than 50 NGOs (including Earthworks, Greenpeace and IndustriALL Global Union) for having weak performance standards and minimal oversight.

IRMA is just coming online, so don’t expect to see a car with 100% IRMA-certified battery minerals any time soon, says Boulanger. “There’s a backlog of demand for responsible mining materials,” she says. “There’s a hustle right now to show we can do this right, with mines that better respect communities and the environment near those mines.”

First world problems: bringing battery production home

In the race to ramp up EV production, a growing number of companies are looking to lock down a steady and sustainable battery supply by wresting production away from coal-heavy China – which currently dominates global battery manufacturing – and bringing production home. Literally.

Swedish battery developer Northvolt’s ambition has been to build a battery industry on European turf – from mining and refining to manufacturing and recycling. “Our mission,” it says, “is to build the greenest battery in the world with a minimal carbon footprint and the highest ambitions for recycling to enable the European transition to renewable energy.” Northvolt has teamed with Volkswagen to create the European Battery Union (EBU). BMW is also an investor.

They’re not alone. A separate 200-member European Battery Alliance (EBA) just announced that its seven EU states would contribute €3.2 billion to finance a supra-national farm-to-fork-style initiative – but for minerals – with new pilot plants to be built in each country. Estimates by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology suggest the entire battery value chain in Europe – mining, refining, cell manufacturing, battery packs and recycling – will be worth €250 billion by 2025. Northvolt predicts that by 2030 Europe will be home to at least 10 gigawatt-scale battery production plants.

Industry players say Natural Resources Canada has been aggressively laying the groundwork for a comparable boom on Canadian soil. Last summer, the feds launched a $4.5 million Impact Canada challenge aimed at accelerating made-in-Canada battery innovation. The Canadian CEO of one leading cathode supplier to EV battery producers around the world, BASF Canada’s Marcelo Lu, says that Canada has all the right ingredients to become a major battery hub: “Canada is one of the few countries that has all the elements to produce a lithium-ion battery for electric vehicles.” For instance, he says, Canadian nickel, like that found in Sudbury, is naturally rich in cobalt (Canada has 3% of known cobalt reserves).

Refining those minerals locally in provinces with low-carbon grids and shifting more mining, refining, manufacturing and recycling to Canada is on the vision board for many. But activists are quick to point out that Canadian mines aren’t beyond reproach. At the MiningWatch conference, residents and Indigenous leaders flagged water contamination and concerns about Indigenous consent in regard to various proposals in northern Quebec and around the country.

Which is why the secret to unlocking the EV revolution’s greenest potential may lie not in mine shafts but under the floorboards of aging cars.

Tesla launching closed-loop battery recycling at its Gigafactory in Nevada. Photo: Planet Labs, Inc.

Can the transition economy join the circular economy?

The International Energy Agency, which has perennially underestimated the march of green technology, estimates that annual EV sales will reach 23 to 43 million by 2030, and there should be up to 250 million electric passenger vehicles on the road, up from just five million today. As millions of EVs near retirement age, with that will come a flood of e-waste. As little as 5% of lithium-ion batteries are currently recycled, but tapping into the half tonne of metals and minerals in each and every EV battery will be key to breaking away from a linear (mine it, make it, trash it) value chain to a greener and, ideally, cheaper circular one. Refurbishing and reusing aging car batteries as energy storage packs for solar panels is one exciting innovation (after eight to 10 years of use, most batteries retain 80% of their capacity), and some are finding new life providing off-grid power to homes, businesses, streetlamps, stadiums, factories – you name it.

Recycling insiders say they’d rather see old batteries increasingly recycled into new batteries. Though, at this point, Nissan has been refurbishing its LEAF batteries rather than recycling them because it’s just plain cheaper.

A recent study in the journal Nature, by researchers at the University of Birmingham, says that car companies need to start designing batteries for easy disassembly, reuse and recycling. The EU and China already require battery makers to finance the costs of collecting, treating and recycling used batteries. Ontario is finalizing similar regulations.

So far, Tesla, Toyota and European car companies have taken an early lead on recycling. In its 2019 environmental-impact statement, Tesla announced that it will stop outsourcing recycling and will soon launch a closed-loop battery recycling process at its Gigafactory 1 in Nevada.

Keeping battery recycling close to home is one way to minimize the human rights and environmental hazards that have dogged e-waste recycling overseas. One Canadian start-up co-founded by a University of Toronto engineering grad has figured out a way to recover 80 to 100% of all lithium-ion battery components. After a $2.7 million injection from the Canadian government, Li-Cycle is now recycling batteries for several major car companies at its plant just outside Toronto. Lithion Recycling, a Quebec start-up with $3.8 million in federal backing, says it will be able to recycle 95% of a battery’s components at its Montreal pilot factory by early 2020.

However, even if recycling and reuse are mandated, academics say, there won’t be enough minerals above ground in old EVs to make fully recycled batteries for years to come.

NGOs say that we can take pressure off the planet’s scarce mineral resources if we prioritize investments in electric-powered public-transit infrastructure over pushing everyone to buy a new electric car.

Regardless, stringent standards ensuring that batteries are socially and environmentally responsible – from mining to manufacturing to end of life – need to be nailed down. The World Economic Forum’s Global Battery Alliance – a coalition of car companies, battery makers such as BASF and organizations such as the World Bank and UNICEF – is meeting in Davos in January to firm up strategies. BASF’s chair, Martin Brudermüller, issued a statement ahead of the meeting: “The time to change the trajectory of the value chain is now.”

In 20 years, will fair-certified cars with recycled-content logos be as commonplace as fair-trade coffee and Forest Stewardship Council–certified paper, scrutinized by third-party auditors and stamped with sustainable seals of approval? With so many batteries driving the clean energy transition, it’s hard to see how we can have a sustainable electric future unless it’s ethical to its core.

The post The EV revolution will take batteries, but are they ethical? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Canadians, however, were mostly relegated to reading about the latest plant burgers – until A&W got in on the action. Yes, the chain best known for its baby boomer-pleasing root beer decided to get a piece of the much-hyped pea-based Beyond Meat burger before any other national burger franchise in the country.

“Normally, product development of that nature takes quite a long time,” says A&W CEO Susan Senecal. “But we were focused on trying to make it happen as quickly as we could, and we were able to launch the burger six months after we first tasted it.”

It proved to be a shrewd move.

Over 90,000 split pea-based patties were sold in the first three days of its launch in July 2018. Many locations sold out on day one and Beyond burgers sold out nationwide within weeks. The plant burger shortage only fuelled the growing hype.

Suddenly the stodgy old chain was filling up with millennials and new clients that had never visited before. Some locations even reported higher sales of the vegan burger than beef ones.

Although A&W has promoted the heck out of the fact that it carries Beyond Meat, the Silicon Valley burger upstart comes with its own multi-million-dollar promotion machine. Beyond Meat has a small army of celebrities lining up to endorse or invest in it, including over a dozen pro athletes, rapper-investors Snoop Dogg and Common, and founding celebrity-investor Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s the kind of publicity that really can’t be bought on a Canadian budget.

Yes, analysts have slagged Beyond Meat for failing to break even a decade after its founding, but capitalist forces seem to be aligning behind plant burgers. When Beyond Meat was listed on the NASDAQ in early May, it had the best IPO of 2019 with its share price more than doubling on the first day of trading.

There’s no denying that carrying Beyond has helped fuel A&W’s sector-shirking growth.

“In 2013, the quick-service industry was flat at best. A&W knew they needed to disrupt the market and differentiate in order to succeed,” notes Rethink Canada, the chain’s advertising agency. The root beer pusher was saddled with an aging boomer demographic (and its waning interest in fast food), while new premium burger joints were popping up across the country like portobello mushrooms. If A&W was going to attract coveted 25- to 44-year-olds, it would need to tap into their growing concern about how their food was made.

A&W CEO Susan Senecal

That early market research into the “fast foodie” movement spawned a switch over to largely grass-fed, steroid- and antibiotic-free beef back in 2013, followed by a steady stream of boldly-promoted “ingredient guarantees” on antibiotic-free chicken and pork, as well as eggs from vegetarian hens. “The home of the burger family” started serving organic, fair trade coffee, brought in ceramic plates and cutlery at breakfast and started brewing its famous root beer with natural flavours.

By 2017, A&W was the fastest growing quick-service burger chain in Canada. That year, it opened its 900th restaurant and shifted away from suburban drive-throughs to more urban locations.

In 2018, sales really took off. And while Senecal won’t say how many Beyond burgers the chain has sold, she did tell Corporate Knights that sales have remained “steady from the get go” and that it’s now one of A&W’s “top-selling burgers.”

No matter how you slice it, same-store sales were up 10% in 2018, from 3.4% in 2017 and 7.6% the year prior. The Vancouver-headquartered chain is betting big on continued growth with dozens of new stores under construction.

Millennials have been credited with driving much of that growth. The debt-conscious generation may not spend quite as much on restaurants as boomers and Generation Xers yet (depending on who you ask), but, according to new research from CBRE, they’re “driving up demand for low-priced food options such as fast casual and fast food.” And A&W knows it. (It even has a low-equity millennial franchisee program.)

“We’ve really started to build a much stronger bond and connection with our millennial guests,” says Senecal, the chain’s first female CEO. She has spent four decades pushing beef burgers for A&W, first as a manager, then as a marketer, and now as chief executive officer (who’s clearly still a natural marketer at heart). “We’ve seen rapid growth in terms of the number of millennials choosing us when they want a great tasting burger.”

It just so happens that a lot of millennials are looking for a great tasting burger made of plants. Mintel found that 80% eat meat alternatives compared to roughly half of non-millennials. And much to the plant burger advantage, according to Forbes, “a full 70% of the world population is reportedly either reducing meat consumption or leaving meat off the table altogether.”

Although A&W already had a veggie burger on its menu, Senecal told Corporate Knights in a phone conversation from her office in Vancouver that they “kept searching for a veggie burger that people would choose, not one they’d settle for.” When the team first tasted the Beyond Meat burger in 2017, “it was love at first bite.”

Stir into the mix a ban on plastic straws that kicked off in 2018 and A&W is now officially the wokest of the large national burger chains. On point with the plastic-purging trend, says Senecal, A&W has also eliminated over 90% of disposable items in its restaurants.

That’s not to say that A&W is beyond reproach. The majority of its eggs are still not cage-free (though hens live in “enriched colony housing”) and while it says it’s committed to phasing out gestation crates for sows, its pork is still not crate-free.

Nonetheless, to a growing number of Canadians, A&W is the best of the big boys. Sure, Beyond Meat’s highly publicized rollout into Canadian grocery stores this summer could cut into some of A&W’s restaurant sales. Thankfully for Canada’s second biggest burger chain, the generation reviving A&W’s fortunes isn’t a big fan of cooking.

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