When COVID struck and the malls shut down, more than 2,000 retail and fashion companies abruptly cancelled thousands of orders, many failing to pay even for those that had been completed. The small suppliers who produce some of the world’s best-known brands – The Gap, Nike, Primark, H&M and hundreds more – were forced to cut staff or even close their doors, leaving millions of workers struggling to feed their families.

At the best of times, garment workers, most of them based in Asia and primarily female, live precarious lives. They work up to 60 hours a week earning as little as $2 to $3 an hour while working at breakneck pace in often unsafe conditions.

In Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Kenya and other centres of textile production, workers have protested to regain their lost wages. But social media, which often exposes power imbalances, may prove the most effective tool for recouping the money the workers are owed.

Enter Remake, a California-based group of millennial and Gen Z designers and activists dedicated to “making fashion a force for good.” Galvanized by research published by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) and Penn State’s Center for Global Workers’ Rights, Remake, along with a a global network of  labour unions and labour rights advocates emerged to demand that brands pay factories the billions they owe. Under the hashtag #PayUp, Remake used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to shame the big companies that have greatly profited from their poorly paid global supply chains.

Never underestimate the power of fashionistas: by the fall, 273,000 people had signed Remake’s petition, and Adidas, H&M, The Gap, Lululemon, Ralph Lauren and Primark were among the 21 brands removed from Remake’s hit list, by promising to pay for cancelled and in-production orders in full, and in a timely manner. Remake estimates this effort will recoup US$22-billion worth of payments for overseas suppliers – about half the total bill it believes the retailers incurred.

In October, Penn State and WRC released an updated research brief, Unpaid Billions, documenting US$16.2 billion in cancelled orders and retroactive price reductions by garment brands and retailers, noting, “The result has been a dramatic loss of income and jobs for millions of garment workers.”

Among the companies still holding out as of November: Arcadia (which owns Topshop), The Children’s Place, JCPenney, Oscar de la Renta, Urban Outfitters and TJX, which owns Marshalls, Winners and HomeSense in Canada. (See sidebar below.)

How do such inequities happen? Apparel buyers used to fund new inventory using letters of credit, which guaranteed payment – without delays or further haggling – once the products were shipped. But The Wall Street Journal reports that big brands abandoned that practice over the last decade, “opting instead for an open-account system – essentially an honor system –where factories trust retailers to pay after shipment.” Factory owners had little choice but to go along.

“In the Covid-19 crisis, this skewed payment system allowed western brands to shore up their financial position by essentially robbing their developing country suppliers,” director of the WRC and co-author of the study, Scott Nova, told The Guardian.

Remake founder and CEO Ayesha Barenblat recently issued a campaign update:

“Missing from all of these fashion conversations of building back better post COVID-19 are workers whose wages and safety continues to be in a free fall. But if we have something to do with it, CEOs of fashion brands and the billionaires behind them, cannot just slip back into polite society after the devastation they have caused.”

Barenblat announced that Remake is launching the next phase of PayUp Fashion, demanding that brands go beyond just paying up and also commit to keeping workers safe, boosting wages and supporting much-needed laws and regulations that put workers at the center of a stronger, more equitably fashion industry.

As Barenblat told Vogue in the summer, #PayUp’s success “illustrates the power of activists and citizens coming together to hold the fashion industry accountable.” However, she adds, “we will not rest until the industry commits to liveable wages and social protections for garment makers so that never again will women who make our clothes be pushed to the brink of starvation.”

The post If fashion brands to build back better they’ll have to #PayUp billions in unpaid wages appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Some have passed the test with flying colours. The Business Roundtable itself formed a CEO COVID-19 Task Force dedicated to the crisis. One member, Salesforce, pledged not to lay off employees for 90 days, and Salesforce’s CEO spent $25 million on 50 million pieces of personal protective equipment for medical staff (with the help of Walmart, FedEx and others).

Many other CEOs have displayed an all-too-rare selflessness. Five senior executives at Comcast, the U.S. telecoms and media giant, including CEO Brian Roberts, said they would donate their entire salaries “for the duration of this situation” to charities supporting COVID-19 relief efforts. Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, pledged $1 billion (28% of his wealth) to fund global COVID relief efforts.

As of late April, only 6% of the 100 largest American companies had handed out pink slips to their workers, according to JUST Capital’s COVID-19 corporate-response tracker. Many have cut dividends, not only to bolster their cash flows and balance sheets, but also in response to pressure from social and governance activists.

Several companies in Canada and around the world have implemented raises for frontline employees, be they food processors, bank tellers or grocery and retail workers. The Business Council of Canada has been keeping a tally of Canadian members that are stepping up financial and community support or retooling to deliver critical supplies. GM Canada is manufacturing roughly one million masks per month at its Oshawa plant and delivering them at cost to the federal government. Bombardier is delivering 18,000 ventilators and 40,000 visors.

European heavyweights have been rallying, too. Unilever, the consumer-goods giant, has not only donated US$155 million of soap, sanitizer, bleach and food, but also set aside US$775 million for early payments to small suppliers, and to extend credit to small retail customers. “Our strong cash flow and balance sheet mean that we can, and we should, give this support,” CEO Alan Jope said.

Zeroes

Sadly, plenty of bosses have unashamedly put their own interests first during the pandemic. Take Disney, which suspended pay for 100,000 workers at its theme parks but protected executive bonuses. Bob Iger, Disney’s chairman, earned US$47 million in 2019, or 900 times more than the median earnings of the company’s workers, the Financial Times calculated.

Similarly, the board of Denver-based shale oil producer Whiting Petroleum approved US$14.6 million in cash bonuses for top executives in late March, just days before it filed for bankruptcy protection. The CEO collected US$6.4 million, paid immediately.

Even where executives have made sacrifices, “I have a sense boards are doing the minimum necessary to shield themselves from reputational damage,” wrote Andrew Hill, the Financial Times’ management columnist. Examples abound of bosses taking 20% pay cuts, while junior staff have been laid off with nothing more to fall back on than government relief programs.

Some companies deserve a zero not so much for what they have done as how they did it. Bird, a Los Angeles–based start-up in the forefront of the scooter craze, invited staff working from home to log in to a Zoom session, whereupon an unnamed woman told them that more than 400 no longer had jobs. “Like everything we’re experiencing now, this is a suboptimal way to deliver this message,” the bearer of the bad news confessed. She allowed no questions.

Aramark, a big food and uniform services provider and a signatory of last year’s Business Roundtable pledge, is one of numerous companies that have laid off contract workers with no severance pay or rehiring timeline. Marriott, another Business Roundtable member, has told tens of thousands of hotel workers to take unpaid leave.

On another front, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for corporate leaders who have spent their lives telling government to get off their backs, only to pull out the begging bowl when the going gets tough.

Exhibit number one in the COVID-19 era is Sir Richard Branson, founder of the sprawling Virgin empire. Branson has paid no tax in his native U.K. since he moved his principal residence 14 years ago to the British Virgin Islands, where he owns a private island. Yet he has been quick to ask the British government for hundreds of millions of pounds to bail out Virgin Atlantic Airways. Virgin Australia asked a similar favour, but the government turned it down, forcing the airline into bankruptcy in late April. Alas, Virgin’s employees are set to suffer far more hardship than their boss.

The post Heroes and zeros: Covid edition appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The Bank of Canada struck an optimistic note in its April Monetary Report, suggesting that “Canada’s economy will begin to recover as the health impacts of COVID-19 fade, businesses begin to reopen and gradually resume their operations, and people start returning to their normal lives.”

Of course, uncertainty remains over if, how and when the economy will return to pre-crash levels. The bank’s report highlighted unprecedented levels of monetary and fiscal stimulus but also noted concerns about historically low oil prices, a surge in unemployment and sharply lower business and consumer confidence.

Without the ability to forecast with confidence, we should prepare for the recovery period to drag on for some time and continue to examine greener companies that are expected to profit during a longer period of pandemic-induced economic pain.

Note: These are investment ideas, not recommendations. Speak to a financial professional before investing and ensure that any holdings are part of a more diversified investment strategy.

McCormick & Company

With restaurants closed, home chefs are having their moment. Unfortunately, we’re not all great cooks. I’m leaning heavily on my spice cabinet to make my home-cooked meals a little tastier. When in doubt, throw a little hot sauce in the dish! McCormick & Company is a spice and flavour manufacturer that sells a wide array of spices, condiments and sauces. You’ll likely recognize some of its popular household brands, like Old Bay seasoning, French’s condiments, Thai Kitchen and Frank’s hot sauce. The company is well positioned to benefit as families keep eating at home.

In 2017, McCormick set impressive sustainability goals, such as slashing its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent, sourcing all herbs and spices sustainably, and committing to making 100 per cent of its plastic packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025. The company has a long way to go in meeting these goals, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, since its environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores from the Corporate Knights research arm, as well as MSCI and Sustainalytics, are among the best in its sector. Furthermore, McCormick ranked 22nd on the 2020 Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies in the World.

McCormick’s share price fell by 32 per cent with the rest of the market during the crash but has rebounded nicely and sits down just five per cent since the start of the year. The stock is expected to pay a 1.58 per cent annual dividend. (Scorecard below)

Northland Power

Renewable energy utilities are in the enviable position of having consistent cash flows, since they have long-term purchase price agreements that set a fixed price on the electricity they generate. Northland Power, headquartered in Toronto, is one such utility. With a mix of solar, wind and thermal (natural gas) projects, the company’s cash flows shouldn’t suffer if the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders persist.

Most of Northland’s facilities generate renewable energy, but about 26 per cent of its revenues come from natural gas. This will be a turnoff for some green investors, while others will appreciate a diversified approach. I’m disappointed that Northland has taken a step backward in its ESG data disclosure. The company produced a 2018 Sustainability Report but didn’t disclose any information for 2019. This lack of ESG disclosure could hurt them as investors increasingly incorporate the data into investment decision-making. Still, generating 74 per cent of revenues from renewable energy is enough to make me feel good about this stock.

Northland’s share price fell by 36 per cent during the crash but bounced right back and is up almost 13 per cent since the start of the year. The stock is expected to pay a 3.91 per cent annual dividend. (Scorecard below)

The post Pandemic Portfolio: Two stocks to watch as COVID-19 drags on appeared first on Corporate Knights.

However, the effort would require unprecedented federal-provincial cooperation to overcome the balkanization of the country’s existing electricity markets, experts said during an online conference Wednesday.

With Canada mired in a deep economic slump due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ottawa is preparing to launch a massive stimulus program to get the country back to work.

During the online discussion, Catherine McKenna, federal minister of infrastructure and communities, said Ottawa is looking to work with provinces to kick-start a green infrastructure project, including creating transmission lines that would bring clean power to markets that currently rely on fossil fuels for their electricity.

A paper prepared for the Corporate Knights Building Back Better project said Ottawa should embrace innovative finance mechanisms that would give provinces confidence that new transmission infrastructure would be cost effective over the long term.

“The post-COVID recovery presents a historic opportunity to make a final push for a fossil-free, renewable electricity system for all Canadians,” wrote Ralph Torrie, a partner in Torrie Smith Associates, and Céline Bak, president of Analytica Advisors.

They concluded that an incentive of $1.7 billion would attract an additional $6.6 billion in private investment, for a total of $8.3 billion to finance the Canada Clean Power transmission lines. The $1.7 billion federal contribution would be equivalent to the reduction in GHG emissions for the first two years after the projects are commissioned, assuming a $50 per tonne carbon price, the authors concluded.

The additional transmission capacity, in turn, would help attract $92.5 billion in private, co-op and Crown corporation investment to provide the renewable power needed to make all provincial grids 100% carbon-free by 2030.

The $101 billion investment over 10 years would generate 675,000 person-years of employment – equivalent to 67,500 full-time jobs each year – and reduce emissions by 75 megatonnes. (Canada’s output of GHG emissions in 2018 was 729 megatonnes.)

Four provinces that still have coal-fired generating stations – Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia – are required to eliminate the use of the carbon-intensive fossil fuel by 2030. However, they plan to replace that coal-fired power with some mix of large-scale hydro, natural gas, and wind and solar. Ontario expects its use of natural gas-fired power to rise once it shuts down the aging Pickering Nuclear Station in 2023.

Clean-energy advocates are also pushing for electrification of the transportation, industrial and building sectors, which would increase demand for power.

Toronto energy lawyer Lisa DeMarco warned that any effort to decarbonize the grid must focus on affordability and eliminating waste as a top concern. “We need to make sure we’re putting in place the cheapest, the most efficient and effective grid solutions,” she said.

Torrie noted that renewable prices have fallen steeply over the past decade. The intermittent sources can use battery storage and hydro, as well as some existing gas plants, to backstop wind and solar for those times when the wind is not blowing or the sun shining. Their work did not include a rate analysis, which would have to be done province by province, he said. “In general, the measures in our scenario ought to lead to cheaper rates than the alternatives,” he added.

Governments would have to work together to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of such a massive investment program, said Pierre-Olivier Pineau, professor of energy management at HEC Montréal. Pineau said provincial regulations and tariff structures are balkanized and outdated and do not allow for effective interprovincial planning.

At the same time, many provinces have a surplus of electricity, so it will be challenging to persuade them to invest heavily in renewable generation and transmission infrastructure. Efforts to electrify the transportation and building sectors would reduce emissions in those areas and create a market for new wind, solar and storage projects.

Indigenous communities are also keen to be partners in renewable and energy storage projects, said Matt Jamieson, president of Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation. His First Nations–owned company is partnering with Toronto-based NRStor to develop a major battery-storage project in southwestern Ontario.

“What you will see among Indigenous communities across Canada is that we are not just a consultation box to be checked,” Jamieson said. “We’ve proven at Six Nations that we have the ability to be a participant, to add value and to bring solutions to the table.”

Terri Lynn Morrison, of the Indigenous Clean Energy network, noted that Indigenous communities are already significant owners of renewable power projects across Canada. Remote communities are looking to combine renewable power and electricity storage with energy efficiency in their buildings to provide healthier homes for their people, she sai

Shawn McCarthy writes on sustainable finance and climate for Corporate Knights. He is also senior counsel for Sussex Strategy Group.

The post Roundtable: Greening Canada’s electricity could help kickstart economy appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The stock market’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic was swift and harsh, crashing more than 33% in about a month. The market has bounced back somewhat from those mid-March lows, sparking optimistic talk of a “V-shaped recovery,” where the economy quickly returns to normal, though RBC CEO Dave McKay suggests a longer downturn, with a “U-shaped recovery,” is more likely.

Bank CEOs warn that we should prepare for a recovery period that spills into next year, so let’s examine a handful of eco-friendly companies that will continue to profit during a longer period of pandemic-induced economic pain.

Note: These are investment ideas, not recommendations. Speak to a financial professional before investing and ensure that any holdings are part of a more diversified investment strategy.

Cascades

I would have never picked toilet paper to be the hot commodity as society faces a global pandemic, but here we are. Cascades is a Quebec-based company that makes tissue paper and packaging from recycled materials. The company is the most sustainable toilet paper manufacturer in Canada and is well positioned to take advantage of the growing demand for eco-friendly home-delivery and takeout packaging.

Long considered a leader in developing a closed-loop or circular economy, Cascades uses recycled fibres for 84% of its paper products. The remaining materials are sourced using a strict procurement policy that prioritizes fibre suppliers certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In 2015, Cascades set ambitious sustainability targets for 2020, and I’m excited to see how much further they’ll push the targets with their next five-year plan. Cascades was #49 on the 2020 Corporate Knights Most Sustainable Companies in the World list.

Cascades’ share price didn’t dip much in the initial crash, and is up 16 % over the past two months. The stock is expected to pay a 2.54% annual dividend.

Microsoft

The pandemic is forcing everybody to work from home, and Microsoft — the world’s largest company — is perfectly placed to profit from this massive transition in our economy’s workforce. Consumer device sales will likely drop as unemployment rises and people are less likely to upgrade their phones and computers, but only about 36% of Microsoft’s revenue comes from personal computers and gaming. Its other segments include productivity and business processes and Intelligent Cloud. My instinct is that demand for these business-to-business segments will be resilient to the current economic current and will likely benefit as old-school businesses evolve to become completely or much more remote.

Microsoft is highly rated by environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating agencies including Corporate Knights, MSCI and Sustainalytics, and the company has pledged to become carbon negative by 2030. However, Microsoft did come under pressure last year when employees threatened to walk out after it signed a big contract with the U.S. military.

It’s hard to argue that Microsoft is leading us directly into a green economy, but it’s fair to classify it as “doing less harm” and ahead of the curve on corporate responsibility measurements.

Microsoft’s share price initially fell by 27%, but rebounded nicely such that it is only down 5% over the past two months. The stock is expected to pay a 1.19% annual dividend.

Brookfield Renewable Partners

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Brookfield Renewable Partners, the renewable energy division of Brookfield Asset Management that generates electricity through hydro, wind and solar projects, is well positioned to resist the current economic storm. (Full disclosure: The author owns shares of Brookfield Renewable Partners).

I consider Brookfield Renewable Partners pandemic-proof because the company’s revenue comes from multi-decade purchase price agreements (PPAs) to sell electricity at a pre-set price. Electricity demand is falling as factories are locked down, yes, but that doesn’t affect the price that Brookfield Renewable gets paid for generating electricity. The weighted average remaining duration of these contracts is about 17 years, so investors can reasonably expect the company to maintain consistent cashflows. Brookfield Renewable Partners seems to be on solid financial footing, having just raised $350 million in green bonds.

I’ve criticized Brookfield Renewable Partners in the past for not reporting sustainability data, so I’m thrilled to see that it’s produced a detailed ESG report for 2019. Now that the company is finally disclosing data, I expect it to start popping up more regularly on lists of sustainability leaders. About 0.2% of its energy generation comes from relatively carbon-intensive natural gas co-generation (also known as combined heat and power), so although it isn’t quite 100% renewable, I still consider it to be green.

Brookfield Renewable Partner’s share price fell by 30% like the rest of the market during the crash, but has recouped more than two-thirds of that loss in the rebound. The stock is expected to pay a generous 4.82% annual dividend.

Tim Nash blogs as The Sustainable Economist and is the founder of Good Investing.

The post Pandemic Portfolio: Three companies well-positioned to weather the crisis appeared first on Corporate Knights.

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

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

The 60-minute weekly roundtable series kicks off on Wednesday, April 22^nd (the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day).

The series will continue at 11 a.m. each Wednesday through to June 3.

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

We hope you can join us.

Corporate Knights Presents schedule:

April 22:  Building Back Better with a Green Renovation Wave

Wednesday, April 22, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. EDT: fresh analysis showing how a post-COVID green renovation wave could help our economy come roaring back, along with reactions from panelists and expert commentators.

Welcome from Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Discussion hosted by Diana Fox Carney, economist and public policy expert, featuring

April 29: Building Back Better by Topping Up our Green Power Sources, Storage and Connections

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

Welcome from Hon. Catherine McKenna, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities

May 6: Building Back Better by Electrifying our Cars, Trucks and Buses

Welcome by the Hon. Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage

May 13: Building Back Better by Greening Heavy Industry

Join us this Wednesday, May 13, for our fourth roundtable on #BuildingBackBetter by boosting the circular economy, electrifying light-industry and decarbonizing heavy industry.

May 20: Building Back Better with Forests

Wednesday, May 20, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

May 27: Building Back Better by Fueling Innovation in the Energy Sector

Wednesday, May 27, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

June 3: Building Back Better: Moving Forward Together

On Wednesday, June 3, we held a one-hour finale of our Green Recovery series.

Welcome from The Right Hon. Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry

Panelists

• Catherine Abreu, executive director, Climate Action Network
• Bruce Lourie, president, Ivey Foundation (and Member of the Taskforce for a Resilient Recovery)
• Tom Rand, managing partner, ARCTERN VENTURES
• Gregor Robertson, global ambassador, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy
• Michael Sabia, chair, Canadian Infrastructure Bank
• Dianne Saxe, former Environment Commissioner, Ontario

Expert Commentators

• Céline Bak, president, Analytica Advisors
• Karim Bardeesy, executive director, Ryerson Leadership Lab
• Terri Lynn Morrison, director of strategic partnership, Indigenous Clean Energy (ICE)
• Dave Sawyer, chief economist, Canadian Institute for Climate Choices
• Ralph Torrie, senior associate, Sustainability Solutions Group and Partner, Torrie Smith Associate

For the latest articles, YouTube posts and reports on all things Green Recovery, check our Green Recovery reports page. 

Get our latest analysis, event videos and reports delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing to Corporate Knights’ Weekly Roundup newsletter

 

The post Event schedule: Building Back Better roundtable dates appeared first on Corporate Knights.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building Back Better with a Green Renovation Wave

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

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

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

Building Back Better by Electrifying our Cars, Trucks and Buses

Wednesday, May 6, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better by Greening Heavy Industry

Wednesday, May 13, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better with Forests

Wednesday, May 20, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better by Fueling Innovation in the Energy Sector

Wednesday, May 27, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Building Back Better: The Wrap and Next Steps

Wednesday, June 3, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The global spread of COVID-19 is deeply affecting each of us. It’s taking a devastating toll on lives, businesses and communities. It’s upending how companies operate and is shattering supply chains around the world. Yet, even during this time of upheaval, there are companies mobilizing in unprecedented ways to protect lives and to defeat the disease. We are witnessing inspiring leadership, with so many companies – large and small – stepping up to help their communities and pivoting their businesses to supply essential products and to provide humanitarian relief.

Leading the way are social purpose businesses that have already defined an aspirational societal reason for being and that aim to create value for all stakeholders. They protect their employees, minimizing job loss and providing paid sick leave. And they go beyond simply donating to charity by redeploying their assets to address the most urgent needs. Whether small firms or multinational corporations, purpose-driven businesses are reimagining their role in the time of COVID.

How social purpose-driven companies have responded to COVID-19

Unilever, the global consumer-goods company, launched a sweeping Sustainable Living Plan in 2010 with the aim of improving the health and well-being of more than one billion people by 2020. It’s now leveraging its social purpose “to make sustainable living commonplace” by donating $155 million worth of soap, sanitizer, bleach and food to help protect people’s lives around the globe. It’s also providing $775 million of cash flow relief for early payments to its small suppliers and extending credit to small-scale retail customers to help them manage and protect jobs. According to its CEO, Alan Jope, “Our strong cash flow and balance sheet mean that we can, and we should, give this support.”

Google’s corporate mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” drives its global response. It’s providing a total of US$800 million to support small- and medium-sized businesses, the World Health Organization, governments and health workers. Nearly US$600 million of that comes in the form of ad grants and credits. It has established a US$200 million investment fund for non-profits and financial institutions to help provide small businesses with access to capital. It’s also making available US$20 million in Google Cloud credits for researchers to leverage Google’s computing resources to study potential therapies and vaccines to combat the virus. Its employees are bringing engineering, supply chain and healthcare expertise to facilitate increased production of ventilators, working with equipment manufacturers, distributors and government in this effort.

3M – with a mission “to improve lives” – established a unique partnership with Ford Motor Company to build respirators, including a new design that uses existing parts from both companies, such as the Ford F-150 truck’s cooled seating and 3M’s HEPA filters to increase efficiency and scalability. 3M has doubled its global output of N95 masks and is producing 100 million respirators per month.

HP Inc., whose purpose is “to create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere,” is mobilizing its 3D printing teams, technology, experience and production capacity to create 3D printing parts to help contain COVID-19. HP’s 3D R&D centers are collaborating with manufacturing partners around the world to increase production of face masks and shields, hands-free door openers, respirator parts and more. “HP and our digital manufacturing partners are working non-stop in the battle against this unprecedented virus. We are collaborating across borders and industries to identify the parts most in need, validate the designs, and begin 3D printing them,” said Enrique Lores, President and CEO, HP Inc.  Through its HP Foundation, the company also donated $1 million to direct COVID relief.

SAP, the European multinational software corporation, is leading through its purpose “to help the world run better and improve people’s lives” in its COVID response. It recently launched the SAP Purpose Network Live, a virtual platform that provides a space that brings together change-making companies, startups, government agencies, non-profits and consumers to co-innovate COVID solutions together. Through pro-bono consulting, SAP employees are also hosting webinars for non-profits on remote work and coaching social enterprises on business continuity. It set up a €3 million Emergency Fund to support the World Health Organization, the Centre for Disease Control and others working on the front lines. Recognizing the massive COVID disruptions impacting global supply chains, the company is offering free access to its SAP Ariba Discovery service so buyers can post immediate sourcing needs and suppliers can respond with their offerings.

With a mission “to raise the good in food,” the Canadian packaged meats and protein company Maple Leaf Foods donated $500,000 in financial and food contributions to food security organizations. It’s using its scale and reach to launch a matching campaign to raise an additional $2 million to support emergency food relief efforts. Maple Leaf has also contributed $2.5 million to the Canadian Frontline Healthcare Professionals Protection Fund, established by hospital foundations to provide support for frontline healthcare workers. As well, it’s contributing its food-safety know-how to others seeking to create pathogen-free environments.

Web Express, a Coquitlam, BC-based printing company, is pivoting its business to offer online publication services within a new Community Hub enabling ethnic media, industry publications, community centres, readers and advertisers to connect with one another. The Hub will be offered free for a time starting with ethnic community newspapers hit hardest by the pandemic, so they can continue their operations virtually – a matter of survival for small publications.

Traction on Demand, a purpose-led software company based in Burnaby, BC, partnered with Thrive Health, Salesforce and the BC government to create a new, life-saving healthcare app that has been deployed in almost 40 hospitals so far. The app, known as Traction Thrive, helps view, track and allocate critical healthcare personnel, personal protective equipment and ventilator availability in real time. Traction on Demand has since made the application available globally, at no cost, as a contribution to the global fight against COVID-19.

Hemlock Printers, a North American purpose-driven printing company also based in Burnaby, is printing Public Health Agency of Canada COVID-19 workplace posters for businesses and non-profits free of charge. Hemlock’s social purpose partner, Novex Delivery Solutions, is donating the “no-contact” carbon-neutral delivery of those posters. Hemlock is also printing floor decals (to indicate proper space apart while physical distancing), plexiglass shields and other signage products that protect employees and customers.

Within days of BC’s COVID shutdown, Community Savings Credit Union, a purpose-based regional financial institution headquartered in Surrey, BC, offered a range of services for people facing financial difficulty. Financial hardship services include an interest-free line of credit, postponement of loan and mortgage payment and service fees, and early redemption of non-redeemable term deposits so customers can gain quick access to needed funds. Its CEO, Mike Schilling, says, “We could do all this so quickly precisely because we are a purpose-driven organization.”

By focusing on their purpose, rather than on their bottom line, these businesses could make clear and quick decisions when they were needed. Purpose-led companies have a beacon they can turn to when steering through turbulence.

However, the bottom line will eventually benefit too, as pointed out by Larry Fink of BlackRock in his recent annual letter to shareholders. As the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager (with an estimated US$6 trillion in assets) says, “Companies with a strong sense of purpose and a long-term approach will be better able to navigate this crisis and its aftermath.”

As we head deeper into the COVID storm, and as our collective instincts rally, more and more companies will become humanitarian businesses. The time is ripe for all business leaders to reboot their companies along social purpose lines – or risk becoming irrelevant in the future marketplace. The rapid purpose pivots of these 10 leader companies shine a light on what’s possible. These and many other pivots are listed in this “COVID-19 Social Response Checklist for Business” we developed to help business leaders identify their unique COVID social response.

Let’s build a new future together. Now is not the time to be on the sidelines. We can envision the economy and society we want to live in in the post-pandemic era and make it happen. These purpose-driven businesses are showing us how.

Coro Strandberg is president of Strandberg Consulting and Mary Ellen Schaafsma is director of the Social Purpose Institute. Strandberg and Schaafsma partnered to create the Social Purpose Institute at the United Way of the Lower Mainland (SPI) in 2018. The SPI is creating a social purpose business movement in Canada and beyond and offers services that help business leaders, company boards, investors, industry associations and chambers of commerce advance social purpose in business.

The post Covid Knights: Corporate social purpose in the time of COVID-19 appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Women occupy a high percentage of positions in education, office support, social services and personal care, which are more likely to be suspended, laid off or forced to work reduced hours during the pandemic. PayScale noted that women “are also more likely to have to take time off work, or even resign their positions, in order to care for children who are no longer in school, as well as other family members.”

The report was released in advance of Equal Pay Day on March 31. With the stats saying that women earn on average only 75 to 80% as much as men, Equal Pay Day was founded to recognize the day of the year when women have finally made as much money over the past 15 months as their male colleagues earned in 12.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg spoke with Yahoo Finance about the impacts of the pandemic on women. “Because you have less savings, you have less ability to earn and so these problems we have that hit our most vulnerable — domestic violence, pay gaps — this is a wake-up call to fix them,” says Sandberg.

While that pay gap has been shrinking, it’s not happening fast enough to meet the goal of the Ontario-based Equal Pay Coalition: to achieve wage parity by 2025. Still, market forces are kicking in. As big companies today struggle to find talent, they’ve been adopting more formal structures, such as pay parity, special leadership programs and rules regarding sexual harassment, to promote equity for women and other disadvantaged groups.

Longer-term, the signs are more encouraging. Bloomberg publishes an annual Gender-Equality Index, which tracks the progress of public companies committed to supporting gender equality. This year’s list includes 16 Canadian companies, up from just 12 in 2019.

The full index includes 325 public companies around the world (up from 230 last year). Each company is worth at least US$1 billion, so it’s an exclusive list. But Bloomberg expects this project to accomplish two key objectives: encourage more businesses to adopt gender-equity policies and give investors more data on companies embracing progressive ethics.

Canuck companies on the list include all six major banks, plus insurance giant Manulife, as well as such outliers as Enbridge, Teck Resources and retailer Lululemon. Newcomers this year include Algonquin Power, Aurora Cannabis, toymaker Spin Master, engineering giant Stantec and electrical producer TransAlta.

Corporate Knights checked on a few of these firms to find out how they’re managing equality at the top. Our conclusion: awkwardly.

Only one of the 16 companies is headed by a woman: Dawn Farrell, CEO of TransAlta. The firm’s 12-person board includes only four women.

Kathleen Taylor chairs the board of RBC, and six women sit on the 14-seat board. But just one woman ranks among the bank’s 10 “executive officers.” She runs human resources.

Manulife lists 12 men on its senior leadership team and just three women. Marianne Harrison runs Manulife’s sprawling U.S. division, with assets nearing US$500 billion.

Lululemon is the only Canadian company with gender parity on its board: five men and five women. And its website lists a management team of six women and four men.

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