However, Canada’s climate-data landscape remains fragmented, limiting the country’s ability to manage the transition effectively. Without clear rules and consistent data, companies are reluctant to act, policymakers cannot create the enabling conditions, and investors and other stakeholders lose confidence.

The recent anti-greenwashing law and the subsequent withdrawal of sustainable finance commitments by a Canadian bank and pension fund highlight the fault lines in our climate-information system.

To move forward, Canada needs better data and a better system – a climate-information architecture – for using it.

What is a climate-information architecture?

Today, climate-related information such as a business’s physical risk exposure or the extent to which its spending aligns with a low-carbon transition is often incomplete, inconsistent or inaccessible. Without trustworthy data, companies cannot track their progress, financial institutions cannot assess climate risks from their assets, and regulators cannot enforce credible standards. The result is uncertainty and delayed action.

To fix this, Canada needs a national climate-information architecture: a system for generating, aligning and sharing climate-related information across the economy. It is a decision-making system built on five essential building blocks: transition plans, scenario analysis, disclosures, taxonomy and data and analytics.

It is important to recognize that each building block supports the others. Together, they create a shared foundation of useful information that boosts market confidence and safeguards financial stability across the economy. Without alignment, the whole system falters.

Progress is happening, but it is slow and misaligned

Canada has made headway, developing a taxonomy governance structure, piloting scenario analysis exercises and introducing made-in-Canada reporting standards. But we’re falling behind on coordinated implementation.

One key barrier is fragmented leadership. Implementing a national architecture requires coordination across federal and provincial governments, regulators, standard setters and industry. Each operates under different mandates and timelines.

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For instance, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has issued climate-risk-management guidelines for federally regulated financial institutions. Yet progress on climate disclosure requirements has stalled for public and private companies after the Canadian Securities Administrators paused efforts to mandate consistent reporting. This type of misalignment creates data gaps, weakens accountability and slows momentum.

Removing misalignment can reduce the cost of doing business

Removing impediments to the functioning of the climate-information architecture can reduce the cost of doing business and enhance the economic transition. For example, regulators like the Competition Bureau need clear benchmarks to define what counts as a green or transition-friendly activity to enforce green marketing claims. A government-backed taxonomy would support that objective while allowing companies to navigate the rules more effectively, thus reducing costs associated with doing business during the transition.

Similarly, with credible transition planning and scenario analysis, financial institutions can evaluate the vulnerability of their holdings to climate risks. Regulators like the OSFI can get the information to stress-test climate-related shocks and protect the financial system against systemic risks. According to a study from the University of Oxford, better disclosures of plans and scenarios translate into lower costs of loans for borrowers.

These examples underscore the urgent need for alignment and coherence across Canada’s climate-information system.

Align the architecture through coordinated leadership

To build climate-information architecture as a connected system, not a patchwork of disconnected tools, Canada needs to standardize and mandate key tools such as disclosures and transition plans where necessary. It also needs to foster public–private partnerships in areas such as the taxonomy and scenario analysis to ensure system-wide integration.

Governments, regulators, standard setters, industry groups, civil society and academia all have a role to play. They need to recognize their role, collaborate on addressing challenges and jointly build these tools to finalize and implement the national climate-information architecture.

A stronger information system will lead to better policy outcomes

Alignment is the first step to bringing high-quality climate data into the mainstream of policymaking and investment decisions, where it belongs. For example, the taxonomy could serve multiple uses such as defining benchmarks for clean-economy investment tax credits and green procurement practices and guiding issuances of green and sustainability-linked bonds. Transition plans could provide forward-looking insights to monitor systemic climate risks in the financial system.

By establishing a coherent climate-information infrastructure, Canada could reduce implementation cost, accelerate the transition and reinforce trust, thus laying the foundations to become a climate-resilient, competitive and prosperous nation.

Anik Islam is a senior research associate at the Smart Prosperity Institute.

The post Canada’s clean economy needs better data appeared first on Corporate Knights.

It should come as little surprise, then, that in Corporate Knights’ inaugural Europe 50 ranking, the top company, Schneider Electric, also achieved the highest marks in the 2025 Global 100 ranking. The French company is the only one to have topped the Global 100 twice (the other time back in 2021), and it has played a unique role in electrification efforts across a wide variety of sectors, from manufacturing light switches to pioneering new software and clean energy solutions for data centres and smart cities. Today, 74% of its €54 billion in annual revenue comes from sustainable sources, and nearly 80% of its sizeable investment portfolio has been directed into sustainable solutions.

For a company with offices in more than 100 countries and a 180-year history, these movements are a bellwether for the rest of the world. Last year, Schneider Electric joined luxury fashion group Hermès and cosmetic giant L’Oréal as one of the five largest companies in France. Its shares jumped 58% in 2024, and its market capitalization peaked in January at €152 billion.

But for Corporate Knights publisher Toby Heaps, the most interesting thing about this rise is the inflection point it represents: Schneider Electric’s valuation leapfrogged France’s largest oil and gas producer, TotalEnergies, for the first time.

“A few years ago, the sustainable economy was a niche thing,” Heaps says. “Now it’s the main game, and it’s going to determine who wins and loses, who rises and falls.” If you want to know how that game is playing out, Europe is a telling indicator.

50 companies, 31 industries, 14 countries

In many rankings of how companies perform on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, there is a tendency for “pure play” clean energy companies – or those with a sole specialization in renewables – to dominate. In the Corporate Knights methodology, revenue from sustainable sources and sustainable investment together account for half of the total score that then determines rankings. But critically, the evaluation criteria are relative. “We do not compare the performance of a bank against the performance of a mining company; we compare it against other banks,” explains Michael Yow, the director of ratings for Corporate Knights.

In the Global 100, as in other indices like the MSCI ACWI index, there are also a designated number of industry-specific spots. This not only helps avoid overrepresentation; it also makes the rankings a useful point of comparison.

The Europe 50 ranking has no industry allocations, however; it is a straight ranking. Even so, the list exhibits exceptional diversity. “I would be concerned if there were 12 or 15 companies from one industry, but that’s not the case,” Yow says.

Power generation does appear most often, with six companies making the ranking, including highly rated companies from the 2025 Global 100 like Vestas, the Danish wind-power generator, which earned the top spot in the Global 100 in 2022. But there are 30 other industries represented on the Europe 50, including retailers, a wide variety of manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, real estate companies, IT companies and more.

Take Mercedes-Benz, the only auto manufacturer on the Europe 50, which has made exceptional strides in electrifying the luxury vehicle market. Or Puma, the German sports apparel giant whose products are made, on average, of 22% recycled materials. Or Outokumpu Oyj, the Finnish steel manufacturer, which produces nearly 90% of its stainless steel sustainably and has made significant investments in new sustainability initiatives.

Other notable placements from the ranking include Pirelli, the Milan-based tire manufacturer, and Pentair, the London-based metal products company; both scored highly for the racial diversity of their boards. Unilever, the multinational consumer goods company, earned a high score for the racial diversity of its executives. Severn Trent, the U.K. wastewater treatment company, scored highly for female representation at both the executive and board levels.

The European outlook

What explains the outsized influence of European companies amidst this shift toward sustainability in global affairs? How do we make sense not only of the outsized presence of European companies on the Global 100 ranking, but also the tremendous diversity of companies on the Europe 50? There are a few key factors, Heaps suggests. The first is the regulatory environment. Rules around disclosure of sustainability performance simply do not exist to the same extent anywhere outside of Europe.

Regulations on what kinds of labels can be used, and even what kinds of products can be manufactured, for example, extend to performance, Yow explains: “Companies have to perform well on sustainability because it’s the law.”

Another key factor is leadership. Denmark has a population of just six million people, yet seven Danish companies won positions on the Europe 50. Only the United Kingdom had as many companies represented, and its population is more than 10 times that of Denmark’s. “They always punch above their weight,” Heaps says.

As of 2021, 25% of Denmark’s largest 100 companies – and 60% of the country’s stock market capitalization – are controlled by “industrial foundations,” a unique feature of the Danish economy. The controlling interest of these companies is focused not exclusively on profits, but on fostering societal advancements, innovation and long-term thinking. These companies are, in other words, operating on different time horizons by design. While the dominant Western paradigm has focused exclusively on shareholder returns to the exclusion of “externalities” like planetary and human health, the European approach is achieving a broader range of benefits and still paying off.

“Over the past five years, sustainable revenues of European companies are growing at twice the rate of all other revenues,” Heaps says. Corporate Knights will be tracking the financial performance of the Europe 50 on a go-forward basis.

The unstoppable shift toward more sustainable business models is driven primarily by sound business practices, which also happen to prioritize the planet and its people. These European companies are lighting a path that is not only more sustainable and sensible, but also more rewarding.

Tristan Bronca is a writer and editor in Newmarket, Ontario.

The post Europe is setting the standard for sustainable business – and earning the rewards appeared first on Corporate Knights.

From the perspective of the urgency of the climate crisis, progress toward real transition plans has been agonizingly slow. CDP, a prominent climate disclosure platform, has found that while a quarter of the companies it tracks have 1.5°C-aligned transition plans, only 2% provided enough information to judge their credibility. And that number “falls to less than 1% when all companies reporting environmental data are considered,” Bloomberg reports.

Transition planning has been hampered by the slow rollout of two key regulatory components: mandatory climate-risk reporting by companies, or “disclosures,” and official definitions for all the relevant terms, or what is sometimes called a “green taxonomy.” Each are required not only to prevent greenwashing, but also to give investors, lenders and insurers the information they need to keep pace as economies evolve with the changing climate.

Delays create need for a new approach

After years of debates about what counts as sustainable or what should be included in a transition fund, the Canadian government announced last October that it would build and implement a taxonomy for transition investments. During his election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney promised that his government would finalize and implement the guidelines by fall 2026.

Mandatory climate reporting, meanwhile, suffered a major setback in April when the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) opted to pause work on developing the regulations, following a similar move by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in March.

We’ve been focused on the data on emissions, not the plans on how to reduce those emissions.

– Marie-Josée Privyk, ESG disclosure coach

Climate-risk disclosures are nonetheless in high demand, and Gary Gensler, the former U.S. SEC chair, has called them the “bare minimum” to help investors. Canada already has voluntary disclosure standards, which the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board (CSSB) finalized in December, and which many expected the CSA to make compulsory.

“These standards are there for companies to adopt . . . And that’s a crucial step. But that takes us only so far. For the benefits of the hard work that was done to develop these standards, we really do need to see adoption across the country,” CSSB chair Wendy Berman said at the Sustainable Finance Summit in Montreal in May.

Marie-Josée Privyk, an ESG disclosure coach in Montreal, says broader change won’t happen without mandatory requirements. “We have gotten as far as we were going to get with voluntary disclosures,” she says.

The Business Future Pathways strategy

Not wanting to wait even longer for companies to make serious transition plans, leading organizations and key figures from Canada’s sustainable finance sector have formed Business Future Pathways, a program to make transition planning an authentic reality, despite insufficient regulatory support.

We’re trying to take transition planning from what is currently seen as a compliance exercise to one that is centred more on creating an engine of future growth and prosperity for each company.

– Jonathan Arnold, director of sustainable finance, Canadian Climate Institute

Rather than lobbying or shareholder activism, the initiative focuses on providing concrete steps to help businesses pick up the pace and move past the hurdles. Barbara Zvan, president and CEO of the University Pension Plan Ontario (UPP), is leading the effort.

There are two parts to achieving this, says Jonathan Arnold, director of sustainable finance at the Canadian Climate Institute, which is responsible for the bulk of the research that will underpin guidance provided by Business Future Pathways.

The first is to get Canadian financial institutions on the same page about what good, credible transition plans look like. This matters because companies need to be properly recognized for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and detaching from fossil fuels, as significant investment and financing opportunities will be tied to those changes. “This won’t involve creating a new standard but rather will boil down the essential components from existing international frameworks to what matters most to Canadian investors,” Arnold says.

While mandatory disclosures have been delayed for most companies, Canada’s financial institutions are already required to report on their exposure to climate risks, as well as their contributions to emissions, under rules from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions that come into effect this year.

By agreeing on what information they want and how it should be shared, the big banks, pension funds and insurers can create the stable ground that companies need to ensure that their transition plans are credible enough for investors who don’t want to be overly exposed to climate risks in their portfolios.

Once that piece is in place, the next step is convincing Canadian businesses to accept the help that’s offered by Business Future Pathways and then go ahead and do their transition plans with confidence, Arnold says.

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The arrival of Business Future Pathways has not been universally celebrated in sustainable finance circles, and it will still have to prove its worth. Some see it as yet another think tank, though Arnold denies that the term applies. Think tanks create more delay than value, according to Chris McDermott, a former Canadian climate negotiator at the United Nations. “Shareholders have far more clout in pressing for reporting than some think tank does,” he argues.

A forward-facing mindset

While efforts to establish mandatory climate-reporting rules have preoccupied the sustainable finance sector, transition planning presents a different outlook on climate mitigation and adaptation. “We’ve been focused on the data on emissions, not the plans on how to reduce those emissions,” Privyk says.

Disclosure is a backward-looking accounting exercise where companies report their historical data, Arnold explains. While disclosure is considered foundational for transition plans, it doesn’t do the work of strategizing how to pivot businesses toward sustainable models.

“We’re trying to take transition planning from what is currently seen as a compliance exercise to one that is centred more on creating an engine of future growth and prosperity for each company,” Arnold says. The work of Business Future Pathways is to shift the conversation more toward profitability and competitiveness, he argues. Credible transitions will have “a material impact on a business’s ability to survive and remain profitable.”

Mark Mann is a Montreal-based journalist and the associate editor at Corporate Knights.

The post A new plan to kick-start the energy transition at Canadian companies appeared first on Corporate Knights.

While opinions may diverge on the best policy approaches, one truth remains: achieving these goals demands substantial financial investment. And while government action is crucial, relying solely on public spending will not suffice.

At the Sustainable Finance Forum this week in Ottawa, we are bridging the gap between the capital providers, the policymakers and the people with innovative ideas to scale investments that address these urgent priorities.

Canada has made significant strides recently, but we have merely scratched the surface of our potential. Other jurisdictions around the world are advancing rapidly by establishing sustainable finance policies to support investment in environmental and social priorities, including Europe, Australia, Asia, and even U.S. states like California, the world’s fifth-biggest economy.

So, can Canada seize this opportunity for the benefit of Canadians? We think so. Here are five transformational strategies we’re exploring during our time in Ottawa.

Adopt a green and transition taxonomy

In October, the federal government announced its plan to develop a green and transition “taxonomy” to provide a clear definition for a green or transition investment, helping eliminate confusion and prevent misleading claims about environmental benefits. Supported by Canada’s 25 largest financial institutions, this initiative is crucial for accelerating capital flows to climate solutions.

An important next step will be for the taxonomy governance structure to be announced and decarbonization strategies established for major industrial sectors identified by the Sustainable Finance Action Council. More than 40 global jurisdictions have taxonomies or will soon, with Australia drawing directly from Canada’s Taxonomy Roadmap Report. And they are already seeing the benefits. The European Union, for example, has had a considerable boost in taxonomy-aligned investments.

Make climate disclosures mandatory

Investors need the full picture to make climate-smart choices. That means companies must come clean about their climate risks and carbon footprints, particularly large, heavy emitters. While some do this voluntarily, quicker progress is needed.

Some Canadian companies will also be subject to reporting based on existing international regulations. But it’s time to make disclosures mandatory in Canada. Without decisive Canadian leadership, our companies will be at a disadvantage trying to navigate international reporting on their own.

Additionally, we expect the forthcoming Canadian Sustainability Standards Board reporting standards to be closely aligned with the International Sustainability Standards Board in terms of rigour, scope and timelines. Canada is a small market competing for global climate capital; we need to level the playing field.

Work with social innovators 

Canada’s social innovators are poised to tackle pressing challenges. Deploying repayable capital among social purpose organizations – a core focus of the Social Finance Fund program – is vital in empowering those who are addressing some of our toughest grassroots challenges.

But capital alone is not enough. An ecosystem approach is needed to improve market access, improve data and reduce regulatory barriers. As a first step, ensuring that social purpose organizations are eligible for business support programs and expanding existing programs to incorporate social and environmental objectives will support non-profits and co-operatives in addressing issues like housing and food security.

Strengthen social finance intermediaries and capital supply

Investing in social finance intermediaries like the Canadian Co-operative Investment Fund or Raven Indigenous Capital Partners is critical for building capacity and developing infrastructure. Introducing legislation like the U.S.’s Community Reinvestment Act could create durable support to seed Canadian community-development financial institutions, leveraging Canada’s strengths in credit unions. Additionally, tax incentives for qualified impact investments can increase supply and lower capital costs. The use of the federal balance sheet to de-risk larger impact-bond issuances is an urgent need and obvious opportunity for growth.

Update charities regulations and legislation

Canada’s endowment disbursement quota (DQ) could be modified to incentivize the deployment of endowed capital by philanthropic foundations into impactful ventures. Strengthening guidance for program-related investments will align Canada’s regulatory framework more closely with that of the United States, which allows those investments to offset DQ requirements effectively.

The time to act is now

To achieve these priorities and more, Canada must act decisively. By adopting the right regulations and creating supports such as tools, data and education, we can position ourselves for success. Without these measures, we risk falling behind in a fast-evolving market. The upcoming federal budget is an unmissable opportunity to build a financial system that is resilient, forward-looking and sustainable. This is our moment to step up and join world leaders in sustainable finance.

Maya Saryyeva is interim executive director at the Institute for Sustainable Finance at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University. Graham Singh is CEO of Relèven and vice chair of the Table of Impact Investment Practitioners. Michael Toye is executive director of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network. The authors’ organizations are presenting partners of the Sustainable Finance Forum, working in the fields of sustainable finance, social finance and impact investing, respectively.

The post Five ways that sustainable finance can deliver the future that Canadians want appeared first on Corporate Knights.

While the CEOs and decision-makers that attended the annual World Economic Forum meeting seemed more worried about things other than climate change (the potential for another Donald Trump presidency and artificial intelligence), they were also more excited about the gathering multitrillion-dollar economic opportunity presented by the transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy. Business is better at playing offence than defence, so I think this may be a good thing.

Corporate Knights’ annual Global 100 ranking of the world’s most sustainable corporations turned 20 this year in Davos. And the corporations that make up the Global 100 are proving that companies that set the standard for sustainability excellence can also outperform the market over time. Now is the time to double down.

These companies show that the climate crisis is far from the back burner for many major players in the business world. Maybe it seems like it has been placed on the back burner simply because it’s becoming ingrained in the way we do business. There isn’t only a moral imperative for corporations to work toward a more sustainable planet; there’s a financial one, too. Here are eight ways the sustainable economy is taking over.

1. In 2024, the average Global 100 company earned 51% of its revenue from sustainable solutions in alignment with the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Taxonomy (which measures corporate contributions to the sustainability transition). That’s three times better than the average large publicly traded company with more than US$1 billion in overall revenue, which earned 16% of its revenue from sustainable sources.

2. When it comes to sustainable investments, it’s the same story. Global 100 companies allocated 55% of their total investments (capital expenditure, research and development, and acquisitions) to sustainable themes, versus 17% for the broader universe of companies analyzed.

3. Financially speaking, the Global 100 index has stood the test of time, outperforming its benchmark over the past two decades. It has posted a 295% total return since its inception in February 2005 to the end of 2023 (versus 278% for the MSCI ACWI).

4. The really good news is that the exponential growth of the sustainable economy is not contained to the Global 100 companies; it is now embedded as a dominant macroeconomic growth trend, with large publicly traded companies growing their sustainable revenues and investments at double the rate of general revenues and investments over the past three years. A look inside the Corporate Knights Sustainable Economy Intelligence Database shows that sustainable capital expenditures grew by 56% from 2019 to 2022, compared to 23% for general capital expenditures, while sustainable revenue grew by 84% versus 40% for general revenues over the same period.

5. None of this means we can rest on our laurels. The fossil fuel industry is flush with cash, existentially motivated and ferociously well organized to put up political barriers that delay the inevitable transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy. But fear not: the companies that want swifter climate action in alignment with the Paris Agreement – publicly traded companies signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) – have seven times more economic power (earning US$28 trillion in the most recent fiscal year, according to Corporate Knights calculations) than the US$4 trillion haul made by the fossil fuel industry (itself a huge rise from its recent average of US$1.5 trillion).

6. This economic power must be translated into political power to address barriers to climate action, chief among them unacceptably long permitting times for renewable-energy projects. This is beginning to happen with work led by the Corporate Knights Global 100 Council and others to galvanize the voice of business – not just the green energy companies – as a voice for speeding up climate action. This was demonstrated at COP28 (the first COP agreement to include a renewable-energy target), where business calls spanning all sectors for more clean energy were met with a pledge to triple installed renewable energy to 11,000 gigawatts by 2030.

7. While the fossil fuel industry is more powerful politically, both science and economic power are on the side of companies that want to speed up climate action.

8. While much climate action discussion is devoted to absolute net-zero goals decades away, which can raise hackles and unnecessary existential questions, the current imperative is to focus on speeding up action here and now.

Corporate Knights is here to help organize and provide secretariat support for companies that want to speak out together and ensure that their industry associations are part of the program, so we can make 2024 the year of climate action acceleration.

Our skis are pointed in the right direction, and we’re closing in on the summit (with an electric assist).

Toby Heaps is co-founder and publisher of Corporate Knights. 

The post Eight ways the sustainable economy is (still) taking over appeared first on Corporate Knights.