Corporate Knights

The increasingly charged and polarized politics surrounding the climate crisis have asset managers between a rock and a hard place when considering their investment strategy. Should they abruptly divest from stocks of fossil fuel industries? Should they progressively withdraw? Complete divestment from carbon-intensive industries has become a popular strategy internationally, and institutional funds—including, most recently, […]

When it comes to investing for most people, the goal is to make money, not save the world. Nevertheless, sustainable or responsible investing (whichever term you prefer) has hit the big-time, particularly around the theme of climate change. Michael Baldinger, head of impact investing at UBS wealth management, which manages more than US$4 trillion in […]

The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission is trying to change the rules that govern shareholder proposals and sustainable finance luminaries are pushing back. In November, the independent federal government agency whose stated mission is to “protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation” announced that it would be toughening the rules surrounding […]

As world leaders converge at this week’s climate summit in Madrid to debate how best to shift to a net zero-economy, Michael Sabia is leaving the helm of Canada’s second-largest pension plan having firmly placed Quebec’s retirement savings at the forefront of the global movement for low-carbon investing. Sabia, who recently announced he’s stepping down […]

Coal mines are in trouble. Investors continue to flee the sector, while once-giant companies like Murray Energy are declaring bankruptcy. With the coal mining sector on the ropes, now is a great time to pit two of the largest companies — Glencore and BHP Group — against each other to see who is leading the […]

There have been some promising signs of progress in business education of late. Special issues of top-tier academic journals are being devoted to sustainability and the climate crisis. New core and elective business-school courses are exploring United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. More scholars interested in sustainability are being hired. Much heavy lifting remains, […]

The Indigenous economy is a force to be reckoned with – and investors are beginning to wake up to this fact. On February 21st in Ottawa, SHARE (a leader in responsible investment services, research and education) and the National Aboriginal Trust Officers Association (NATOA) co-hosted the first ‘Reconciliation and the Indigenous Economy: The Role for […]

It’s been a busy spring for the divestment movement and everyone working to get big money out of fossil fuels. This week, New York State held public hearings debating the issue of divesting the New York State Common Retirement Fund from oil, coal and gas. Last week, Denver announced that its US$5.3 billion portfolio had […]

As [miners] tunnel through the rocks, They discover precious stones… But where can wisdom be found? —Job 28. (Good News Translation) The grimy world of coal production brightened briefly in February, when Swiss mining giant Glencore announced it would cap its global production of thermal and coking coal at its current capacity of 150 million […]

Gone are the days when penny pinchers walked into their local banks and signed onto whatever investments their financial advisors recommended. A deluge of young investors is shaking up the investment community, demanding that their hard-earned savings do more than just tick upwards until they retire in Florida. And since, let’s face it, few of […]

Have you caught any Canadian news lately? If so, you’d know the Montreal-based engineering firm, SNC-Lavalin, is at the centre of a major controversy in Canadian politics right now. We won’t rehash all the gory political details, but suffice it to say, the scandal hasn’t helped SNC’s investors. The stock has taken a nosedive as […]

As awareness dawns of the increasing risks of climate change, business and government have developed new tools and mechanisms to promote pro-social and environmentally friendly investment. But one U.K. analyst is pointing out that such high standards could backfire by restricting capital to many developing nations that need it most. Charles Robertson is the London-based […]

Although 2018 was a tough year for stock markets around the world, it marked a turning point for responsible investment in Canada. According to the 2018 Canadian Responsible Investment Trends Report, more than $2 trillion in Canadian assets (just over half of all investments) now use one or more responsible investment strategies. Big investors like […]

His Holiness Pope Francis Faithful followers: 1.2 billion Catholics Fund management body: Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank Mandate: To serve the global mission of the Catholic Church through the administration of the entrusted assets and providing payment services to the Holy See and related entities. The celebration […]

Organized, and even disorganized, religion oversees large amounts of assets. From the centuries of wealth accumulated by the Roman Catholic Church, to the Church of Scientology’s operating as a lucrative business that pays its recruiters from new-member revenues, churches are rich. This leads inevitably to the question of whether, as investors, it is possible to […]

  With additional reporting by Toby A. A. Heaps Over nearly a decade and a half of writing a weekly column and several books under the Ecoholic banner, I ranked endless streams of products from worst to best in terms of planetary impact, from beer companies to banks, footwear to ethical funds. Many weeks, judging […]

People putting their money into environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments might be in for disappointment, Greenchip Financial’s John Cook said. ESG funds, which select companies for their broader environmental and social impact on top of performance, include a lot of big names whose business has little to do with reducing pollution, Greenchip president Cook […]

Illustration by Benoit Tardif While the sea ice is melting in the Arctic at the fastest pace in 1,500 years and the California forests are burning at a rate greater than at any time in recorded history, the silver lining peeking through is that the world’s most important investors are no longer missing in action […]

Illustration by Benoit Tardif When the Asset Owners Disclosure Project released its 2017 Global Climate Index last April, it came as no surprise that Canadian pension funds continued to lag behind their peers in addressing climate risks. No fund earned the designation of “Leader,” and nearly one quarter of the country’s largest asset owners were […]

(Toronto, September 27, 2017) The world’s largest companies are under-reporting sustainability policies and performance, hampering investors’ access to data that will allow them to play a full role in the transition to a low-carbon economy, according to a new report released today. The study, Measuring Sustainability Disclosure: Ranking the World’s Stock Exchanges 2017, finds that of […]

Illustration by Jack D. Unless you are swinging and missing at home plate, good things often come in threes. So when I had three random interactions all pointing in the same direction, I decided to take a closer look. It led me down a path to a $2 trillion pot of gold. The first interaction […]

Illustration by Sam Island In recent years, corporate governance mavens have focused a great deal of attention on board composition. In particular, diversity has become the shibboleth of good corporate governance, with an assumption that improved oversight and better decision-making will flow from a more diverse board. Although gender has been the key dimension for […]

When Corporate Knights published its first Responsible Investing Guide in 2003, socially responsible mutual funds comprised  1 per cent of the Canadian retail fund market by assets. In the past dozen years, many things have changed – particularly with respect to climate change, now widely acknowledged as a seminal challenge of our time. Governments have […]

A recent event hosted by the BC chapter of Canadian Investor Relations Institute (CIRI) featured a panel of mining sector experts who addressed questions on how trends – such as mandated diversity, investor activism and increased regulatory oversight – are likely to impact corporate boards. The panel also touched upon best practices in director recruitment, […]

Originally published on Ensia. Women are increasingly driving the global economy. According to a 2009 Harvard Business Review article, women controlled $20 trillion in consumer spending each year. Morgan Stanley reports that women control $11.2 trillion of the United States’ investable assets, too — assets held in one’s bank account, stocks, bonds and certificates of […]