Trends in Environmental Social Governance

By Jaray Zhao (Toronto) on January 18, 2018 Posted in Corporate Governance, Securities

Corporations are facing increasing pressure to offer more transparency and disclosure with respect to their governance practices that promote environmental and social sustainability. This year’s trends in Environment Social Governance (ESG) in the context of Canadian corporate governance indicate that more and more corporations are including ESG as part of their core mandates and that investors are looking and asking for more ESG-related disclosures in making investment decisions.

What is ESG?

ESG is a general term used in the capital markets referring to non-financial performance indicators including sustainability, ethics and corporate governance factors, which measure the sustainability and … Continue Reading

Investors heating up the conversation on climate change

By Lucy Liu (Toronto) on August 21, 2017 Posted in Corporate Governance, Shareholder Activism

Shareholders are placing increased value on non-financial factors when making investment decisions. Some of these factors are environmental and social issues. In particular, shareholder proposals on climate change have recently gained some traction.

In 2016, a record breaking number of climate change resolutions were filed. This shift in focus is attributed to the 2015 Paris Accord, where 195 nations committed to take measures to mitigate global warming. The accord’s objective was to garner a global response to climate change, and it succeeded in enlisting a pledge from these nations to limit temperature increases to well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Interestingly, … Continue Reading

Policy activists get tough on climate change

By Matthew Lau (Toronto) on April 11, 2016 Posted in Shareholder Activism

As we previously predicted in a 2014 article, The Rise of Policy Activists?, policy activism in Canada is gaining speed. In this year’s upcoming proxy season, a hot topic for policy activists is the potential transition to a global low-carbon economy.

Canada is currently working towards a national climate change plan and one of the tools being considered is a national carbon tax. If implemented, energy companies would be required to pay a national tax on greenhouse gas emissions.

One of Suncor’s shareholders, NEI Investments, filed a shareholder proposal last month demanding that Suncor address its long-term survival … Continue Reading