Corporate Knights

APRIL 15, 2024

Some plant-based brands have struggled to lower their prices so they’re on par with meat and dairy products. But while beef burgers, bacon and chicken nuggets might be easier on household budgets, they have all sorts of planetary and socio-economic costs that don’t show up on receipts. Forests Livestock farming is responsible for almost 40% of global deforestation , mostly in the vital rainforests of the Amazon.

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UNEP Climate Change 130

Corporate Knights

APRIL 15, 2024

By late February, the Smokehouse Creek wildfire in the Texas Panhandle had become the state’s first ever “gigafire,” a label saved for blazes that tear through more than a million acres. From a region that’s home to more cows than anywhere in the United States, images of cattle running from the “monster” blaze went viral, reminding us, yet again, that bad weather keeps getting worse.

Academics 317

Academics Waste 317

Corporate Knights

APRIL 1, 2024

The world is inching ever closer to 2050, the target date set in Paris in 2015 for countries to reduce their emissions to net-zero. While some still believe that this goal is attainable, cutting carbon may be more gradual than many might expect. That’s especially true today as three new forces – inflation, deglobalization and changes in clean tech investments – are impacting the energy transition in new ways.

Supply Chains 130

Supply Chains Supply Chain Net Zero Manufacturing 130

Corporate Knights

APRIL 2, 2024

Last month, a United States appeals court judge temporarily suspended the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new climate-risk disclosure rules amid legal challenges. To date, at least 19 Republican-led states have sued the SEC, in part over alleged concerns that the agency’s rules violate companies’ First Amendment right to free speech because they “compel” companies to disclose certain information.

Greenwashing 174

Greenwashing Climate Change Banking Development 174

Corporate Knights

APRIL 3, 2024

When you live far from the sprawling fields befitting utility-scale solar and wind farms, it’s easy to feel like clean energy isn’t coming online fast enough. But renewables have grown at a staggering rate since 2014 and now account for 22 percent of the nation’s electricity. Solar alone has grown an impressive eightfold in 10 years. The sun and the wind have been the country’s fastest growing sources of energy over the past decade, according to a report the nonprofit Climate Central released We

Manufacturing 154

Manufacturing Development 154

Corporate Knights

APRIL 1, 2024

Ford and Mercedes-Benz lead the automotive world in working to clean up their supply chains, according to a new report with rankings endorsed by a labor and environmental civil society coalition. But the car industry is far from achieving a “truly clean car” and progress is “lackluster,” the scorecard notes. Car companies are increasingly embracing electric vehicles as a new market opportunity exposed by worsening climate and biodiversity crises.

Supply Chains 273

Supply Chains Supply Chain Waste Decarbonize 273

Corporate Knights

MARCH 28, 2024

Every other day, it seems, an oil and gas industry supporter appears on my LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter) feeds, arguing that Canada needs to ramp up the production and export of liquefied natural gas (LNG). While their interest is clearly economic, many proponents wrap their arguments in dubious claims about Canadian LNG contributing to the global fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Paris Agreement 355

Paris Agreement Climate Change Greenwashing Shipping 355

Corporate Knights

MARCH 27, 2024

Fossil fuel interest groups have mobilized quickly to oppose a new rule issued by the Biden administration designed to speed up America’s transition to hybrid and electric vehicles. The rule, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized on March 20, limits emissions from tailpipes on new cars, starting in 2027. Well before the EPA finalized the new standard, powerful corporate lobbies like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) had already promised to spend

EPA 154

EPA Manufacturing Digitalization 154

Corporate Knights

MARCH 26, 2024

As of November, homeowners who heat their abodes with oil have been exempt from the federal fuel charge, or carbon tax. This reversal of one of the crown jewels of the federal government’s climate policies added fuel to the heated public debate over the carbon tax. This policy flip-flop, mixed with poor government communication and sustained attacks by politicians that prey on affordability concerns, isn’t advancing Canada’s economic or environmental objectives.

Banking 211

Banking 211

Corporate Knights

MARCH 25, 2024

Bring it on. That was the governing Liberals’ response to Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s call for the next Canadian election to be a “carbon tax election.” Both parties are suiting up for battle. Carbon pricing is embedded in the Liberal brand, and they are doubling down in their support for it, even as some question whether the policy has passed its “best before” date.

Decarbonize 260

Decarbonize Banking Manufacturing Development 260

Corporate Knights

MARCH 22, 2024

In Europe, increasing efforts on climate change mitigation, a sudden focus on energy independence after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and reported breakthroughs in nuclear fusion have sparked renewed interest in the potential of nuclear power. So-called small modular reactors (SMRs) are increasingly under development, and familiar promises about nuclear power’s potential are being revived.

Waste 168

Waste Development Climate Change 168

Corporate Knights

MARCH 21, 2024

Transportation is the largest source of planet-warming gases in the United States, which makes reducing tailpipe pollution as quickly as possible essential to meeting our climate goals. The Biden administration took a huge stride toward that goal Wednesday when it unveiled the tightest limits the nation has ever placed on vehicle emissions. The rule, which follows three years of deliberation among regulators, automakers, and others, places increasingly stringent standards on the amount of CO2 an

Decarbonize 146

Decarbonize EPA Climate Change Manufacturing 146

Corporate Knights

MARCH 14, 2024

If, in the 18 months since the Inflation Reduction Act passed, you’ve found yourself muttering Jerry Maguire’s timeless mantra — “Show me the money!” — a handful of policy analysts has just done exactly that. Their analysis of the nation’s investment in clean energy found that for every dollar the government has contributed to advancing the transition, the private sector has kicked in $5.47, leading to nearly a quarter-trillion dollars flowing into the clean economy in just one year.

Paris Agreement 246

Paris Agreement Supply Chains Supply Chain Decarbonize 246

Corporate Knights

MARCH 20, 2024

W ith the nuclear calamities of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl fresh in the public mind, the 1980s saw a number of socially responsible investment funds pledge to keep nuclear energy out of their portfolios. The trend quickly spread, and soon the exclusion of companies that were involved in nuclear became the bedrock of socially conscious investment funds.

Green Bonds 283

Green Bonds Net Zero Climate Scientist Waste 283

Corporate Knights

MARCH 19, 2024

The world’s methane emissions remained stalled near record levels in 2023, and Canada tied for seventh on the list of top 10 emitters, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported this week in the latest edition of its annual Global Methane Tracker. The 120 million tonnes of emissions from fossil fuels, plus another 10 megatonnes from traditional uses of biomass, leave countries with a lot of work to do in very little time if they aim to drastically reduce their methane pollution by 2030.

Paris Agreement 220

Paris Agreement Climate Change 220

Corporate Knights

MARCH 18, 2024

Europe’s electricity grid is getting much cleaner – fast. Power sector emissions were down a whopping 19% in 2023 compared to 2022, according to a recent report by Ember, an independent energy think tank. “The EU’s power sector is in the middle of a monumental shift,” says Sarah Brown, Ember’s Europe program director. She explains that fossil fuels are playing a smaller role than ever as a system with wind and solar as its backbone comes into view.

Power Emissions 308

Power Emissions 308

Corporate Knights

MARCH 15, 2024

JAKARTA — Deforestation by the palm oil industry in Indonesia increased in 2023 for the second year in a row, bucking a decade of gradual decline, according to an analysis by technology consultancy TheTreeMap. Palm oil companies in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity, cleared 30,000 hectares (about 74,100 acres) of forest last year to make way for plantations, up from 22,000 hectares (54,400 acres) in 2022.

Supply Chains 270

Supply Chains Supply Chain Development 270

Corporate Knights

MARCH 14, 2024

If, in the 18 months since the Inflation Reduction Act passed, you’ve found yourself muttering Jerry Maguire’s timeless mantra — “Show me the money!” — a handful of policy analysts has just done exactly that. Their analysis of the nation’s investment in clean energy found that for every dollar the government has contributed to advancing the transition, the private sector has kicked in $5.47, leading to nearly a quarter-trillion dollars flowing into the clean economy in just one year.

Paris Agreement 291

Paris Agreement Supply Chains Supply Chain Decarbonize 291

Corporate Knights

MARCH 13, 2024

The sustainable investment industry in the United States has grudgingly endorsed a watered-down regulation on climate disclosure, acknowledging a barrage of lobbying and legal threats that thwarted tougher carbon-reporting requirements. “This rule is a floor, not a ceiling, for companies to report how their business is adapting to a global economy that is transitioning away from fossil fuels,” said Maria Lettini, CEO of the U.S.

Sustainable Investment 291

Sustainable Investment Greenwashing Global Economy 291

Corporate Knights

MARCH 12, 2024

But is it green? That’s the golden question many investors have for the thousands of companies claiming to be sustainable in one way or another. In the United Kingdom, investors and the public may soon be a bit more certain of companies’ green credentials thanks to new laws coming into effect in May. Britain’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, will require firms’ public communications to be clear, fair and not misleading.

Greenwashing 273

Greenwashing Banking Sustainable Investment 273

Corporate Knights

MARCH 11, 2024

Known for its intricate canals, gabled houses and progressive social policies, Amsterdam has been sharpening its knives when it comes to its food. An increasingly assertive push to get its residents to shift to a plant-based diet has made the Dutch capital the latest big city – and first capital in the European Union – to back the citizen-led Plant Based Treaty.

Climate Scientist 359

Climate Scientist 359

Corporate Knights

MARCH 1, 2024

While some Canadian pension funds “made helpful but modest tweaks” to their climate policies in 2023, even the leaders in the field lagged behind international peers in their efforts to build climate urgency into their investment choices and exclude fossil fuels from their portfolios, a watchdog group reports this morning. Among the 11 funds surveyed, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which manages retirement savings for more than 22 million Canadians, “stands out as the bigges

Net Zero 180

Net Zero Greenwashing Paris Agreement Decarbonize 180

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Oil and gas companies have for years marketed fracked gas from B.C. as a global climate solution, with some industry boosters even going so far as to call Canada’s supply of the fossil fuel the “cleanest in the world.” But an impending flood of liquefied natural gas exports from western Canada to Asia could make it harder for countries there to achieve their national climate targets and contribute to tens of thousands of additional deaths due to air pollution.

Shipping 308

Shipping Carbon Offsets Climate Researcher Climate Change 308

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

Canada will have to install hundreds of thousands more heat pumps over the next three years than current sales trends indicate to get on track to decarbonize home heating and cooling by 2050, a webinar audience heard Thursday afternoon. But a decarbonization plan now taking shape in Australia points the way for government financing to help electrify day-to-day energy use for every household, regardless of income, save $1 trillion over an 18-year span, and fight inflation into the bargain, invent

Decarbonize 363

Decarbonize 363

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Less than half of Canada’s major carbon emitters have adopted net-zero targets, and none have committed to aligning their capital spending with plans to reduce greenhouse gases, according to a report from Climate Engagement Canada (CEC). CEC, which comprises 41 of the largest asset managers in Canada, with $5.2 trillion under management, assessed 41 of the top emitters that trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange on their climate-related commitments, disclosure and governance.

Net Zero 321

Net Zero Banking Manufacturing 321

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

For 40 years, plastic and petrochemical companies have tried to convince the public that plastics can be recycled. But they’ve known for just as long that plastics recycling would never work. A report released last week by the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity, or CCI, chronicles a “decades-long campaign of fraud and deception” from Big Oil and the plastics industry to promote recycling as a solution to the plastic pollution crisis.

Waste 290

Waste Climate Change 290

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

While white women may speak of breaking through the “glass ceiling,” for many Black women, it’s more like a “concrete ceiling.” Black women experience unique and formidable barriers in the workforce that are not only difficult to break, but also obscure their view of career advancement opportunities. A comprehensive study in 2020 exposed the harsh reality of Black representation on Canadian corporate boards: Out of 1,639 board positions across eight major Canadian cities, only 0.8% were occupied

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291

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

For decades, Indigenous communities in northern Alberta have voiced concerns about pollution from the region’s oil sands facilities contaminating the air they breath. Extracting bitumen from the sands has emitted all sorts of harmful chemicals that drift downwind and have even been linked to elevated cancer rates in at least one community. A recent study shows this problem might be a lot worse than the oil industry has let on.

Climate Change 217

Climate Change 217

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

Last month, reporter David Gelles, of The New York Times, wrote that at Davos this year, the climate crisis had largely been “relegated to the back burner.” That was not my experience. 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 opportun

Paris Agreement 270

Paris Agreement Net Zero Sustainable Investment Climate Change 270

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 5, 2024

In Bolivia, a tax on hydrocarbons pays for a healthy meal program in schools. Paris is putting up €10 million to help farmers shift to organic production, while California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has rewilded its rice production. From new nitrogen policies in the Netherlands and China to early-warning weather systems in Bangladesh, the seeds of a food-system revolution are being sown across the planet.

Climate Change 317

Climate Change Digitalization Waste Development 317

Corporate Knights

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

With the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic all but complete, greenhouse gas emissions have rebounded. Not even one of the G20 economies that account for 75% of the world’s emissions is on track to meet its 2030 emission target. And these are targets that fall short of what an effective response to the climate emergency would look like. In China, India and the other middle-income countries, emissions are still on the rise.

Smart Grid 289

Smart Grid Regenerative Decarbonize Climate Change 289

Corporate Knights

JANUARY 23, 2024

In November 1959, some 300 businessmen, scientists and government officials gathered at Columbia University in New York to celebrate the first hundred years of commercial oil exploitation in the United States. The mood was triumphant: fossil fuels were the lifeblood of the world’s largest economy, powering the postwar boom, industrial expansion and the suburban American dream.

Greenwashing 343

Greenwashing Net Zero Climate Change Digitalization 343

Corporate Knights

JANUARY 19, 2024

The following is an excerpt from the eulogy delivered at John Godfrey’s funeral. The journalist and politician died on Dec. 18, a day before his 81st birthday. We have all lost a wonderful friend, father and husband, and we miss him dearly. John was a thoughtful and accomplished man, who lived at least nine separate careers – and that’s just last year.

Climate Change 168

Climate Change Climate Scientist Development 168

Corporate Knights

JANUARY 19, 2024

My mother grew up with Christmas being a spartan time. For me, she was determined to do the opposite. We had an abundance of festive cheer, and I always had a pile of presents under the tree. Probably my most memorable gift was the Millennium Falcon. It was the signature piece from the Star Wars series and a gateway into a world of lightsabers, space, a worrywart robot named C-3PO and the mysterious force, described by Obi-Wan Kenobi as “an energy field created by all living things.

Climate Change 161

Climate Change Global Economy Banking 161

Corporate Knights

JANUARY 18, 2024

Before the world’s most powerful descended on Davos, Switzerland, this week, the World Economic Forum surveyed its members on the global risks confronting the planet. At the top of the list of what keeps global leaders up at night in the near term was not the spread of geopolitical conflict, but misinformation and disinformation, which ranked as the highest threats over the next two years.

Climate Change 174

Climate Change Banking Decarbonize Development 174

Corporate Knights

JANUARY 16, 2024

T he scrap metal industry, to upcycle a tread-worn cliché, don’t get no respect. Stephen Mikkelsen, CEO and managing director of Sims Ltd., the 106-year-old Australian recycling giant, points out that in conversations about climate and carbon, topics like renewable-energy investments and offshore wind farms tend to attract the lion’s share of the attention paid to problems and solutions.

Net Zero 297

Net Zero Divestment Decarbonize Waste 297

Corporate Knights

JANUARY 16, 2024

Skip to ranking BY Shawn McCarthy January 17, 2024 As 2023 came to a close, the World Meteorological Organization declared it to be the hottest year on record. One week later, the Global Carbon Project shared more discouraging news: that despite global pledges to reduce emissions, greenhouse gases from fossil fuels hit a record high again in 2023. As the climate crisis exacts a punishing toll around the globe, we’re also getting better at solving problems.

Manufacturing 363

Manufacturing Banking Sustainable Investment Net Zero 363