It’s almost enough to make you think the bank doesn’t take shareholder opinion seriously. Rather than issue a specific defense of how its “sustainable investment” practices allow it to fund fossil fuel expansion and projects opposed by Indigenous peoples, RBC instead answered (p. 96 here) the resolution we filed with vague generalities and platitudes, leaving…

Today the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) released the next steps of its climate plans as part of its Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD) 2021 report. While there are some positive steps, overall RBC is falling behind in its efforts by failing to set 2030 targets for carbon-intensive sectors and by omitting the majority…

When is sustainable finance not sustainable finance? This sounds like a nerdy and unfunny joke, but let’s give the punchline anyway: When it’s given to companies increasing emissions during the climate crisis. That’s the crux of a shareholder resolution we filed with RBC this year that will go to a vote at its April 7…

Today the German group Urgewald released a bombshell of a report on coal financing, showing that banks provided loans and underwriting of US$1.5 trillion to companies on the Global Coal Exit List over the last two years, while institutional bondholders and shareholders held US$1.2 trillion as of November 2021. The report is shocking, demonstrating that…

Over the past few months, we’ve engaged each of the five largest Canadian banks on their climate work. We’ve filed a few shareholder proposals, at least one of which will be going to a vote (more on that soon). And we produced this best practices report which we will use to benchmark the banks after…

Word on the street is that the CSA Group’s transition taxonomy process has stalled out due to lack of consensus. (For background, see our earlier blog). This is just as well, since it was tracking towards a shockingly weak product that would have provoked surprise and probably a bit of outrage in ESG circles in…

Soon the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) will release its work on what’s called a “transition taxonomy,” essentially a definition-setting exercise for what kind of projects should qualify for transition financing, a branch of “sustainable” financing. The stakes are high. Finance is under increasing pressure to move money away from activities causing the climate crisis and towards those…

Canada’s banks are coming under increasing pressure for their fossil fuel financing, among the highest in the world. But recently they joined Mark Carney’s Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) – en masse – so that’s fixed, right? Well not exactly. Or at all, really. Leaked emails show that advisors to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) of which NZBA…