Brad Lander is advocating for public pension funds to enforce their responsible investment mandates even if that pits them against their partners. As New York City comptroller and chief financial officer, he’s the investment advisor and custodian for the city’s five public pension funds. In the role, he oversees the investment guidelines and allocations strategy […]
The Canadian edition of an international set of sustainability investment disclosure standards will be officially released in December, according to the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board. The organization was tasked with creating a set of sustainability investment standards in Canada based on those created by the International Sustainability Standards Board. The two new disclosure metrics — CSDS […]
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the federal government is moving ahead with guidelines around sustainable investing and corporate climate disclosures, but details on the plans are scarce. The move comes as a wide range of investors, asset managers and environmental groups have been pushing the government to roll out such guidelines, also known as green […]
After several years of development, two long-awaited national health-care initiatives are finally taking shape, raising questions about their impact to employer-sponsored benefits plans. In May, the Canadian Dental Care Plan was officially rolled out, providing dental coverage to Canadians who don’t have access to private dental insurance and whose annual net family income is less […]
Institutional investors are disclosing the environmental impact of their assets through increasingly sophisticated sustainability reports that use the latest disclosure metrics. While some of Canada’s largest pension funds are at the forefront of how to leverage responsible investment mandates and attempt to enact change through leadership in global organizations, the shortcomings of data reporting standards […]
Institutional investors face several challenges in proving the value of sustainable investments, said Arijit Banik, treasurer at York University, during a session at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2024 Endowment & Foundation Investment Forum in June. It’s difficult to measure the impact of an investment, even the cleanest ones, with the current measurement framework available to […]
Greenhushing — the withholding of sustainability milestones and other environmental investment goals by institutional investors and investee companies — is a trend that could already be on the way out, says Mary Jane McQuillen, head of environmental, social and governance investing at ClearBridge Investments, a subsidiary of Franklin Templeton Investments. The effects of greenhushing are expected […]
Roughly seven in 10 (73 per cent) Ontario Pension Board plan members believe environmental, social and governance factors should play a critical role in the plan’s investment considerations, according to a new survey included in the investment organization’s inaugural ESG report. The survey, which polled roughly 10,000 plan members, found nearly two-fifths (39 per cent) of […]
The New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System and Board of Education Retirement System signed an agreement with the Royal Bank of Canada to publicly disclose its financing ratio of low-carbon energy to fossil fuels. The investment organizations are mandating RBC, as well as Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., to adhere […]
With the introduction of new sustainability and climate disclosure guidelines — IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 — from the International Sustainability Standard Board in January, institutional investors now have the opportunity to gain alignment in measuring environmental, social and governance risks associated with their investment portfolios. Read: Research finds pensions struggle to determine metrics for ESG […]