It looks to be another busy year for the research team at Vancouver-based Ethical Funds, with today’s release of the mutual fund company’s extensive sustainable investment program annual report.
Bob Walker, vice president, sustainability, says Ethical plans to focus on three key issues in 2009. “The first is investor risk in Canada’s oil sands. The second is how companies can assess the full range of their impacts on human rights and ensure that their activities benefit impacted communities. The third will address how investors can help restore integrity to capital markets and the publicly-traded companies that benefit from the ethical functioning of those markets.”
As well as engaging oil sands companies on climate change, Ethical will ask companies in other sectors to work on emissions reduction, including continued dialogue with real estate companies on implementing green building strategies. Oil sands companies will also be asked to address cumulative water use issues and forestry companies will be encouraged to adopt sustainable practices.
On the social side, Ethical will continue to work with companies to encourage the development and implementation of human rights policies and programs when operating in risky countries. The fund company will also work towards eliminating sweatshop conditions and make an effort to ensure companies are not inadvertently supporting the use of child or forced labour.
Respecting indigenous rights is also on the 2009 agenda, particularly in the mining sector, where Ethical will support the adoption of informed consent as the standard for project development.
Corporate governance will be Ethical’s third main focus, with the company asking companies to improve their corporate social responsibility reporting and overall quality of their disclosure. Curbing excessive compensation will remain a priority, with Ethical asking that compensation be linked to positive performance on both the financial and the non-financial side.
“We believe companies that proactively address environmental, social and governance challenges have a long-term competitive advantage over companies that choose to ignore these issues,” notes Walker.
The sustainability report also includes highlights from Ethical’s work in 2008, including encouraging more Canadian companies to participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project, encouraging Canadian banks to adopt and disclose procedures for evaluating climate change-related credit risk in their commercial lending policies and raising awareness of the risks investors face from the scale and pace of development in Alberta’s oil sands.
Showing posts with label tar sands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tar sands. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Tar Sands by Andrew Nikiforuk
Tar Sands by Andrew Nikiforuk
Subtitled ‘Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent’, this book is a must read for every Canadian. Tar Sands is packed with information about what is happening in Alberta, much of which was news to me. It’s extremely comprehensive and filled with facts, but they are clearly sorted chapter by chapter. How bitumen turns into oil, the terrible toll on the people working and living around the oil sands, the impact of the refining process on the environment including a chapter dealing specifically with water, it’s all here. At just under 200 pages in paperback, it’s affordable, portable and readable. However, the volume of information and Nikiforuk’s impassioned writing style made it easier for me to take in a chapter at a time. Nota bene - some reviewers and other entities have taken issue with some of Nikiforuk's research, and he has responded.
One of the interesting points Nikiforuk makes is that there is almost no coverage of the tar sands by the mainstream press. Likening what is happening in Alberta to a national event on the scale of the building of the railway, he finds it unbelievable that there is so little reporting of what is going on. With the election of Obama, the issue takes on a new urgency as it is central to the agenda when Obama meets Harper in Ottawa on February 19th. A recent article in Macleans says “On Monday, Canada's ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, suggested the perception of Canada as a purveyor of dirty oil is one of the biggest challenges the government faces with Obama's administration. Prime Minister Stephen Harper also admitted during an interview last week ‘To be frank, on the oil sands, we've got to do a better job environmentally. We hear a lot of pressure on that’.”
It’s up to us to keep up that pressure. Educating yourself by reading this book is a good first step. When I finished it I felt ‘we have to do something’ Hopefully, it will elicit that same reaction from you. More on what’s being done in another post.
Subtitled ‘Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent’, this book is a must read for every Canadian. Tar Sands is packed with information about what is happening in Alberta, much of which was news to me. It’s extremely comprehensive and filled with facts, but they are clearly sorted chapter by chapter. How bitumen turns into oil, the terrible toll on the people working and living around the oil sands, the impact of the refining process on the environment including a chapter dealing specifically with water, it’s all here. At just under 200 pages in paperback, it’s affordable, portable and readable. However, the volume of information and Nikiforuk’s impassioned writing style made it easier for me to take in a chapter at a time. Nota bene - some reviewers and other entities have taken issue with some of Nikiforuk's research, and he has responded.
One of the interesting points Nikiforuk makes is that there is almost no coverage of the tar sands by the mainstream press. Likening what is happening in Alberta to a national event on the scale of the building of the railway, he finds it unbelievable that there is so little reporting of what is going on. With the election of Obama, the issue takes on a new urgency as it is central to the agenda when Obama meets Harper in Ottawa on February 19th. A recent article in Macleans says “On Monday, Canada's ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, suggested the perception of Canada as a purveyor of dirty oil is one of the biggest challenges the government faces with Obama's administration. Prime Minister Stephen Harper also admitted during an interview last week ‘To be frank, on the oil sands, we've got to do a better job environmentally. We hear a lot of pressure on that’.”
It’s up to us to keep up that pressure. Educating yourself by reading this book is a good first step. When I finished it I felt ‘we have to do something’ Hopefully, it will elicit that same reaction from you. More on what’s being done in another post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)