Climate Reporting: What Your Firm Needs to Know
Canadian companies must start to understand their climate risk and measure emissions. Are you ready?
Climate change is causing enormous shifts in our economy, and “business as usual” is no longer an option. Canada’s biggest public firms are increasingly disclosing their GHG emissions and setting greenhouse gas reduction targets for their operations.
But there is more work to do, and new regulations, standards and investor expectations will have a big impact on how companies deal with climate change. Is your firm equipped to handle the risks created by global warming and take advantage of the opportunities in a low-carbon economy?
This 60-minute webinar explores the issues and expectations around climate disclosure, and features a panel of Canadian industry leaders and sustainable finance experts. The event was supported by the CPA Ontario Centre for Corporate Reporting & Professionalism at Smith.
You learn:
- How corporate Canada is performing on climate risk disclosure, emissions and net-zero plans
- The state of climate disclosure standards and regulations in Canada and globally
- The challenges and benefits for disclosing firms
- How to make the regulatory burden manageable
- How investors can engage with even high-emitting firms to help them transition to net-zero
- How rigorous disclosure standards can help the private sector contribute to Canada’s fight against climate change
This webinar was recorded on Thursday, December 14, 2023.
Session Participants
Dr. Ryan Riordan
Ryan Riordan is a professor of finance at Smith School of Business and research director at the Institute for Sustainable Finance. He is a recent recipient of the Bank of Canada Governor’s Award and was recognized by the Globe and Mail as a Changemaker for his work on climate finance. Ryan is also head of the newly established Institute for Financial Innovation and Technology at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. His work has been published in all the leading academic finance journals, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies.
Omolola Fashesin
Omolola Fashesin is a principal with the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board (CSSB). In her role, she contributes to technical research to support sustainability standards proposals, conducts outreach sessions to gather feedback on proposals, and presents results and recommendations to drive decisions, thereby helping to shape the future of sustainability standards. She is also involved in educational activities aimed at building capacity in sustainability disclosures. Before joining the CSSB, Omolola worked in various capacities in finance, risk management and sustainability. In her immediate past role, she led the sustainability team of a financial services company.
David Ung
David Ung is a director on Manulife Investment Management’s global sustainable investing team, responsible for ESG integration and stewardship initiatives to support Manulife’s Canadian portfolio management teams. Before joining the firm, David worked in the financial sector for over nine years. He has been particularly involved in the responsible investment industry for the past seven years as an ESG consultant for Millani, the HEC Montreal Pension Plan, and Vigeo Eiris. David is president of the advisory committee of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Quebec Network and served as interim president of the Quebec Responsible Investment Club in 2020-21.
Geoff Pegg
Geoff Pegg has led the sustainability strategy at Telus for the past 12 years. Geoff established Telus’s long-term climate change and waste diversion goals, targets and action plans. He also initiated Telus’s leading practice of linking executive and team member pay to sustainability objectives and led efforts leading to Telus issuing Canada’s first sustainability-linked bond. In 2020, Geoff was elected to the boards of the Canadian Business for Social Responsibility (CBSR) and the Global Compact Network Canada (GCNC). He has been honoured twice as a member of the Clean 50 for leadership in sustainable development and clean capitalism in Canada.
Meredith Dault
Meredith Dault is a journalist and communications specialist. She has worked as a reporter and producer with CBC Radio in Ottawa and Halifax, and her work has been published widely, including in the Ottawa Citizen, the Globe and Mail, Kingston Life and online at Reader’s Digest Canada. She is the manager, content and media production in the Centre for Content Development at Smith School of Business and is the regular host of Smith Business Insight webinars.