Globe Climate: Canadian company net-zero rankings

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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

To start your newsletter experience with something light, I’d like to introduce you to a grey whale that has been named Little Patch. He has been mesmerizing onlookers in Vancouver as he stops to feed before migrating northward. There have been many sightings of killer whales, harbour porpoises and Pacific white-sided dolphins in the area, too.

“I think it really reminds us of our impact on those animals and the fact they are inhabiting these very busy waters,” said Jessica Scott, senior manager of the Ocean Wise whales initiative.

Now, let’s catch you up on other news.

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Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. Court: Indigenous community files $200-million lawsuit against Ottawa over unclean drinking water
2. Policy: Is Ottawa’s anti-greenwashing law helping or hurting Canadian companies?
3. Energy: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith focuses on scrapping energy policies in speech on province’s relationship with Ottawa
4. Food: Canadian shoppers more likely to buy local food now than six months ago, survey finds
5. Drink: One of Italy’s finest winemakers succeeds by working with the forces of nature
6. Shopping: How a B.C.-based sustainable fishing advocate grocery shops
7. Oil and gas: As the U.S. trade war escalates, the first LNG Canada shipment to Asia approaches
8. From The Narwhal: Life in a city that dumps billions of litres of raw sewage into lakes and rivers

A deeper dive

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Road to Net Zero Ranking 2025

For this week’s deeper dive, we highlight ESG and sustainable finance reporter Jeffrey Jones’s recent piece looking at Canadian companies’ work on climate targets.

The following is a trimmed excerpt from his story, edited for length.

Is a net-zero strategy a burden for a company in chaotic economic times, or a benefit?

Yrjo Koskinen a professor of sustainable and transition finance at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business, offered a compelling theory: By sticking to its guns in the quest for net-zero carbon emissions, Corporate Canada could actually be more competitive in the race for green capital.

But there’s much work to do.

In the 2025 edition of Road to Net Zero, Morningstar Sustainalytics has taken note of improvements from last year’s results in reporting key climate-related metrics among some of the top-performing Canadian companies, including tallying emissions. There are leaders in the services, utilities and mining sectors. But there are still gaping holes everywhere, notably in developing and reporting effective strategies that put them on a track that aligns with the Paris target.

This is the second year Report on Business has documented how Corporate Canada scores in Morningstar Sustainalytics’ Low-Carbon Transition Rating. It’s a method of slicing and dicing numerous metrics to determine which companies are on a pathway to hit the 1.5C global goal. As it turns out, of the 226 Canadian companies it analyzed this year, none hits the mark.

An obvious question is whether Ottawa’s newly enacted anti-greenwashing provisions under Bill C-59 have prompted companies to stop disclosing data that could help their ratings. Morningstar Sustainalytics analyst Alex Osborne-Saponja says she doubts the new rules had a major impact in the 2024 numbers presented here, though they may affect next year’s results, depending on how companies react.

Canada’s not alone in falling short of targets. The organization runs the numbers on about 12,000 companies worldwide, and just like last year’s report, not one meets the test.

There’s no doubt – we’re in a rough patch in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

There’s still progress, though.

Companies may not be crowing about it like they did a few years ago, but many across high-emitting sectors like energy and transport are making strides on the decarbonization path, according to Climate Engagement Canada, an organization made up of 51 institutional investors with $7-trillion in assets under management.

You can read Jeff Jones’s full story today, and use the interactive tool to sift through the data and see the scores for the company rankings. It’s cool! Check it out.

What else you missed

• Grey whale washes ashore near Tofino, B.C. Cause of death unknown
• Quebec lends forest fire teams to battle Saskatchewan and Ontario blazes
• Hundreds of people evacuated as wildfires threaten areas north of Edmonton
• A planned burn in devastating 2023 fire season could have killed trapped firefighters, says B.C. safety report
• Hudson’s Bay Company records give public chance to ‘reconnect’ with ancestors
• Brazilian presidency of COP30 calls for new global climate governance mechanisms

Opinion and analysis

Tanya Talaga: Doug Ford is running roughshod over the environment and the law. Sound familiar?

Green Investing

B.C. won’t fast-track projects without First Nations’ ownership, Premier says

B.C. Premier David Eby‘s NDP government wants to pass Bill 15, the Infrastructure Projects Act, by the end of May. The proposed legislation would grant sweeping powers to cabinet to designate priority projects that would jump the queue for regulatory review. Eby says none will be built without First Nations’ consent – and financial benefits.

The province has identified clean energy and critical mineral mines as top priorities, but has offered little encouragement to its neighbour Alberta for new fossil fuel projects.

The Climate Exchange

We’ve launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions.

Photo of the week

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Guides and Explainers

• Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
• We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP29 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
• We have ways to make your travelling more sustainable and if you like to read, here are books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills - Little Steps to Big Change.

Catch up on Globe Climate

• Shipping is a dirty business
• Climate on the ballot
• Safe drinking water on the campaign trail
• Promising signs from whale calving season

We want to hear from you. Email us: GlobeClimate@globeandmail.com. Do you know someone who needs this newsletter? Send them to our Newsletters page.