Canadian Pension Giant Aims to Close Net-Zero Reality Gap

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has published a framework it says is intended to help corporate boards support their net zero commitments with reliable data and disclosures.

The C$523 billion ($389.4 billion) pension giant said many companies are struggling to back up their net-zero commitments. However, it said The Decarbonization Imperative shows companies and investors “how to close the gap between the willingness to pursue decarbonization and the clear, measurable action plans that will achieve their commitments.”

The report uses an abatement capacity assessment framework, which the pension fund said is a standardized template to identify, report, and abate all sources of greenhouse gas emissions within a company’s operations and supply chains.

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“Boards and executives have a duty to their companies to conduct emissions-reduction assessments and develop transition plans,” Richard Manley, CPPIB’s head of sustainable investing, said in a statement. “We are constantly seeking to identify and manage dynamic and emerging material business risks and opportunities and will allocate our capital to companies that can demonstrate an ability to credibly reduce emissions.”

The report also details what the pension fund deems a successful pilot of the framework with portfolio company Trafford Centre, one of the U.K.’s largest shopping malls. It said the pilot demonstrates that the benefits for companies of assessing and implementing transition plans “can be real and substantial.” It said the data revealed significant opportunities to cost-effectively reduce most of the shopping center’s emissions, with “a big chunk coming at a surprisingly low cost.” It also said the pilot “charted possible pathways to reducing the remaining emissions and achieving net-zero.” The pension fund added that is currently conducting several other pilots among a range of sectors.

As far as CPPIB’s own net-zero goals, it said it expects to achieve carbon neutrality for internal operations by the end of fiscal year 2023. It said it is conducting an abatement capacity assessment on its operations and will “monitor the breadth, quality and reliability of emissions data as this space continues to rapidly evolve.” [Source]

In addition to the framework, the report also provides other strategies for meeting net-zero goals, such as active ownership, developing “nature-based” technology solutions, using green bonds, and “enabling emissions reduction and business transformation in high-emitting sectors.”

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Tags: Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Climate Change, CPPIB, decarbonization, framework, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Net Zero, Richard Manley, supply chain, sustainable investing

Will the real Elon Musk please stand up?

On the one hand, he has started to make more reassuring noises lately, now that he has secured the takeover of Twitter. At the Baron Investment Conference on Monday, he backed off his seeming pledge to weaken moderation of content, saying that hate speech has no place on the social network. And he justified his proposed new $8 per month fee as a way to minimize troll activity on Twitter.

But on the other hand, he just canned half of Twitter’s workforce, saying the step was needed to save money—thus raising doubts that content screening will be adequate. Further, he tweeted last Friday that he’d start a “thermonuclear name & shame campaign” against brands that had paused their advertising on the platform. And then there’s the question of former President Donald Trump’s being allowed to return to Twitter. Musk said it would take weeks to figure out the parameters of restoring banned accounts, which seemed to say Trump would still be permitted back.

But like rapper Eminem’s evil alter-ego in the song “The Real Slim Shady,” who never suffers any ill effects from his deeds, Musk has run into some negative consequences. Namely a decline of $87 billion of his net worth this year, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Much of that coincides with his on-again-off-again quest for Twitter.

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His best-known holding, electric vehicle maker Tesla, is down 43% since April 14, when he announced his campaign for Twitter. For the entire year, the drop is about the same. That is worse than the S&P 500, off 19.6% this year and 12.7% since April 14.

Tesla is sometimes equated with technology companies. Yet the falls of Big Tech stars this year are far less than the carmaker’s descent: Microsoft has lost 22%, Alphabet 28% and Apple 9%. Their dips since April are about the same as the year-to-date numbers.

Musk can take one solace: He still is the richest person on the planet, by Bloomberg’s estimate, at $179 billion.