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Calling for climate-aligned finance

September 19, 2024

Stop funding climate chaos: Holding Canada’s banks and financial institutions accountable

After decades of denying that climate change is real, Canada’s big polluters and their investors (like the financial and fossil fuel giants) have clued in that consumers want greener products. But instead of pivoting to greener, cleaner products, these companies have simply turned the page in their playbook: to misleading the public with claims that they’re making the changes necessary to protect the planet — when they’re not.  

When polluters and their investors greenwash, people and the planet lose. 

Every dollar that goes toward false solutions is a dollar that isn’t going toward real ones, delaying our transition to a green, low-carbon economy at a time when we need to be accelerating it.  

This missing piece of Canada’s climate policy is regulating our financial system to align with a climate-safe future. 

Years of evidence has shown us that banks can’t regulate themselves. Canada’s banks and insurance firms are among the world’s largest funders of oil, gas, and coal. At the same time, many of these financial institutions have made commitments to reach a net-zero emissions future — a goal that amounts to nothing more than greenwashing if institutions continue to invest in fossil fuels. They are funding carbon pollution that is putting all of us at risk and making our daily lives increasingly unaffordable. 

Without common-sense principles aligning our financial institutions with our climate commitments, our financial sector will continue to actively work against Canada’s and everyday folks’best interest by maintaining the status quo and investing in polluting industries that are making the climate crisis worse for everyone. 

Climate-aligned finance principles would shift Canada’s financial sector priorities from short-term gains to long-term sustainability. 

It’s clear we need stronger regulations that include stricter anti-greenwashing rules and climate-aligned finance laws, to hold our financial institutions accountable and finally align Canada’s financial systems with our climate goals, and realities.

Ecojustice is fighting on your behalf to ensure strict rules and enforcement measures prevent companies, like our big banks, other financial institutions, and oil and gas giants, from lying to consumers and harming our environment in the process. 

It’s time to tell Canada’s biggest polluters and financial institutions that enough is enough. 

Tell party leaders to include climate-aligned finance principles in their electoral platforms now.

We’re fighting for rules that clamp down on systemic greenwashing and rampant fossil fuel investments in Canada.  

And we are moving the needle. We fought for tougher greenwashing rules against companies making misleading “green” claims to consumers. In 2024, the Competition Act was amended to better protect consumers and genuinely green businesses by requiring companies to back up their environment claims with evidence. 

Now, we’re fighting for strong, clear and detailed guidelines to ensure greenwashers are held to account.  

We are also fighting the one big, glaring gap in Canada’s climate policy: sustainable finance. 

Our financial system plays a pivotal role in positioning Canada in the emerging green economy. That’s why it’s crucial that we align our big banks, insurance companies and pension funds with our climate targets and realities. If we’re going to meet Canada’s climate commitments, every sector of our economy must be part of the solution.  

Ecojustice supports measures like the Climate-Aligned Finance Act (CAFA), a bill that will require our financial institutions to align their business plans and investments with Canada’s climate commitments.  

  • Karine Peloffy
    Lawyer, Project Lead – Sustainable Finance   
  • Tanya Jemec
    Finance Lawyer 
  • Matt Hulse
    Lawyer
  • Melanie Snow
    Government Relations & Campaign Specialist 
Jan 2025
press release

Ecojustice reacts to overdue report on federal climate-related financial risk management 

OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — Ecojustice is raising concerns following the Department of Finance quietly publishing the long-awaited Report on Federal Climate-Related Risk Management.
Dec 2024
press release

New Canadian climate disclosure standards fall short, experts say 

OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — Environmental law charity Ecojustice is expressing significant disappointment and concern over Canada’s first-ever sustainability disclosure standards, released earlier today.
Nov 2024
blog

Ecojustice submits recommendations to ensure financial system is aligned with a climate-safe future 

On November 27, 2024, Ecojustice submitted a set of recommendations to the House Committee on Environmental and Sustainable Development on how to urgently align Canada’s banks and financial institutions with a climate-safe future.
Nov 2024
Oil wells stand in the snow of a flat field.
blog

Ecojustice makes a written submission asking for stricter rules from the Alberta Energy Regulator on inactive oil and gas well clean up 

Ecojustice is pushing the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to strengthen the rules to hold the fossil fuel companies who are creating — and profiting from — oil and gas wells and infrastructure projects, to be responsible for the clean-up.
Nov 2024
A gas well sits in the middle of a flat field. White clouds are in the sky.
blog

Alberta’s Inactive and Orphan Wells Threaten Wallets, Health, and Nature

Will the Fossil Fuel Industry Dine-and-Dash on its Clean Up Responsibilities in Alberta? Alberta has a ton of oil and gas wells and other related infrastructure (like pipelines and facilities) that need to be cleaned up now or will need to be cleaned up soon.
Oct 2024
Karine Peloffy, our Sustainable Finance Project Lead, delivered a powerful message to the House of Commons’ ENVI Committee
blog

An Urgent Call for Action: Ecojustice’s Karine Peloffy Delivers Powerful Testimony to House of Commons Committee 

On October 31, Ecojustice’s Sustainable Finance Project Lead, Karine Peloffy delivered a powerful testimony to the House of Commons’ Environment and Sustainable Development (ENVI) Committee.
Jul 2024
Thick smoke rises from many industrial smoke stacks at sunset. The grey smoke mixes with the orange sky.
press release

Export Development Canada undermines climate commitments yet again with massive loan renewal for Enbridge 

OTTAWA / TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — Export Development Canada (EDC) has renewed a $200- to $300-million loan to oil and gas giant Enbridge Inc.
Jun 2024
Mixed media collage of a long pipeline, 3 men in suits stand with crossed arms and many hundred dollar bills
press release

Environmental and health groups welcome new rules to clamp down on greenwashing, as oil sands’ Pathways Alliance moves to shut down communications

OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), Ecojustice, Équiterre, and the Quebec Environmental Law Center welcome the passage into law of new greenwashing provisions in Bill C-59, which aims to tackle the problem of greenwashing in Canada by introducing tougher rules on companies who.
Jun 2024
press release

Canada’s big banks face MPs over their financing of the climate crisis

OTTAWA/UNCEDED TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHINAABEG PEOPLE – The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development (ENVI) will be hearing from the CEO’s of Canada’s Big Five banks (Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Toronto Dominion Bank (TD), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Bank of Montreal (BMO) and Scotiabank, as part.
Apr 2024
Four large bank buildings reach to the blue sky in Toronto Canada.
press release

Ecojustice responds to federal financial announcement  

OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — Canada’s key financial regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) announced the second phase of the Standardized Climate Scenario Exercise (SCSE) consultation.
Mar 2024
Four large bank buildings reach to the blue sky in Toronto Canada.
press release

Ecojustice responds to federal financial guideline announcement

OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — Canada’s key financial regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has updated its Guideline B-15: Climate Risk Management to align with IFRS S2 and released new climate risk returns.
Mar 2024
A protest sign covered in silver foil reads
blog

Greenwashing 101: What is it and why Ecojustice fights against it!

What is greenwashing?  Greenwashing is misleading, untrue, or unsupported statements about a product, brand or company’s environmental or climate benefits.
Nov 2023
Mixed media collage of a long pipeline, 3 men in suits stand with crossed arms and many hundred dollar bills
press release

Two-thirds of Canadians want financial sector regulated to ensure environmental sustainability

OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — New polling carried out by Pollara Strategic Insights on behalf of Ecojustice and Environmental Defence shows that a strong majority of people in Canada want banks and financial institutions to invest more sustainably.
Oct 2022
Dotted style collage with part of an RBC bank building visible. Caution tape runs along the top.
press release

Canada’s Competition Bureau opens investigation into RBC’s alleged misleading advertising on climate action

Decision comes after six members of the public, supported by environmental groups, filed complaint earlier this year OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE – RBC is now under investigation for alleged misleading advertising related to the bank’s commitments on climate action while continuing to finance fossil fuel development, Canada’s Competition Bureau has confirmed.
Jun 2022
Mixed media collage of a long pipeline, 3 men in suits stand with crossed arms and many hundred dollar bills
blog

Canada’s banks and pension funds are financing a climate disaster

These vested interests are funding fossil fuels.
Apr 2022
Dotted style collage with part of an RBC bank building visible. Caution tape runs along the top.
press release

Members of the public submit complaint claiming RBC advertising on climate action is misleading

Following Royal Bank of Canada’s shareholder meeting, and ahead of Earth Day, complaint highlights hypocrisy between the Bank’s climate commitments and its fossil fuel financing   OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE – Six members of the public, supported by environmental groups, are requesting that the Competition Bureau open an investigation into misleading.