Delve: How Banks and Institutional Investment Funds Are Driving the Road to Net-Zero

One of the biggest challenges today for financial institutions is how to meet net-zero climate targets while achieving high returns on investment and satisfying the needs of various stakeholders. What does the road to net-zero look like in the realm of long-term investment, who are the players, and how should the inevitable roadblocks be overcome?

At the recent Desautels and Delve McGill International Portfolio Challenge symposium, institutional investment experts Fanny Doucet, CFA, Managing Director & Head of Sustainable Finance at Scotiabank, and Lori Kerr, CEO of FinDev Canada, Canada’s development finance institution, shared their insights on how to achieve net-zero with moderator Desautels Professor Sebastien Betermier. You can watch the symposium video and read the article on Delve.

“The carbon decrease during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was about 6%. We need to reach 8% per year, every single year from now to 2050. This is serious,” says Betermier.

“What we do know is that we can have a huge impact on the goals that we've set. For incentives, we need both sticks and carrots to make action happen,” says Kerr.

“It really does require a partnership between the private sector and the public sector. We do need more incentives to get this going quickly, and we need bold steps taken by governments and the public to incentivize the private sector as well,” says Doucet.

Bringing Insight to the Surface

Founded in 2019, Delve is the official thought leadership publication of McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. Under the direction of Professor Saku Mantere, inaugural Editor-in-Chief, Delve features the latest in management thinking that stretches perspectives, sparks new ideas, and brings clarity to decision-makers at all levels and across sectors.