New initiative offers guidance to help plan sponsors assess corporate transition and risk readiness
A coalition of Canadian financial institutions and pension funds is backing ‘Business Future Pathways,’ a new project aimed at guiding companies on international climate standards.
According to Reuters, the initiative is intended to help strengthen energy-transition strategies and improve access to global capital.
Organisers plan to announce the initiative on Tuesday.
The project will offer corporations direction on aligning with international frameworks for managing climate risks and shifting toward a low-carbon economy.
Major investors will endorse the recommendations.
Barbara Zvan, CEO of University Pension Plan Ontario and a central figure behind the initiative, said Canadian companies have already fallen behind global peers—especially in the US—when it comes to developing and implementing decarbonization strategies.
Benchmarking studies highlighted that gap, according to Zvan, who also held a senior role at the federally created Sustainable Finance Action Council (SFAC).
Ottawa formed SFAC to design strategies for attracting billions in global capital needed to meet Canada’s emissions targets.
Zvan noted that while Business Future Pathways shares some goals with SFAC, it has no formal government affiliation.
“This is about trying to help, similar to SFAC, get the financial community together to say what this could look like,” said Zvan.
The initiative will bring in technical experts to develop content that will be shared with finance professionals across sectors.
These professionals will receive sector-specific guidance on applying standard climate frameworks in ways that benefit both their businesses and investors.
According to Zvan, the aim is to move away from a compliance-based approach and treat climate strategy as a competitive advantage.
“This initiative is not about creating any new guidelines, or any new standards or frameworks. It’s about showing how to use the existing standards and frameworks,” she said.
Institutions participating in the advisory committee include Addenda Capital, Mackenzie Investments, Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, Desjardins Group, and University Pension Plan Ontario.
Jonathan Arnold, who will lead the research for the project, said the group intends to release a series of reports.
The first will come out in the autumn and will explain the importance of climate-ready business strategies, their implications for future profitability, and their relevance to broader macroeconomic conditions.
Arnold, who also serves as director of sustainable finance at the Canadian Climate Institute, previously contributed research to SFAC.
He noted that despite climate risks and opportunities advancing, other concerns have shifted corporate attention away.
“A lot of what we’re seeing right now, with everything that’s happening in the US, it’s creating a lot of uncertainty for Canadian business and investors,” Arnold said.
“At the same time, the climate risks and opportunities continue to forge ahead, and transition plans really provide a way to thread the needle on how businesses can respond in a way that manages this uncertainty.”
Arnold said the group’s guidance would build on existing global recommendations but address Canadian-specific challenges.
“There’s lots of international guidance out there,” he said. “I think a lot of it falls short in terms of specifics as it relates to some of the challenges that Canadian businesses face.”
He added that the goal is to “ground this guidance in sectoral pathways.”
Zvan also commented on how recent policy decisions have deprioritized climate.
She said US President Donald Trump’s shifting tariffs have contributed to economic instability, forcing companies to focus on uncertainty rather than climate initiatives.
In April, several major investors voiced concern when the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) paused its work on mandating climate-related disclosures for public companies.
The CSA, which includes provincial and territorial securities commissions, cited the changing “global economic and geopolitical landscape” as the reason for its decision.
The Canadian Sustainability Standards Board has issued its first climate reporting guidelines, modelled after global baselines from the International Sustainability Standards Board.
While the CSSB focuses on disclosure, Business Future Pathways will concentrate on practical strategies to apply those standards, especially in decarbonization planning.
