Keeping up to speed in the constantly evolving ESG and sustainability field

In the ESG and sustainability field, the only constant is change, according to Murray Gold.

“It’s a rapidly evolving area, but that’s what makes it fascinating to cover,” says Gold, a Toronto pension lawyer who serves as one of the program directors for OsgoodePD’s Certificate in ESG, Sustainability, Climate Risk and the Law.

“There are always issues that look different today than they did a year ago. And they will look different again 12 months from now,” he adds.

For the bulk of the last four decades, Gold’s firm Koskie Minsky LLP has given him the perfect vantage point to track the development of Canada’s pension sector as it became home to some of the largest and most influential investors on the planet. When he started out in the mid-1980s, he says environmental, social and governance factors were not really on the radar for his clients.

“There were a lot of other concerns in the pension area, but they tended to be more raw economic factors,” Gold says, noting that climate change began to enter investment discussions around the turn of the 21^st Century.

“It has now become very topical, especially for the largest pension funds, who have the capacity to actually make an impact on the climate front though their investments – or divestments, as the case may be,” he says. “At this stage, they’re still evolving their strategies to deal with the climate crisis, but they are all extremely active on that front. It’s an unavoidable issue for investors.”

For the fourth edition of Osgoode’s ESG certificate – which runs over five days of sessions in November and December – Gold and his co-program director Jennifer King have revamped the agenda to reflect some of the emerging trends in the field.

“Climate change is clearly a key dimension of ESG, but it’s not the only one,” says King, a partner in the Toronto office of Gowling WLG and co-lead of the firm’s ESG advisory services practice.

“Within the environmental component, biodiversity is increasingly taking the spotlight,” she adds, pointing to the recent release of reporting standards by the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, a G20-backed initiative designed to establish a framework for financial institutions to incorporate nature-related risks and opportunities into their decision-making.

“In ESG at the moment, there is also an increased focus on social factors,” King says.

For example, attendees at the certificate program will hear an update on Canada’s first set of mandatory ESG-specific disclosures due under S-211, The Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply chains Act. King says it will offer valuable lessons for banks, insurers and financial institutions and other organizations as they gear up to meet mandatory climate reporting obligations in the coming years.

The Act, which came into force in May 2023, requires certain government agencies and private companies – predominantly those with operations in the mining and apparel manufacturing industries – to detail their efforts to prevent the use of forced or child labour in their supply chains.

King’s fascinating personal and professional history has prepared her to meet the challenge of the expanding scope of the ESG field.

After growing up on her family’s organic farm in B.C., she seemed destined for a future in environmental law. However, King took a detour after her call to the bar, training as a general civil litigator on the advice of an environmental lawyer mentor who suggested it would be valuable to first focus on learning how to litigate.

“This primed me for ESG,” King says. “ESG is an inherently inter-disciplinary practice. We’re seeing legislation, regulations and policies that cut across different practice areas.”

“When we were establishing the ESG practice at Gowlings and consulting with partners, almost every lawyer’s practice touched on ESG in some way. But it’s not just within the law. As a lawyer in ESG, you have to work with many different professionals and experts,” she adds.

The multi-faceted nature of the field is reflected in the backgrounds of faculty members leading sessions at the certificate program, who include leaders in the fields of finance, sustainable investment, mining, Indigenous affairs and energy, among others.

And King says she expects to see an equally diverse set of participants from the private and public sectors, all seeking to boost their legal and operational risk management skills, so that they can effectively identify, manage and disclose ESG, sustainability and climate risks and opportunities.

“Even if you have attended before, there is value in coming back again,” she says. “I learn something different every year.”

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