(Calgary) The proportion of Canadian business leaders who are concerned about climate change has increased dramatically this year, according to a new report.
Of the 129 Canadian executives surveyed by Deloitte for its 2024 Corporate Sustainability Report, 85% said they “worry all or most of the time” about climate change.
This is a sharp increase from 2023, when 59% of executives shared this view.
The latest Deloitte survey shows that many Canadian executives feel personally impacted by climate change. Some 54 per cent of respondents said they had been affected by flooding in the past year, while 47 per cent said they had experienced extreme heat and 33 per cent said they had been affected by wildfires or wildfire smoke.
“What stands out in the survey is the feeling that senior executives have been personally impacted by a number of climate-related disasters,” said Daniel Rowe, managing partner of sustainability at Deloitte.
“As executives experience these impacts more directly in their lives, I think that perhaps translates into it being a priority for them.”
The results coincide with what is likely to be the hottest year on record on Earth, following a summer of scorching temperatures globally.
In Canada, the insurance industry has already declared that 2024 will be the costliest year in history for weather-related disasters. Storm-related flooding in Toronto and southern Ontario, wildfires in Jasper, Alberta, and a severe hailstorm in Calgary are among the extreme weather events this year.
According to Deloitte, 78% of Canadian executives expect a “high or very high” impact from climate change on their strategies and operations over the next three years, compared to 70% of respondents globally.
Optimistic despite everything
In Canada, a majority of executives said their companies are already impacted by climate change in many ways, including higher insurance costs and lack of insurance availability, the costs of climate change mitigation, and the scarcity and cost of resources.
But Canadian executives also reported high levels of optimism about the world’s ability to take sufficient action to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, with 92 per cent of respondents feeling “somewhat or extremely optimistic.”
The report shows that companies continue to increase their sustainability spending, whether it’s introducing more climate-friendly products, improving their operations or technology to become more environmentally sustainable, or completely transforming their business model to address climate change concerns.
Some 36% of Canadian executives surveyed said their companies had significantly increased their investments in sustainability this year, compared to 13% in 2023.
The report reveals that Canadian organizations are facing significant pressure from a variety of stakeholders such as board members, investors and government regulators to take climate action.
But executives said they felt less pressure from their customers to act on climate change than in previous years. Only 39% said their customers were pushing them to do better on sustainability, down from 58% last year.
Some executives said this was concerning and suggested that market dynamics were not fully supportive of investments in sustainable development.
Nearly one in five executives surveyed also identified politics as a barrier to investing in sustainability, with 19% of respondents expressing concern that “taking a stand” could alienate a subset of customers or employees.
“Leaders are watching the political dynamics around the issue and they are careful about where they stand,” Rowe said.
“They are monitoring the market. […] Certainly the debate on this topic has been quite polarizing.”