| Active Ownership | | Refers to actively exercising your rights as a shareholder. The two main ways of doing this are voting at shareholder meetings and by engaging, or having an ongoing dialogue with company management. |
| Carbon Neutral | | Any CO₂ released into the atmosphere from a company's activities is balanced by an equivalent amount being removed. |
| CDP | Carbon Disclosure Project | A global non-profit organization that runs a global disclosure system for investors and organizations to manage their environmental impacts. |
| ESG | Environmental, Social, & Governance | An investment approach that incorporates environmental, social and governance factors into the investment process. |
| Environmental (E in ESG) | | The “E” in ESG investing is focused on the environment. It gives potential investors insight on criteria such as a company’s carbon emissions, clean technology and/or sustainable agricultural practices. |
| ESG Integration | | The systematic and explicit inclusion of material ESG factors into investment analysis and investment decisions. |
| FSB | Financial Stability Board | An international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. They created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to improve and increase reporting of climate-related financial information. |
| Governance (G in ESG) | | The “G” in ESG investing looks at corporate governance practices. It looks at the internal oversight of companies and could include criteria such as board diversity, communications and transparency practices, executive compensation, or the existence of whistleblower protections. |
| Green Bonds | | Debt securities for which the proceeds are exclusively used to promote climate and environmental sustainability purposes. |
| Greenwashing | | The practice of trying to make people believe that a company is doing more to adopt sustainability than it really is, often for public relations reasons. |
| GRI | Global Reporting Initiative | International, non-profit organization; their GRI Standards enable companies and organizations to report their economic, environmental, social and governance performance. |
| Impact Investing | | Investing in companies, organizations and funds which have the commercial purpose of solving social or environmental problems. |
| Materiality | | The relevance of a sustainability factor to a company's financial performance. |
| Negative Screening | | The investment approach of excluding entire sectors, companies or countries from a fund or portfolio based on ESG criteria or moral or ethical views. |
| Net Zero Emissions | | The overall balance of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) produced and GHG emissions taken out of the atmosphere. Most often applied to countries as they aim to meet the Paris Agreement of achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050. |
| Paris Agreement | | An international accord that aims to limit the rise in global average temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees. |
| Positive Screening | | The investment approach that favours companies demonstrating positive ESG performance relative to peers. |
| PRI | Principles for Responsible Investment | United Nations-backed network of investors who confirm they incorporate ESG in their decisions and commit to certain best practices. |
| RIA | Responsible Investment Association | Canada's industry association for responsible investment. |
| SASB | Sustainability Accounting Standards Board | Their SASB Standards guide the disclosure of financially material ESG information by companies to their investors. |
| Scope 1 Emissions | | Carbon emissions that are directly generated by a company, such as an airline emitting exhaust fumes. |
| Scope 2 Emissions | | Carbon emissions that are created by the generation of the electricity or heat needed by the company to sell its main products or provide its main services. |
| Scope 3 Emissions | | Carbon emissions caused by the entire value chain, including the end-user of the product over its life cycle, and are much more difficult to measure. |
| SDG | Sustainable Development Goals | Adopted by members of the United Nations in 2015, this set of 17 goals calls for ending poverty, protecting the planet, and improving lives everywhere by 2030. |
| Social (S in ESG) | | The “S” in ESG investing refers to a social focus. Criteria considered here includes the working conditions, diversity and equity in hiring and fair wages of companies. It could also include how a company engages with their communities and other stakeholders. |
| SRI | Socially Responsible Investing | A broad category of investing that incorporates ESG factors. Strategies typically include ethical, green, socially responsible, impact, and thematic investing. |
| UN Global Compact | United Nations Global Compact | A global corporate sustainability initiative calling on companies, investors and other participants to align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. |
