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From the Heart of Darkness to the Land of Opportunity

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From the Heart of Darkness to the Land of Opportunity the canadian magazine for responsible business CORPORATEKNIGHTSwww.corporateknights.ca Congo From the Heart of Darkness to the Land of Opportunity Energy & Conflict Responsible Investing Guide Chic Sustainability Carbon Neutral Oil Sands Energy 2006 • VOL 4.5 • $5.95 55 0 74470 99763 4 Doing what’s right… every day In 2005, BMO Financial Group contributed more than $29.5 million in corporate donations, sponsorships and events to support communities, charities and not-for- profit organizations across Canada, continuing our centuries-old tradition of corporate citizenship. Read about the many ways BMO and its employees give back every day to our communities in our Corporate Responsibility Report including the 2005 Public Accountability Statement. Named Canada’s Best Corporate Citizen by Corporate Knights magazine. Available in branches and online at www.bmo.com/community ® Registered trade-mark of Bank of Montreal. Docket #: BM 4826 Trim Size: 8–3/8" x 10–7/8" Publication: Corporate Knights Description of Ad: Financial Group Accountability Type Safety: 7–5/8" x 9–7/8" FILE COLOURS: Client: Bank of Montreal Bleed Size: 8–5/8" x 11–1/8" C M Y K CREATIVE NETWORK Contact: John Knapp eMail: [email protected] Phone: 416.488.1033 x35 WHERE GREEN FLEETS MEET CITY THE HONDA CIVIC GX. IT HOLDS THE TITLE OF THE WORLD’S CLEANEST CAR. AND 12 OF THEM ARE STREETS PART OF OUR TORONTO FLEET OF 600 LOW-EMISSION NATURAL GAS VEHICLES DRIVEN BY OUR GAS DISTRIBUTION STAFF. WE’VE ALSO HELPED IN CONVERTING HUNDREDS OF TORONTO’S TAXIS TO NATURAL GAS, REDUCING CO2 EMISSIONS BY AN ESTIMATED 10,200 TONNES OVER THREE YEARS. IT’S THE KIND OF THINKING THAT MAKES US ONE OF FIVE CANADIAN COMPANIES RANKED IN THE GLOBAL 100: MOST SUSTAINABLE CORPORATIONS IN THE WORLD. 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That’s why coming aboard is such an easy decision. 1 888 EChoice www.domtar.com High quality paper with a conscience Domtar_Corporate_Knights_ad 3/14/06 3:32 PM Page 1 THE CANADIAN MAGAZINE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS • VOL 4.5 • ENERGY & INVESTMENT ISSUE 2006 No wonder CORPORATEKNIGHTSwww.corporateknights.ca so many executives thecontents like you are coming aboard with us PHOTO: Vlad Mereuta PHOTO: Kim Gjerstad cover story | toby a.a. heaps special report 19 34 TheHEART Congo: war-torn, OF resource-rich, DARKNESS and democracy-bound. Land RESPONSIBLE of opportunity? Canadian mining companies are part of the answer. 4thINVESTING annual guide to SRI mutual funds. Company stakeholders now judge reality check | rob carrick businesses by more than the quality of feature | mieka tennant AT LEAST THE NAME FITS 35 their products or services. Corporately 12 CHIC SUSTAINABILITY canadian idols | alison mahmudi-azer responsible practices have become high on The top 10 clothing lines that make a statement. the agenda, and now even the paper that your SEARCHING FOR company uses can really matter. THE ETHICAL INVESTOR 38 feature | claudia stoicescu nuts and bolts | bill baue Domtar EarthChoice® is a unique line of high quality, environmentally sustainable paper that soars well above the BOLD FILMS 16 SHORTING THE BAD GUYS 40 norm. From catalogs and brochures to annual reports, this Hollywood shows a social conscience. broad and innovative line of paper delivers excellence editor’s note 6 on every critical plane. Best of all, it’s certified to the special survey | zoe cormier letters 7 Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards, endorsed publisher’s note 8 by the Rainforest Allaince, and supported by both SMOG INHALATION 31 World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF) and ForestEthics, Part two of a four-part series on health and the environment. top ten | guy dauncey satisfying stakeholder interests both inside your TEN WAYS TO organization and out. That’s why coming aboard is such an BREAK OUR ADDICTION TO OIL 9 easy decision. professor pages | dr. blair w. feltmate around the horn 41 George Perkins MARSH 10 1 888 EChoice www.domtar.com The mighty prophet of modern conservation. SEE BLUE GO GREEN public policy | françois meloche conflicting issues | claudia stoicescu OIL $ANDS 30 THE DOOMSAYERS 43 last page | peter diplaros Jared Diamond and Ronald Wright. STICK IT TO YOUR EMISSIONS 46 High quality paper with a conscience special survey | caroline law ENERGY & CONFLICT 24 A map and report card on human rights and conflict exposure for Canadian energy companies operating abroad. CORPORATE KNIGHTS ENERGY/INVESTMENT ISSUE 2006 editor’snote by Toby A.A. Heaps A KNIGHT’S TALE… “The vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.” — Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness In my last year of university, I learned an will fail at everything. It’s not our job. Those Canada, it is true a hundred times over in a important lesson while driving my 1980 types of things are for the government to country like the Democratic Republic of the Volvo up Calgary’s Nose Hill from my con- worry about.” That was then. Congo, which ranked second-worst on For- struction job to my dishwashing job at Joey Three epochal moments changed this eign Policy magazine’s Failed States Index. Tomatoes restaurant. I was changing from simplistic approach forever this year. It was It makes sense: if societies fail, so does my construction boots to my black shoes as a decade in the coming, because when you business. But there is a new reality that sky- per Joey’s dress code, and when I looked up, run the world, you cannot ignore the basis high commodity prices have ushered in that all of a sudden, there was a big yellow Blue on which the bottom line rests, which is: I think is a little more scary as it assaults the Arrow school bus stopped about 50 feet in functioning States that provide stability. primacy of the investor in the global mar- front of me. I tried to slam the brakes, but I The main actors of this sea change are ket economy. The idea before was: whoever was a little disorientated because my shoes Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, one of the had the money called the shots. The new were off, and the Volvo was a standard. In- largest law firms in the world, Kofi Annan, idea increasingly being articulated by leader stead of hitting the breaks, I hit the gas, and the Secretary-General of the United Na- after leader on the covers of the Financial my Volvo rammed into the bus, making like tions, and a cohort of executives including Times is: whoever has the resources calls an accordion. Thank God there were no kids the heads of the $93-billion Canada Pension the shots. in there. Fortunately, those Blue Arrows are Plan and the $190-billion La Caisse de dépôt With the global commodity boom, States built like tanks with cast-iron bumpers, so et placement du Québec, and an increasing (the only actors that can exercise ultimate there was barely a scratch for him to worry number of resource-rich States that are tak- authority over their land), are starting to about. By sticking my head out the window ing matters into their own hands. assert their authority by scrapping disad- I was able to navigate the car home after my What Freshfields did was eliminate any vantageous agreements and making deals shift and laid it to rest where it would be- ambiguity about fiduciary duty and the new that give them a bigger share of the spoils come a colony for mice. Every time I looked world order. It stated in black and white that (Venezuela, Bolivia, Newfoundland). This in the backyard, the crumpled up Volvo re- in many cases, fiduciary duty requires (rath- will last as long as commodity prices stay minded me of two things: it’s not a good er than prevents) investors to take into ac- high. Companies and most of the financial idea to try to change your shoes while driv- count the social and environmental implica- press are bluffing, saying this hardliner ap- ing, especially a standard car with its com- tions of their investments. That’s because in proach will cost the countries in the long plex pedal apparatus, and as an extension the long term, these factors are often mate- term because it will scare away investors. of that, humans usually fail when—chewing rial to the investment’s viability.
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