To have your event added, please contact us at ccci@carleton.ca

Save the Date:

The Principles for Responsible Investing Academic Network will once again hold its annual conference in Canada.  After two years in Europe, the PRI Academic network will return to Canada in 2012 for its annual conference, October 1st to 3rd 2012 at York University, Toronto. Co-hosted by CBERN with assistance from the Responsible Investing Initiative, the 2012 conference promises to be bigger than ever! The Responsible Investing Initiative will use this opportunity to bring together all its research partners for a half-day symposium featuring the new research we have carried out over this year.      

DYNAMICS OF INVESTING RESPONSIBLY: FROM SCREENING TO MAINSTREAMING:

Tessa Hebb provided a keynote address to THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY BUSINESS SCHOOL Conference, DYNAMICS OF INVESTING RESPONSIBLY: FROM SCREENING TO MAINSTREAMING, November 24th & 25th 2011. The University of Sydney Business School and the Discipline of Accounting hosted a  research forum “Dynamics of investing responsibly: from screening to mainstreaming”. The forum aimed to foster dialogue, academic research, industry collaboration and pragmatic action amongst a select set of leading contributors in the field of responsible investment. Research expertise in the field was showcased by leading local and international contributors from the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, Harvard University, University of Queensland Business School, Umea Business School (Sweden), Carleton University (Canada), University of Sydney Business School and others.

2011 PRI-Mistra Academic Conference

Tessa Hebb and three 3ci graduate students, Heather Hachigian, Gabriel Huppe and Hugues Letourneau present 4 new papers on responsible investing at the Annual Principles for Responsible Investing Academic Network Conference held September 26th to 28th in Sigtuna, Stockholm.  3ci had the single largest contingent of students at the conference, marking the important role that graduate students play in our research.  Abstracts and presentations are available.

• Tessa Hebb 
• Heather Hachigian  
• Gabriel Huppe and
• Hugues Letourneau

Shareholder Engagement in the Extractive Sector

(Rupert Allan, Hugues Letourneau, and Tessa Hebb) a new 3ci research paper was presented at the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) and Canadian Extractive Industries symposium hosted by the University of British Columbia and CBERN on September 10-11th 2011. The symposium brought together a dozen speakers from the legal, investment, NGO, academic and industry communities to discuss a range of legal, policy and financial issues concerning how investors attempt to influence the social and environmental performance of extractive industries and to consider potential reforms. For paper abstract click here. For presentation click here.

PRI Webinar on Fiduciary Duty

On January 19 at 17:00 GMT, Principles for Responsible Investment will be holding their first webinar on fiduciary duty in this year’s academic webinar series. The webinars, developed jointly with the Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard, are designed to promote debate and stimulate research on key RI topics. We are lucky to have Benjamin Richardson, from the University of British Columbia, Keith Johnson,  Chair of  the Institutional Investor Services Group of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren and Paul Watchman, author of the Freshfields Report on Fiduciary Duty leading this discussion. As the webinar series is combined with a prize for papers, we particularly encourage students and those with budding research interests to take part. Click here to find out more and to register.

New Publication: A Field Guide to Responsible Capital for Institutional Investors of Specialized Private Equity, Venture Capital and Real Estate Fund

By Thomas Croft, SVA/Heartland Network.

A Field Guide to Responsible Capital makes the case that there is a more prudent investment path than these "short-term" speculation practices that have shaken the financial markets. The purpose of this Guide is to illustrate, through investment fund profiles and case studies, how the responsible investment of retirement and savings assets, such as savings, pensions and other trusts can be targeted to generate positive social, economic and environmental benefits, along with financial returns.

Webinar

Michael Swack is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire where he has appointments at the Carsey Institute and the Whittemore School of Business and Economics.  He is convener of the Financial Innovations Roundtable (FIR) that he describes as “not only a think tank, but a “think-do” tank. Some of the most successful ideas developed at the FIR have been implemented, resulting in new tools, policies and practices that have resulted in millions of dollars being directed into investments in affordable housing, small and minority businesses, community facilities and other community development efforts.” Michael will bring insights from his new book, Capital Markets, CDFIs, and Organizational Credit Risk.

Please click here to access “Capital Markets, CDFIs, and Organizational Credit Risk” by Charles Tansey, Michael Swack and Michael Tansey.

Public engagement, climate change and Canada's oil sands

CBERN 3rd Annual Conference
May 27-29, 2010
Montréal, QC (venue TBD)

We are pleased to announce that CBERN's 3rd Annual Conference will be held at a downtown Montréal hotel near Concordia University on May 27-29, 2010.  The weekend will provide a review of the CBERN Research, Capacity Building and Public Dialogue initiatives underway. We hope you will be able to join us.

Registration and program details will be announced by March and will be posted at www.cbern.ca. The program will follow the format of previous conferences, with the exception of the PhD Cluster Meeting:

Thursday May 27:
PhD Cluster meeting (all day - to be confirmed)
Advisory Board Meeting (late afternoon)

Friday May 28:
Annual "Theme Day" Workshop

Saturday May 29:
Annual General Meeting & Networking

Please contact Alex Barber (abarber@cbern.ca) for any inquiries about the CBERN 3rd Annual Conference.

PRI Academic Conference 2010

Mainstreaming responsible investment
5-7 May 2010, Copenhagen Business School
Copenhagen, Denmark
The 2010 event is the third PRI Academic Conference, following the 2009 conference held jointly with the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation (3ci) in Ottawa, Canada. The conference is organised by the PRI Academic Network in collaboration with CBS Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (cbsCSR) at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). The conference provides a platform for dialogue between academics and practitioners across the field of responsible investment. The conference will gather 75 leading thinkers (academics, PRI signatories, investment practitioners and students) from around the world for a three day conference (the first day is reserved for student presentations). Researchers will be invited to present their recent work, and a panel of PRI signatories and academics will serve as discussants. The papers presented at the academic conference will be selected by a panel consisting of academics and practitioners. Please click here to acces the conference presentations

Policy Solutions for a Post-Recovery Canada Faculty of Public Affairs, Carleton University

Investor Summit on Climate Risk

Final Report on the Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations Headquarters on 14 January 2010, co-hosted by Ceres' Investor Network on Climate Risk, the United Nations Foundation, and the United Nations Office for Partnerships. Video footage and other content from the Summit can be found here

The Next Generation of Responsible Investing

The UN PRI in conjunction with The Carleton Centre for Community Innovation (3ci) hosted the international conference on "The Next Generation of Responsible Investing” on October 1st to 3rd in Ottawa.  The successful conference brought together 90 of the world's leading Responsible Investment academics and  practitioners. 

3ci Director, Tessa Hebb, Carleton MPA student and 3ci researcher Heather Hachigian, and Ashley Hamilton of SHARE presented their new paper on Responsible Property Investment in Canada (available on our Working Papers page).  Click here to access our UN PRI Academic Conference 2009 page for all the papers presented at the conference, power points and conference proceedings, or access through the UN PRI page: http://www.unpri.org/academic09/index.php

Social Investment Organization
June 7-9 2009
Canadian summit on socially responsible investment (SRI).

Tessa Hebb spoke on her work in Responsible Investing at the Social Investment Organization June 7-9 2009 Canadian summit on socially responsible investment (SRI).

October 17, 2008

Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association Annual Conference
Marriott Hotel, Ottawa

Ethical Investments for New Development in Housing

Speaker: Tessa Hebb

We’ve been talking for years about attracting private investment in affordable housing. Now it’s happening, thanks to the partnership between Public Service Alliance of Canada Staff Pension Fund and Alterna Savings Credit Union. In 2007 PSAC made a $2 million investment in Alterna’s Community Alliance Housing Fund – the first Canadian pension fund to make a targeted investment of this type. Hear how this initiative could provide a model for engaging large institutional investors in affordable housing in Ontario.

Session Chair: Dr. Tessa Hebb, Director, Carleton Centre for Community Innovation, Carleton University, Ottawa
Panelists: George Brown, Ottawa Community Loan Fund Arthur Carkner, Public Service Alliance of Canada and Dennis Carr, Centretown Affordable Housing Development Corporation . more details

October 16, 2008

COVE Lecture "Responsible Investing: Shareholder Value and Shareholders' Values"

7:30 p.m Loeb B149, Carleton University

Speaker: Tessa Hebb

Pension funds are not the new moral conscience of the twenty-first century, but they are significant owners of today’s corporations. Because pension funds have to pay out benefits over many decades, they are increasingly concerned about the long-term value of the stocks they hold in their portfolios. Risks posed by climate change can have a huge impact on future returns. To lower the risks associated with an uncertain future, pension funds are engaging corporations and using their influence to raise the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards of companies. Tessa Hebb examines the ability of pension funds, now the largest single driver of financial markets around the world, to use their ownership position to change corporate practices for the sake of the bottom line and, perhaps, change the world for the better in the process

September, 2008

Tessa Hebb presents Pension Funds and Corporate Engagement at the 1ST European Centre for Corporate Engagement (ECCE)/UNPRI Responsible Investing ACADEMIC CONFERENCE, September 17TH – 19TH, 2008, Maastricht University, the Netherlands