Environmental report critical of petroleum extraction from Canadian oil sands

Oil and gas companies spending billions of dollars per year to extract petroleum from Canada's oil sands region are doing a poor job disclosing environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues to investors, undermining their own long-term financial performance.

That's the conclusion of Lines in the Sands, a comprehensive new benchmarking report announced by the Sustainable Investing team at Northwest & Ethical Investments LP that analysed ESG policies and practices of 13 publicly-traded US, Canadian and other international companies with major oil sands operations in Northern Alberta.

Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. has $4.5 billion in assets under management and through its 'ethical funds' division, it is Canada's largest provider of socially responsible mutual funds.

The US investor coalition Ceres and the 11-member union National Union of Public and General Employees supported the research on how companies are handling environmental and social impact from the project producing more than 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, much of it for use in the United States.

Ceres is a leading coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest organisations working with companies to address sustainability challenges such as climate change. It directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a network of 80 institutional investors with collective assets totaling $8 trillion focused on the business impacts from climate change.

"Almost every major oil company is either involved in developing the oil sands resource already, or plans to be," says Bob Walker, vice president of sustainability with Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. "We know that oil-sands production creates a range of social and environmental impact that companies need to address.