TD Bank Financial Group: From worst to first
Once viewed as a laggard on environmental risk assessment, TD Bank now occupies a lead position, tied with Royal Bank of Canada. With the
June 2007 release of its Environmental Management Framework, TD is helping to set the bar in Canada on what banks can and should be doing to mitigate climate risk.
The Environmental Framework now includes a statement on climate risk, and addresses carbon intensive industries including oil and gas, coal, electricity generation, and metals production. Significantly, TD has called for governments to implement a carbon tax to provide incentives for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
To begin the process of climate risk mitigation, TD is committed to a carbon audit and an assessment of climate risks faced by their clients. The
Environmental Framework indicates that their climate change policy will extend beyond lending to underwriting and equities research.
TD’s framework also addresses risks associated with loss of biodiversity, which extends to financing, underwriting, and advisory services. TD is engaging clients to increase the Bank’s understanding of the risks involved in conducting operations in high conservation value forests. For clients involved in logging operations, TD is asking for third party sustainable forest management certification. TD categorically states it will not finance operations that significantly degrade critical natural habitats.

High conservation value forests
The protection of high conservation value forests is particularly important. High value forests can come in a variety of forms:
• forests that contain significant concentrations of biodiversity;
• large scale forest landscapes where viable populations of most if not all naturally occurring species exist in a natural pattern of distribution and abundance;
• forests that contain rare,