Investors are searching for companies with strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) profiles, and Canaccord Genuity sees opportunities in a wide-range of sectors from energy to real estate.

Canaccord listed 16 top Canadian ESG picks in a research note to clients this week, and the bank’s work indicates that more than “two-thirds of asset managers now employ one form of ESG investing over a portion of their investment mandates.” The bank’s stock picks included companies that are improving on environmental sustainability and making efforts to cut their carbon footprint, betting that those efforts will yield returns for both investors and the planet.

Oil sands firms such as Calgary-based Suncor Energy Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. are battling the ESG narrative as governments push for changes including lower carbon emissions and stronger dialogue with first nations communities, though Canaccord sees improvements being made.

Suncor’s target of lowering CO2 intensity per barrel by 30 per cent over the next ten years is achievable, Canaccord says and “could be supported by the investment of ~C$635 million in technology development and deployment in 2018.”

Meanwhile, Vancouver-based B2Gold Corp. is “committed to ESG principles and has published an annual Responsible Mining Report outlining the company’s economic, environmental, and social performance since 2016.”

Airline companies aren’t traditionally ought to be "eco-friendly," but Montreal-based Air Canada "recently reported a 44.5% improvement in fuel efficiency (from 1990 to 2018) and noted that mechanized ground support equipment is now 15 per cent electricity-based and 12% low-emission propane," according to Canaccord.

Canaccord’s additional picks:

  • Maple Leaf Foods Inc.
  • Gen III Oil Corp.
  • Secure Energy Services Inc.
  • Tervita Corp.
  • Vermilion Energy Inc.
  • Toronto-Dominion Bank
  • Stantec Inc.
  • Teck Resources Ltd.
  • TMAC Resources Inc.
  • Keyera Corp.
  • Brookfield Asset Management Inc.
  • CGI Inc.
  • Telus Corp.

“With Canadian ESG assets under management growing over 20 per cent in the last two years, we believe momentum continues to build within the ESG investment landscape,” Canaccord’s Canadian equity research team added in its note.