U of T's Tiff Macklem tapped by feds to chair expert panel on sustainable finance

Professor Tiff Macklem, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and former senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, will chair an expert panel on sustainable finance, the federal government announced this week.

The news followed a round table discussion Thursday on clean economic growth and the transition to a low-carbon economy, hosted by Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna and Minister of Finance Bill Morneau. The discussion also included Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England.

With the Paris climate change agreement signed in 2016, the World Bank has estimated that nearly $23 trillion in opportunities have opened up in clean growth and climate change action. In light of this, the Canadian government wants to give entrepreneurs producing environmentally friendly solutions access to new emerging markets around the world, as well as opportunities to produce new jobs at home.

“The transition to a low carbon economy is going to be a defining economic and societal challenge for the next 25 years and beyond,” Macklem said. “The financial services industry is not going to solve climate change, but it has a critical role to play supporting this transition helping households and businesses manage climate risks and allocating capital to the large investments and the new innovations required to get us to a low carbon economy.”

The expert panel is expected to provide recommendations to the federal government by this fall.

Read more about the panel