When Lion Electric went public in the spring of 2021, CEO and Founder Marc Bedard hired a direct report with the unusual title of Chief People Officer as one sign of the importance of human capital management, says Isabelle Adjahi, Vice President, Investor Relations and Sustainable Development. Over the past months, Adjahi has worked with the Chief People Officer to put together an employee questionnaire for gathering diversity data and to draft COVID policies. | Read Article |

In Canada, environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have been an increasingly important topic for the past several years. Investors, employees and customers are looking for clarity in the action plans of companies as they begin to create and implement their ESG strategies, specifically around sustainability. There is also a heightened focus on understanding companies’ ESG initiatives and how they affect corporate results and investment decisions. | Read Article |

In preparation for the upcoming proxy season, here are some key developments in corporate governance and disclosure requirements impacting Canadian reporting issuers. | Read Article |

Looking back at my many years of work in IR, I have been lucky to lead three- or four-person IR teams but have also led teams of two. What I have observed is that the work required for IR often doesn't scale down just because the market cap of your company is smaller. In fact, in many cases targeting is more work and investors can be more dispersed for smaller caps. On top of that, a smaller listed company is subject to the same obligations as larger companies, yet possibly has less legal and finance support and fewer staff members to address these responsibilities, likely with a smaller budget. | Read Article |

All signals point towards increasing interest and demand for ESG data from companies. However, this is not just about ESG information anymore – it’s about access to capital as ESG shifts from a niche cottage industry to mainstream institutional investment. The signals pointing this way include: the doubling of issued ESG labelled debt in 2021; the increase in funds flowing into ESG equity products; and investors increasingly adopting net zero aspirations and looking for ways to deploy capital that aligns with this. | Read Article |