Examining environmental performance : cross-country analysis of Canada and the United States

Abstract

The purpose of this Masters’ Research Paper is to compare Canada and the United States’ (U.S.) contributions to pollution and carbon emissions. This paper considers the Environmental portion of the Environmental, Social and Governance metric (ESG) and, in particular, a review of seven industries that are known to cause pollution. The study uses ESG data from Refinitiv with a sample of 35,678 observations over the period of 2017 to 2021. The specific industries used are Financials, Energy, Transportation, Manufacturing, Construction, Fashion, and Technology. The findings show that overall, Canada has a higher Environmental Score, with a mean environmental score of 29.301 compared with a U.S. score of 19.36. When comparing specific industries, the financial industry results suggest that Canada exhibits a statistically significant advantage compared to the U.S. in terms of environmental score. For the energy, transportation, and construction industries, Canada has significantly higher scores then the U.S. However, no significant difference was found in the mean environmental scores for the manufacturing industry. Additionally, the mean environmental scores in the fashion and technology industries were both significantly higher in Canada compared to the U.S.