Most companies have structures promoting better awareness of the risks of ignoring sustainability
The creative and entrepreneurial mindset at Corus Entertainment Inc., says Sheila Ritson-Bennett, the company’s first head of environment and sustainability, governance, bodes well for the goals she is striving to achieve.
“People are very open and willing to learn and have a level of courage about new ideas,” she explains about the Toronto-headquartered company that is a driving force in the media world.
Similarly, the road Ritson-Bennett travelled before arriving at Corus in 2021, where her mandate is to shape the company’s environment, social and governance strategy while providing legal and industry counsel on related social and policy matters, prepared her well for the challenges ahead.
An ESG industry expert with over 15 years of legal, risk and regulatory experience, Ritson-Bennett was called to the Ontario bar in 2008. She began her career in government, working at the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, where she focused on the far north, dealing with the region’s first piece of planning legislation and issues surrounding the Ring of Fire, infrastructure and sustainable forestry.
A secondment to the Ministry of Energy exposed her to trade law. She was then interrupted by a stint in the UK to obtain a masters in international climate and environmental law, where her dissertation examined the interaction of international climate law and trade law. She then returned to Energy, where she was supporting counsel on NAFTA and WTO talks and issues before returning to Natural Resources.
In 2019, an opportunity arose at TD Bank, where Ritson-Bennett helped establish an environment and social risk framework as senior manager for the environment and social risk.
“Shifting to such a different part of the economy was quite the adventure,” she says. “It was fast moving and exciting, with a constant stream of new regulations and consultation papers.”
Ritson-Bennett also became TD’s lead for the equator principles, a financial industry benchmark for determining, assessing and managing project environmental and social risk.
Over time, however, she craved more involvement in law. So, when BMO made sustainability the responsibility of its legal team in 2021, Ritson-Bennett joined as senior counsel, sustainability.
But she was there for only a few months, moving to Corus in 2021.
“I really liked working at BMO, and the banks were a great training ground for ESG and sustainability, but Corus provided me with an opportunity to build my own program,” she says.
When she arrived, CORUS had no ESG and sustainability process, a compliance gap that would grow as corporate environmental disclosure became part of the regulatory norm.
“The main theme was to get structure around the data aspect of sustainability reporting, and that required a great deal of research analysis to determine where we were going and where the opportunities lay," Ritson-Bennett says.
She also became involved in Canadian Broadcasters for Sustainability, whose formation was announced earlier this month. The group is committed to working together to increase environmentally sustainable change, and its establishment marks the first time such a diverse group of Canadian public and private broadcasters from a broad range of linguistic and regional markets have united for a common cause. The 22 members include Bell Media, CBC/Radio-Canada, the Nunavut Independent Television Network, Rogers Sports & Medica, Télé-Québec, New Tang Dynasty (Canada) and TVO.
“This group will help move sustainability into the cultural space as millions of people engage with its content and recognize they have a role to play,” Ritson-Bennett says.
Ritson-Bennett also works on property matters, mainly regarding the environmental impact of broadcast facilities such as transmission towers. Although she doesn’t have a dedicated team, she’s part of a corporate law group of about 40 lawyers and reports to an associate GC.
“My work is very interdisciplinary,” she says. “It engages a broad range of issues including privacy, cybersecurity and tax law as well as diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Ritson-Bennett says her most significant challenge at Corus is the same as what other organizations face.
“The greatest difficulty is shaping ESG while the environment around you is changing rapidly in the sense that climate impacts are growing, societal changes are occurring, and economic pressures are mounting. We’re living through a bit of uncertainty where the environmental risks are real, and keeping up can be demanding.”
Still, regardless of the industry in which she’s worked, Ritson-Bennett has found individuals everywhere advancing sustainability issues.
“There’s now a structure in most places that has led to a better understanding of the risk involved in failing to address these concerns.”
Ritson-Bennett will be a speaker at the ESG Summit, to be held at Lennox Hall in Toronto on October 12.
