Ethical Funds released the details of its 2008 Focus List, a list of companies that Ethical targets to encourage the adoption of improved environmental, social and governance practices, today.

Ethical has discussions with companies on five major themes that it considers vital to sustainability. All of the companies included on the list either lag their peers in certain performance areas or are in a position to help raise the bar for all companies in their sector.

Financial services firms were engaged only on the issue of climate change. The five big banks (TD, RBC, CIBC, Scotiabank and BMO) plus Manulife Financial are included in the 2008 list.

Of these six institutions, all except CIBC were given a “positive trend” status on their climate change management frameworks. CIBC was given a “neutral” status. “The company [CIBC] is sitting in the middle of the pack on disclosure and on actual benchmarked performance on response to climate change, forest biodiversity, and indigenous peoples’ rights,” according to Ethical Funds.

Of the others, BMO is notable as it moved from a neutral status on the 2007 list to a positive this year. As well, Manulife moved from an “on target” rating last year, to a positive, based mainly on its involvement with the Carbon Disclosure Project.

RBC received a positive rating, as it released its “Blueprint for the Environment” document that outlines its commitments in regards to lending policies and climate change. Ethical plans to monitor the bank on its implementation of the policies.

RBC was on the Global 100 list of the world’s top sustainable companies released yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. RBC was chosen from a list of 1800 publicly-traded companies for the Global 100, which is complied by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors and Corporate Knights. No other major Canadian bank is on the list, but Sun Life Financial Inc. made the cut.

Overall, Ethical says: “Canada’s big five banks are now all on the way to adopting sustainable environmental management frameworks and are progressing on their climate change lending policies.”