Canada’s RBC Struggles to Go Green While Financing Oil
Royal Bank of Canada’s travails show the fine line banks must walk in shifting toward a lower-carbon future.
The inflatable bust of RBC CEO Dave McKay.
Source: Greenpeace
In November, Dave McKay traveled from his Toronto home to Ottawa, where he accepted a medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. During a gala at the national war museum, the group showered the chief executive officer of Royal Bank of Canada with accolades for his company’s contributions to environmental causes.
Just outside the concrete-clad building, about two dozen protesters from Greenpeace and other groups had inflated a 14-foot bust of McKay with the slogan “RBC is Burning Our Future” etched over red flames across its base. A high-powered projector splashed slogans denouncing the CEO as a crapule climatique (climate scoundrel in French) on the museum’s facade.