AMPLIFY: Leadership Insights by Jodi Fichtner
Do you remember that toy so many of us had back in the day, the one with multi-colour shapes and the goal was to find the same shape on the container?
That feeling when you smoothly pushed the shape through the perfectly matched hole - that sense of accomplishment - I figured this out; I found a solution; my spatial reasoning is super-charged!
This is what organizations are doing today when it comes to climate action - understanding where we fit, how we contribute, how might our offerings match with what customers, employees, community, the world needs today. Financial institutions, and specifically credit unions have an important role to play when it comes to addressing the climate change challenge and the country’s transition to a net zero economy by 2050.
Credit unions have a responsibility to protect the financial wellness of their members.
This includes individual wellness but also the financial wellness of their community-built credit union. While climate change is serving up new risks, it is also creating opportunities for credit unions to step up in a way that is already embedded deep in our DNA – concern for community; a long-term vision of success, neighbours helping neighbours and people before profit.
Credit unions hold the much-needed capital that communities and small business owners will need to evolve and transition to net zero themselves. And while climate will surely be on every credit union’s agenda from a risk management perspective, we also need to ensure it’s on the opportunity radar too.
Protecting what we have is only one part of the puzzle; it’s also about helping others transition and build for a better future ahead. And that’s our fit. The perfect fit.
Listen to Effective Climate Governance for Canadian Credit Unions
