RBC cuts ESG roles, moves climate team to policy unit

Royal Bank of Canada cut at least three senior climate, sustainability and ESG roles and moved its climate team into a new public policy group, according to Reuters.

RBC did not confirm which posts were cut, but the Reuters list includes vice presidents of climate strategy, ESG risk, and sustainability strategy and performance. About half a dozen jobs were eliminated as duplicates, spokesperson Andrew Block said, and sustainability reporting moved into the finance unit. Emily Head, at the bank nearly 17 years and most recently vice president and associate general counsel, was named vice president of public policy in a LinkedIn post on Monday.

Allocators vetting RBC as a bank issuer or platform will now get climate answers from a public policy group led by Emily Head, while client-facing climate work remains with embedded business teams that Block said continue to grow.

Block said the team moved "in its entirety" to the policy group "with climate and sustainability as its main focus." Richard Brooks, climate finance director at Stand.Earth, said the move could cost RBC specialist skills and dilute its focus. The shift follows earlier pullbacks: the bank left a global banking climate coalition last year, one Mark Carney, now Canada's prime minister, helped set up in 2021 as a UN climate envoy, and dropped its sustainable finance goals in 2025, citing Competition Act changes it said limited what it could disclose.