Julie Bernard

Assistant professor
Julie Bernard headshot

Contact Information
Julie.bernard@uwaterloo.ca
Ev3-4229

Dr. Julie Bernard is a Professor of Sustainable Finance at the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development. Her research focuses on sustainable finance, responsible investment, and shareholder activism, particularly the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, proxy voting, and their roles in addressing the twin crisis—climate change and biodiversity crisis—as well as their integration of Indigenous issues. She primarily uses qualitative methods such as ethnography in her research. From 2022 to 2024, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Ivey Business School, Western University, where she is still an Adjunct Professor. Her work focused on supporting the replication and scaling of an innovative Canadian financial product that applies finance for nature-based carbon mitigation. She is also an Institute for Sustainable Finance Fellow.

Dr. Bernard earned her Ph.D. from Université Laval in 2022 and was a Bertram Scholar with the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research. 

Her research has received funding from several organizations, including Carbon Solutions @ Western and the Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA), and in 2025, she won ASAC's Past President Award for her research on shareholder activism.

Selected Publications

  • Bernard, J. , Boiral, O., Guillaumie, L., & Brotherton, M.-C. (2022). Does proxy voting really promote corporate sustainability? Corporate Governance: An International Review, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12464

  • Alawattage, C., Arjaliès, D.-L., Barrett, M., Bernard, J., et al. (2021), Opening Accounting: A Manifesto, Editorial, Accouting Forum, 45 (3). Rating ABDC: B

  • Arjaliès, D-L, Bernard, J.  & Putumbaka, B. (2021), Report on Responsible Investment & Indigenous Communities, funded by the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership (Western University)

  • Boiral, O., Heras, I, Brotherton, M-C & Bernard, J.  (2019), "Ethical Issues in the Assurance of Sustainability Reports: Perspectives from Assurance Providers", Journal of Business Ethics,159 (4), p. 1111-1125.

Degrees

  • PhD - Administrative Sciences, Université Laval

  • MAP - École nationale d’administration publique

  • BScSoc - University of Ottawa