Based in McLean, Virginia, Mars has net sales of more than $33 billion and is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of petcare products, chocolate, gum, confections, food, coffees and teas, spanning iconic global brands that include M&M’S®, Snickers®, Pedigree®, Whiskas®, Royal Canin®, Orbit®, Extra®, Uncle Ben’s® and many more.

The food industry leader joins BICEP at a critical moment, as United States agriculture faces mounting threats from climate change and extreme weather. Ongoing drought has tripled federal crop insurance losses over the past three years, to $16 billion in payouts in 2012. By joining BICEP, Mars will advocate not only for policies that shore up domestic agricultural supply chains, but also those that will enable cleaner, more efficient energy use and generate solutions for the threats of climate change.

“Mars is committed to reducing and eventually eliminating our greenhouse gas emissions, in absolute terms, because this is the right thing to do. Climate change has implications for the production of agricultural ingredients from corn to cocoa, and addressing it requires changes to the way we source materials and manufacture our products,” said Brad Figel, vice president of public affairs, Mars North America. “Therefore it is imperative we continue to improve sustainability in our approach to business, as well as the way we create policy, which is why it is important for us to make our voice heard through BICEP in encouraging policymakers to take action now.”

BICEP, a project of Ceres, was launched in 2008 with a core group of five companies, including Starbucks, Nike and Levi Strauss. & Co. With the addition of Mars, Inc., BICEP has since expanded to include twenty-four leading companies representing the personal products, sports and real estate sectors such as Seventh Generation, the North Face and KB Home. BICEP members have been vocal proponents of renewable energy, greener transportation and stricter pollution controls on power plants.

“Mars is an American icon of industry that understands the critical importance of its environmental commitments. We are proud to welcome Mars as the newest member of BICEP and encourage the company to share its policy convictions with Washington, where they will make an even greater impact,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, which directs BICEP. “Mars is a powerful voice in the climate debate and we hope policymakers will take note when business leaders speak out with a sense of urgency on climate change.”

A full list of BICEP members is available at www.ceres.org/bicep.

About Ceres

Ceres is an advocate for sustainability leadership.  Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $11 trillion. For more information, visit http://www.ceres.org

About BICEP

BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy) is an advocacy coalition of businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation enabling a rapid transition to a low-carbon, 21st century economy – an economy that will create new jobs and stimulate economic growth while stabilizing our planet’s fragile climate. BICEP is a project of Ceres. For more information, visit www.ceres.org/bicep.

About Mars, Incorporated

In 1911, Frank C. Mars made the first Mars candies in his Tacoma, Washington kitchen and established Mars’ first roots as a confectionery company.  In the 1920s, Forrest E. Mars, Sr. joined his father in business and together they launched the MILKY WAY® bar. In 1932, Forrest, Sr. moved to the United Kingdom with a dream of  building a business based on the objective of creating a “mutuality of benefits for all stakeholders” – this objective serves as the foundation of Mars, Incorporated today. Based in McLean, Virginia, Mars has net sales of more than $33 billion, six business segments including Petcare, Chocolate, Wrigley, Food, Drinks, Symbioscience, and more than 72,000 Associates worldwide that are putting its Principles into action to make a difference for people and the planet through its performance. For more information, please visit www.mars.com.  Follow us: facebook.com/mars, twitter.com/marsglobal, youtube.com/mars.

These financial leaders join more than 150 other American businesses, including industry icons General Motors Co., Intel and Nike and more than 100 ski areas, in asserting, “Tackling climate change is one of America’s greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century … There must be a coordinated effort to combat climate change—with America taking the lead here at home.”

“As the global economy moves toward a low-carbon future, governments that act aggressively to enact strong, long-term climate and energy policies will reap the biggest rewards,” said Jack Ehnes, chief executive officer of CalSTRS, the world’s largest educator-only pension fund serving 862,000 beneficiaries with a portfolio valued at $167 billion. “In order to tackle the global climate crisis, we must realize the strength of our combined efforts. That is why CalSTRS signed the Climate Declaration. U.S. policy leaders need to step up on this issue and embrace climate change policies as an economic opportunity.”

Investors have been an important force in supporting policy changes related to clean energy and efficiency. Last year, investors managing $800 billion in assets called on Congress to renew the Production Tax Credit for renewable energy, which was ultimately extended for another year. Investors have also been outspoken proponents of state Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) that more than two-dozen states have enacted to boost sourcing of wind, solar and other renewable energy. RPSs have catalyzed billions of dollars of investment, thousands of new projects and hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, including 30,000 new jobs in 2012 alone.

“Being smarter when it comes to climate change is the right thing to do for all of our families, and it also will translate into economic and investment opportunities,” said Oregon State Treasurer Ted Wheeler, who has previously called for better disclosure of climate-related opportunities and risks. “I am proud to stand with Oregon’s largest employers and premier ski destinations to recognize that a cleaner future will also be a more profitable one.”

Today’s announcement comes on the eve of the first Global Investor Forum on Climate Change, sponsored by Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) along with the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change, the EU-based Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change and the Investor Group on Climate Change, which represents Australian and New Zealand investors.

The two-day event will bring together investors and financial institutions from both developed and emerging markets for the first time to discuss the challenges presented by a changing climate, as well as the imperative to scale up investment in low-carbon infrastructure and business. Al Gore, co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, and Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, will address the assembly via video.

“Without the participation of the financial community, we won’t get low-carbon solutions to the scale needed to address climate change, nor will the U.S. capture the full economic benefits of building a global clean energy economy,” said Anne L. Kelly, director of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), a Ceres-led business network that helped launch the Climate Declaration in April. “We are pleased to see strong support from the investor community on climate change policy, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. We urge the investors meeting at this week’s event to take the challenge of tackling climate change seriously.”

In addition to CalSTRS and the Oregon Office of the State Treasurer, Climate Declaration investor signatories include: Boardwalk Capital Management; Boston Common Asset Management, LLC;

Calvert Asset Management Company, Inc.; Chrysalix; Domini Social Investments LLC; ESG Integrated Solutions; First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC; Friends Fiduciary Corporation; Green Century Capital Management; Leadership Council of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; Mercy Investment Services, Inc.; Pax World Management Corp.; Portfolio 21 Investments; Sisters of St. Dominic (Caldwell, NJ); The Christopher Reynolds Foundation; The Sustainability Group at Loring, Wolcott and Coolidge; Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment; Trillium Asset Management; Walden Asset Management; and Zevin Asset Management.

Over the course of an ongoing campaign organized by Ceres and BICEP, other leading businesses and investors, as well as individuals, are encouraged to sign the Declaration and join the call to action. For more information about the Climate Declaration, please visit www.climatedeclaration.us.

More information on the Global Investor Forum on Climate Change is available at investorforumonclimate.com.

About Ceres

Ceres is a nonprofit organization mobilizing business leadership on climate change and other sustainability challenges. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $11 trillion. For more information, visit http://www.ceres.org

About BICEP

BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy), a project of Ceres, is an advocacy coalition of businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation enabling a rapid transition to a low-carbon, 21st century economy – an economy that will create new jobs and stimulate economic growth while stabilizing our planet’s fragile climate. BICEP is a project of Ceres. For more information and a list of member companies visit: http://www.ceres.org/bicep

About CalSTRS

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, with a portfolio valued at $167.2 billion as of April 30, 2013, is the largest educator-only pension fund in the world. CalSTRS administers a hybrid retirement system, consisting of traditional defined benefit, cash balance and voluntary defined contribution plans. CalSTRS also provides disability and survivor benefits. For 100 years, CalSTRS has served California's public school educators and their families, who today number 862,000 from the state’s 1,600 school districts, county offices of education and community college districts.

About the Oregon State Treasurer

The Oregon State Treasury protects public assets and manages a portfolio valued at $82.4 billion as of April 30, 2013. State investment policies are overseen by the Oregon Investment Council, of which the Treasurer is a member. The Treasurer also promotes public outreach and education to help Oregonians learn strategies to save money, invest for college and make smart financial choices.

It’s hardly an elegant sight, these few hundred men and women decked out in outdoors gear, self-consciously shimmying. But it comes from our hearts. Our daily livelihoods depend on the outdoors. And we’re worried. We see the effects of climate change — not only in our surroundings, but in our potential revenues. We don’t sell as many boots if the temperatures don’t plummet in November. We’re determined to protect our winters, and that starts with the way we run our business.

Since 2006, Timberland has cut our greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 46 percent. In the process, we have also cut costs, saving $150,000 a year alone by switching to LED lighting in our U.S. stores. We continue to cut our transportation-related emissions and are buying more renewable energy every year. As a result of these commitments, we are now on track to have 30 percent of our energy coming from clean, renewable sources by 2015.

To be sure, we know there is only so much one company can do. That’s why Timberland joined with BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy), Ceres and a group of 40 U.S. corporations including other big brand names like General Motors, Nike and Starbucks, in signing a Climate Declaration, to call on President Barack Obama and Congress to combat climate change. Last week, more than 100 ski areas joined our call.

“We cannot risk our kids’ futures on the false hope that the vast majority of scientists are wrong,” we wrote in the Declaration. And we believe that if addressed correctly, today’s energy and climate dilemmas offer our nation one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century.

Together, the Climate Declaration signatories provide approximately 550,000 U.S. jobs and generate a combined annual revenue of more than $610 billion. Extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy have affected several Climate Declaration signatories and exposed the United States’ economic vulnerability to climate change. We need solutions from policymakers that address these issues at a nationwide scale, while also strengthening the economy.

Energy efficiency is just one of those economic opportunities, as Timberland knows well. And with the introduction of major bipartisan energy efficiency legislation by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, there are signs that other businesses may benefit from smart policy action that reduces emissions and saves money. Their bill, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013, passed through committee earlier this year and is expected to go to vote soon. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, has also joined the bill as a co-sponsor, in a strong show of support from New Hampshire’s delegation.

The legislation would authorize new model building codes that will boost efficiency — and save money — in homes and businesses across the country. It would create a state-based private financing program for efficiency upgrades and establish a Supply Star program, modeled after the well-known Energy Star program, which would promote energy-efficient supply chains.

It also sets best practices for efficient energy use within the federal government, ensuring that Washington spends less on energy in the future.

Businesses understand that planning for a successful future takes investment today. Congress can start the nation on a better path by passing laws that will both protect our planet and grow our economy. We encourage lawmakers to embrace this opportunity, for the better of New Hampshire’s businesses and the nation’s.

Betsy Blaisdell is senior manager of environmental stewardship for The Timberland Company, headquartered in Stratham. Timberland is a founding member of BICEP, Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy, a project of Ceres, a business coalition working for sustainability.

These ski areas join iconic American businesses, including General Motors Co., Nike and Levi Strauss & Co., as well as founding signatory Aspen Snowmass, in asserting that a bold response to the climate challenge is “one of America’s greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century.” A full list of ski industry signatories is available here.

“It is obvious that the success of ski business operations depends greatly on climate, which is why we are so invested in programs that keep our slopes sustainable. But our actions alone won’t be enough without strong policies,” said Brent Giles, Chief Sustainability Officer for Powdr Corp of Utah, parent company to Park City Mountain Resort in Utah, Copper Mountain in Colorado and Killington Resort in Vermont. “We welcome legislative and regulatory initiatives that will reduce carbon emissions, incentivize renewable energy development and help improve our resiliency in the future.”

Ski areas in the U.S. employ approximately 160,000 people and generate approximately $12.2 billion in annual revenue. The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) calculates that visitors to U.S. ski areas spent $5.8 billion at those resorts over the course of the 2011/2012 season. Preliminary figures from the 2012/2013 season show an 11 percent increase in visits year-over-year, to an estimated 56.6 million visits this season.

“The past ski season was a banner year for our guests and for our resort, but we can’t gamble on the weather in an uncertain climate. We have to take action,” said Jerry Blann, President of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming. “Resorts have made tremendous efforts to raise awareness on the issue of climate change and to adjust our operations to reduce carbon emissions and manage resources efficiently. We need Washington to take those strategies seriously through stronger policies.”

“Ski area environmental programs have come a long way in 20 years, particularly in terms of their level of sophistication, demonstrated results, and their concerted focus on addressing climate change,” says Geraldine Link, NSAA Public Policy Director. “Signing the Climate Declaration is the next logical step for our members to get solutions to scale.”

“We welcome the ski industry as allies in our work on climate and energy issues and as signatories of the Climate Declaration. This is an industry that cannot be off-shored, and they are calling for climate action here at home,” said Anne Kelly, director of BICEP. “Policymakers must realize that the old political paradigm of ‘It’s the environment or the economy; pick one’ is a false choice. American businesses are ready to combat climate change, and policymakers should join them in leading the way.”

Over the course of an ongoing campaign organized by Ceres and BICEP, other leading businesses, as well as individuals, are encouraged to sign the Declaration at www.climatedeclaration.us and join the call to action.

About Ceres

Ceres is an advocate for sustainability leadership.  Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $11 trillion. For more information, visit http://www.ceres.org

BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy), a project of Ceres, is an advocacy coalition of businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation enabling a rapid transition to a low-carbon, 21st century economy – an economy that will create new jobs and stimulate economic growth while stabilizing our planet’s fragile climate. BICEP is a project of Ceres. For more information and a list of member companies visit: http://www.ceres.org/bicep

Full List of Ski Areas Signing Climate Declaration:

ALASKA
Alyeska Resort

CALIFORNIA
Alpine Meadows
Bear Valley
Boreal Mountain Resort
Dodge Ridge
Granlibakken Ski Area
Homewood Mountain Resort
Kirkwood Mountain Resort
Mammoth
Mountain High
Mt. Shasta Ski Park
Northstar California
Royal Gorge
Sierra-at-Tahoe
Soda Springs Ski Area
Squaw Valley
Sugar Bowl

COLORADO
Arapahoe Basin
Aspen Highlands
Aspen Mountain
Beaver Creek
Breckenridge
Buttermilk
Copper
Crested Butte Mountain Resort
Durango Mountain Resort
Echo Mountain
Keystone
Loveland Ski Area
Monarch
Powderhorn
Silverton
Snowmass
Sol Vista at Granby Ranch
Steamboat Ski & Resort
Telluride Ski & Golf Resort
Vail Mountain
Winter Park

IDAHO
Lookout Pass
Schweitzer Mountain Resort
Tamarack Resort

ILLINOIS
Chestnut Mountain Resort

INDIANA
Perfect North Slopes

MAINE
Camden Snow Bowl
Mt. Abram
Shawnee Peak Ski Area

MASSACHUSETTS
Catamount Ski Area
Jiminy Peak
Ski Butternut
Wachusett Mountain Ski Area

MICHIGAN
Crystal Mountain

MINNESOTA
Lutsen Mountains
Spirit Mountain
Welch Village

MONTANA
Bridger Bowl
Moonlight Basin

NEVADA
Heavenly Mountain Resort
Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort
Mt. Rose

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Attitash
Cranmore Mountain Resort
Gunstock Mountain Resort
Loon Mountain
Mount Sunapee
Ragged Mountain Resort
Waterville Valley

NEW MEXICO
Pajarito Mountain Ski Area
Ski Apache
Taos Ski Valley

NEW YORK
Bristol Mountain
Gore Mountain
Greek Peak Mountain Resort
Holiday Valley Resort
Holimont Ski Area
Hunter Mountain
Mt. Peter Ski Area
Whiteface
Windham Mountain

OREGON
Anthony Lakes
Cooper Spur Mountain Resort
Mt. Ashland Ski Area
Mt. Bachelor
Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort
Timberline Lodge & Ski Area

PENNSYLVANIA
Camelback Mountain Resort
Elk Mountain
Liberty Mountain Resort
Roundtop Mountain Resort
Whitetail Resort

UTAH
Alta Ski Area
Canyons Resort
Deer Crest Private Trails
Deer Valley
Park City Mountain Resort

VERMONT
Bromley
Burke Mountain
Killington
Middlebury College Snow Bowl
Okemo Mountain Resort
Pico Mountain
Smugglers’ Notch Resort
Stowe
Stratton
Sugarbush

VIRGINIA
The Homestead Ski Area
Massanutten Ski Resort
Wintergreen Resort

WEST VIRGINIA
Snowshoe

WASHINGTON
49 Degrees North Mountain Resort
Mission Ridge
Stevens Pass
Summit-at-Snoqualmie

WISCONSIN
Cascade Mountain
Crystal Mountain
Granite Peak at Rib Mountain State Park

WYOMING
Grand Targhee Resort
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort

That is the key finding of Power Factor: Institutional Investors’ Policy Priorities Can Bring Energy Efficiency to Scale, a new report issued today by Ceres and its Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR). Based on the input of nearly 30 institutional investors and other experts from the energy, policy and financial sectors, Power Factor cites three areas of policy—utility regulation, demand-generating policies and innovative financing policies—that can take energy efficiency financing to a scale sufficient to attract significant institutional investment.

Investment analysts estimate that climate change could contribute ten percent of overall risk within institutional investment portfolios. Furthermore, the International Energy Agency estimates that one third of emissions reductions must come from energy efficiency in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Energy efficiency-related investments thus offer institutional investors an attractive opportunity to manage the risks of climate change while earning returns.

“Energy efficiency offers investors a potent one-two punch: stable returns and an important strategy for mitigating climate-related risks,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of INCR. “Policymakers and regulators should work to unlock capital from institutional investors for energy efficiency by promoting the policies identified in this report. Many of these policies do not require public funds, and they can put money back into the pockets of homeowners and business leaders around the country.”

Although institutional investors hold shares in energy services companies, have improved energy use in their real estate investments, and have filed dozens of shareholder resolutions encouraging more efficient energy use at corporations within their portfolios, the report argues that the ability drive the financing of energy efficiency projects—financing retrofit loans through a secondary market—is unavailable to them. Secondary markets are routinely used to bundle loans, such as mortgages and car loans, and repackage them as securities or bonds. Investors can then purchase shares of these products, and sell them as they would a share of stock.

“CalSTRS has made a commitment to energy efficiency. In the last year alone, we’ve engaged nearly 100 of our public equity portfolio companies concerning their energy efficiency efforts. In 2007, 47 percent of buildings in our real estate portfolio received top Energy Star scores; today over 90 percent make that mark,” said Jack Ehnes, CEO of the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). “However, while many of the largest investors in the country are taking action on energy efficiency, more is needed. Smart policy fixes can help us go further to both realize the massive energy efficiency investment opportunity that exists and help avoid the worst of climate change and the risks it presents to our portfolios.”

“Investors are interested in energy efficiency, but we need a strong pipeline of projects and better information to maximize the investment opportunity,” said Ken Locklin, managing director, Impax Asset Management LLC. “The changes we are seeing at the local level, including stronger public utilities regulations and disclosure standards for building energy performance are all encouraging factors.”

Specifically, investors cited several areas of policy that would help to build up a secondary market for energy efficiency retrofit loans:

• Utility Regulations: Public Utilities Commissions and other regulators can move the utility business model from a 20^th century model that rewards increasing energy sales to one that maximizes energy efficiency. At the same time, utilities and their regulators can help make energy-efficiency finance programs investment grade through the same protections provided to electricity sales as well as better data sharing and strong contractor and performance standards.
• Demand-Generating Policies: Investors highlighted efficiency-inducing measures including building codes and standards and appliance and equipment efficiency standards set a baseline of efficiency in the marketplace. Building energy disclosure requirements, such as those adopted by cities like Philadelphia, New York City and most recently, Boston, can provide both an impetus to do energy efficiency retrofits and the transparency to facilitate investments in more efficient buildings.
• Innovative Financing Policies: These policies include Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) bonds, on-bill repayment, credit enhancement, and extending Master Limited Partnerships to combined heat and power (CHP) projects can overcome the challenge of paying for the upfront costs of energy efficiency retrofits. In addition, these policies help provide vehicles for loans that can be packaged and sold to institutional investors.

“In order for California to realize the full advantages of energy efficiency, we need to focus on policies that encourage institutional investor participation and job creation. We know from our investment colleagues here and around the country that we’re facing similar challenges and opportunities,” said California State Controller John Chiang. “This is why I am sponsoring legislation in California that will scale-up commercial sector energy efficiency improvements to a level that would be attractive to institutional investors. As this report indicates, the right policies can overcome barriers to low-cost financing for projects that create jobs and use less energy.”

A webinar will be held on June 6, 2013, from 3:00-4:00 p.m. ET/12:00-1:00 p.m. PT to provide an overview of the report. To attend, please register at this link.

About Ceres and INCR

Ceres is an advocate for sustainability leadership.  Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $11 trillion. For more information, visit http://www.ceres.org

Many investors and business leaders are aware of management guru Peter Drucker, but don't take some of his wise words and philosophy seriously enough. Our modern age has been plagued by the rise of far more short-term managers than long-term leaders. We've all been the poorer for it.

Sustainability advocacy organization Ceres held its annual conference in San Francisco last week, and it was full of thought-provoking presentations and conversations about sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) opportunities and challenges.

Skoll Foundation's President and CEO Sally Osberg referenced Drucker's quote above while chatting to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse about the wireless industry and its role in the future, particularly in sustainability.

Let's talk about managing vs. truly leading a company into the future. One thing I'm thinking is the way corporate managers tend to cut costs and the need for investors to rethink the definition of reducing costs and adding value.

Read between the (top and bottom) lines
Investors look for reducing costs and boosting profits, but, sadly, the most brutal means to that end enjoy the most positive reinforcement. Have you ever seen a stock soar because management announced mass layoffs? These types of events do reduce costs, maybe, but they include non-tangible value destroyers such as loss of intellectual capital, trampled employee morale, and deteriorating customer service and product quality.

True leadership supports workers, long-term strong business, and reducing costs by innovating, not slashing workforces that managements may have allowed to become too bloated or badly utilized in the first place. There is no more short-term action than bidding up a company's shares on a layoff initiative. That's trader pathology, and it encourages pathological short-term thinking by managements, too.

Strangely, a more positive cost-reduction strategy rarely excites investors at all, even though it's a far better way to boost efficiency, lower costs, and avoid damages and liabilities.

Green initiatives are increasingly proving to be money-saving or even money-making opportunities, as well as value drivers that are less immediately recognizable. Many major companies are recognizing the opportunities, whether investors are reading the writing on the wall or not.

Hacking away at waste
Dan Hesse's address to Ceres' audience touched on the company's industry-leading sustainability initiatives. These initiatives have generated kudos for Sprint; it ranks No. 3 in the U.S. on Newsweek's annual list of green companies, and Frost & Sullivan gave it the 2012 North American Award for Green Excellence for 2012.

This isn't just award-winning, feel-good fluff, though. Sprint's efforts feed positively into its business. Since 2007, Sprint has realized upward of $60 million in savings from eco-friendly initiatives. Having reduced its packaging size by 60%, more products fit on planes and trucks. A recent white paper spells out Sprint's work on packaging efficiency and waste reduction.

Take Sprint's unique eco-envelope, which allows customers to receive and remit their bills in one handy, reusable envelope. That smart envelope saved an estimated 700 tons of paper in just under a year.

Sprint's industry-leading mobile phone buyback program is also a win-win. Spring will take back handsets back from customers, including those from other carriers, and by paying those trading them in, it incentivizes consumers not to throw them into landfills. Sprint then refurbishes or remanufactures, so it can offer lower-cost phones to consumers as pre-owned, certified devices.

Positive practice makes perfect
Although Hesse did discuss lower bills attributed to cutting energy, water, and paper usage, he also pointed out sustainability's strong intangible assets that build over time. Such initiatives make employees feel good about working for Sprint. When recruiting on college campuses, young people get jazzed by the idea of working for a green company. It's a talent attractor.

Meanwhile, Sprint is not the only company that discusses the bottom-line benefits of sustainability, whether they're tangible or not.

One of Ceres' panels on water usage included Molson Coors' Michael Glade, who pointed out a factor investors might miss. The company's efforts to "demonstrate positive practice," as Glade put it, have improved its water usage. Better water, energy, and waste practices stacked up to $10 million in savings for the beer manufacturer since 2008, and will represent another $16 million in savings through 2012. That's another example of sustainability's bottom-line boosting capabilities that accompany the feel-good component.

"Demonstrating positive practice" was one of the themes at the conference. For example, Hesse also discussed the ability to influence the competition by leading the pack.

For example of moves by another industry player, several weeks ago, Verizon announced big plans of its own. It will invest $100 million in solar panels and fuel cells provided by SunPower and ClearEdge Power, respectively. These will represent up to 70 million kilowatt hours of electricity, the equivalent of the power needed for 6,000 homes per year. Verizon also said it will cut its carbon emissions footprint by 50% by 2020. Its increasing initiatives are expected to significantly reduce fuel and energy costs, as well as green up its operations.

Look for leaders
More companies are evolving, going green, and investing in long-term initiatives that will cut costs, create value, and go easier on the planet and endangered resources. Hopefully, more investors will realize that short-term "solutions" like layoffs are, for the most part, resulting from bad decisions, if not complete managerial failures.

We're still in the first innings of the sustainability megatrend, and as more and more corporations embark on these initiatives, more and more will engage in "good competition," which is good for all of us. Competing to do the -- right -- things, instead of the damaging ones, would put our investments -- and our world -- in much better positions for the future.

Leaders indeed do the right thing, even if it's going to take a while. That takes vision and courage. Are your companies' managers up to the challenge? Your investment returns really could suffer if they aren't.

“Given projected sharp increases” in the production of oil and gas by the technique commonly known as fracking, the report from the group Ceres said, “and the intense nature of local water demands, competition and conflicts over water should be a growing concern for companies, policy makers and investors.”

The overall amount of water used for fracking, even in states like Colorado and Texas that have been through severe droughts in recent years, is still small: in many cases 1 percent or even as little as a tenth of 1 percent of overall consumption, far less than agricultural or municipal uses.

But those figures mask more significant local effects, the report’s author, Monika Freyman, said in an interview. “You have to look at a county-by-county scale to capture the intense and short-term impact on water supplies,” she said.

“The whole drilling and fracking process is a well-orchestrated, moment-by-moment process” requiring that one million to five million gallons of water are available for a brief period, she added. “They need an intense amount of water for a few days, and that’s it.”

One of the options that oil and gas drillers have is recycling the water that comes back out of wells, which is called “produced water.” But the water injected into wells is laced with a proprietary mixture of chemicals and sand, and the water returning from thousands of feet below the surface can also contain natural pollutants or even radioactivity. Recycled water must therefore be treated, which can be expensive.

An earlier report done by engineers at the University of Texas, Austin, showed that 8,800 acre-feet — nearly 2.9 billion gallons — were used for fracking in 2011 in Tarrant County in North Texas, where Fort Worth is located and which has gone to the Supreme Court to get access to Oklahoma’s water.

And in the Eagle Ford shale formation in South Texas, particularly in Webb County, some researchers estimate that the amount of water used for fracking represents as much as one-third of the area’s annual groundwater recharge, the amount of surface water that percolates back to the underground aquifer supplying the region.

But the Ceres report notes that drillers in the Eagle Ford formation are also expanding their use of brackish, undrinkable water in place of fresh water.

While the local effects in Texas have been sufficient to spur the state’s Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry there, to encourage recycling by loosening rules governing that process, it is Colorado that faces the most widespread potential conflicts between fracking and other water uses, according to Ceres’s new report.

Kenneth H. Carlson, an engineering professor at Colorado State University, saw little difference between drillers buying needed water and cities buying water from farmers. “It’s a private commodity that people can do with what they want,” he said. “We’re not going to go thirsty. We’re just going to have to pay more.”

A new Ceres research paper on water use in hydraulic fracturing operations shows that a significant portion of this activity is happening in water stressed regions of the United States, most prominently Texas and Colorado, which are both in the midst of prolonged drought conditions. It concludes that industry efforts underway, such as expanded use of recycled water and non-freshwater resources, need to be scaled up along with better water management planning if shale energy production is to grow as projected.

The report, announced today, is based on well drilling and water use data from FracFocus.org and water stress indicator maps developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The research shows that nearly 47 percent of the wells were developed in water basins with high or extremely high water stress. The research was based on FracFocus data collected on 25,450 wells in operation from January 2011 through September 2012.

“These findings highlight emerging tensions in many U.S. regions between growing hydraulic fracturing activity and localized water supply needs,” said Ceres president Mindy Lubber, in announcing the report, Hydraulic Fracturing & Water Stress: Growing Competitive Pressures for Water, at Ceres’ annual conference in San Francisco.

FracFocus.org was launched in 2011 as a voluntary national hydraulic fracturing chemical registry. The database provides the location and date that each oil and gas well was developed and the chemical additives and total volume of water injected down each well.

WRI’s water stress indicator maps are part of a recently launched Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, which provides a comprehensive, high-resolution picture of water-related risks worldwide. The baseline water stress indicator maps show the level of competition for water in different U.S. regions by measuring total annual water withdrawals against the percentage of water that is available.  Extremely high water stress means over 80 percent of available water is already being allocated for municipal, industrial and agricultural uses.

By linking the two datasets together through matching latitude and longitude coordinates, the report provides valuable insights about the extent and distribution of well production activity in regions with water competition challenges.

Colorado and Texas showed the highest  exposure to water stress. In Colorado, 92 percent of the wells were in extremely high water stress regions. In Texas, which accounts for nearly half of the total wells analyzed, 51 percent of the wells were in high or extremely high water stress regions. In some Texas counties, water use for hydraulic fracturing accounted for more than 20 percent of the region’s total water use. In Pennsylvania, 70 percent of the wells were in medium to high water stress water basins and only 2 percent were in high water stress basins.

“Given projected sharp increases in shale oil and gas production in the coming years, competition over water should be a growing concern to energy companies, policymakers and investors,” the report concludes, noting a projected doubling of oil and gas fracturing production in the coming years. “Shale energy development cannot grow without water, but in order to do so the industry’s water needs and impacts need to be better understood, measured and managed.”

As the report outlines, the industry has made progress in boosting the use of recycled water and other alternative water sources for fracturing wells. Operators are starting to use non-freshwater alternatives such as wastewater, saline water, seawater and acid-mine drainage. “Overall water recycling and the use of non-freshwater sources must increase considerably to have a significant impact,” the report says.

The report includes key recommendations for companies and regulators, among those:

• Comprehensive mandatory disclosure by companies of how much freshwater, non-freshwater and recycled water they are using region by region as well as how much water is returning to the surface and where it is ending up.
• Requirements for companies to set quantifiable water use targets, including recycling and non-freshwater use targets.
• Ensure that both companies and local regulators are conducting sufficient water management planning.
• Ensure that companies have a local stakeholder engagement process in place on water issues.

Other investor focused initiatives, such as the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility and the Investor Environmental Health Network's Extracting the Facts (see their goal 6) have been pushing for better water sourcing disclosure along with other engagement recommendations on mitigating environmental and community impacts.

Today’s report is part of a larger, more comprehensive study Ceres is undertaking to analyze water risks across the entire hydraulic fracturing lifecycle – from water sourcing to final treatment and disposal of wastewater – across different regional basins in North America. The research is aimed primarily at investors who have financial stakes in operators and support services in these regions.

About Ceres

Ceres is an advocate for sustainability leadership. Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $11 trillion. For more information, visit http://www.ceres.org

Angelides is currently President of Riverview Capital Investments, a real estate investment firm which focuses on clean energy projects and sustainable urban development. From 1999 to 2007, he served as California’s State Treasurer. During his eight years in elected office, Angelides called for a renewed push in shareholder activism and launched the Green Wave Initiative, encouraging investment in green technologies and urging companies to address the financial risks of climate change and reduce their energy consumption.

The Bavaria Award is presented by Ceres and Trillium Asset Management each year to honor an inspiring leader working to move capital markets toward a system that balances economic prosperity with social and environmental concerns. The award honors Joan Bavaria, a pioneer of social investing who founded Ceres and Trillium Asset Management. Joan Bavaria passed away in 2008.

“Phil’s actions were bold and transformational, given that at the time, no other state pension fund had taken steps to incorporate environmental impact into their investments.” said Trillium’s CEO Matt Patsky.

“Phil Angelides has worked tirelessly to push investors and the business community toward a sustainable economy. As California State Treasurer, he helped spur investments that increased returns, created jobs and addressed the financial risks caused by the changing environment,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR). “Phil embodies the spirit of the Joan Bavaria Award and we are honored to acknowledge his contribution to the sustainable investing community.”

Angelides also served as Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a bipartisan panel charged with conducting the nation’s official inquiry into the causes of the financial and economic crisis and presenting findings and recommendations to the President and Congress.  Since 2007, Angelides has served as Chairman of the Apollo Alliance, a national coalition of business, labor, environmental and community leaders committed to creating green jobs and building a clean energy economy.

A founding member of the Ceres-led Investor Network on Climate Risk, Mr. Angelides served on the INCR Steering Committee and was a motivating force behind the first Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations in New York. Over the course of his career, he has helped mobilize financial leaders to act on climate and sustainability issues.

“The enduring strength of our economy and society is inextricably tied to our willingness to embrace investments and business practices that create sustainable enterprises, broaden economic opportunity, and protect our environment,” said Mr. Angelides. “I am deeply honored to receive the Joan Bavaria Award and remain committed to supporting the critical efforts needed to confront the enormous economic and environmental risks posed by climate change.”

About Ceres

Ceres is an advocate for sustainability leadership. Ceres mobilizes a powerful coalition of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of more than100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling more than $11 trillion. For more information, visit http://www.ceres.org

About Trillium Asset Management
With a history spanning three decades, Trillium is the oldest independent investment advisor focused exclusively on sustainable and responsible investing. Trillium manages over $1 billion in assets for clients including high net worth individuals, foundations, endowments, religious institutions, and other non-profits. To learn more about Trillium, please visit http://trilliuminvest.com.

Though Congress failed to renew the tax credit, clouding the future of America's wind power industry, businesses are again working to revive the PTC before it expires in December.

A new business voice is emerging in Washington to reshape America's energy future along a cleaner path. With more aggressive lobbying, nitty-gritty involvement in drafting legislation and bucking the business status quo represented by the US Chamber of Commerce, these companies are engaged in Herculean effort to turn the nation away from fossil fuels embedded in the economy and politics.

The strong business case for expanded renewable energy production is only part of what motivates Starbucks, Levi Strauss and others. All see a larger picture: we cannot build the healthy, sustainable global economy that powers their businesses long-term without addressing major economic threats such as climate change and natural resource scarcity. Success will require comprehensive state and national policies that encourage clean energy and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions. In the US, these policies are sorely lacking.

Most of the signatories to the PTC letter are members of Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), an initiative formed to give business a voice on 'green' issues in Washington. Its members range from well-known food and apparel companies such as Clif Bar and Nike to the Portland Trail Blazers professional basketball team, eBay and many others.

Corporate involvement in the policy arena is nothing new, of course. Businesses have always been quite adept at pursuing their self-interests through the political process, as the oil and gas industries - current beneficiaries of billions in tax breaks - clearly show.

What is new is that so many companies now believe sustainability goals such as environmental protection, reduced reliance on fossil fuels and development of renewable energy are good for the planet and for business. Polar opposites, in other words, from the US Chamber of Commerce and others who see virtually all regulations that impact corporate behaviour as bad for business.

"We reject the notion that climate and energy legislation is going to be costly," said Stonyfield Farm founder Gary Hirschberg, one of BICEP's earliest supporters who joined 500 business executives in Washington to support climate legislation in 2010. "Climate action offers economic opportunity rather than economic penalty."

More than ever, the voices of businesses like these are being heard.

Last year, a senior executive at apparel company Timberland testified before Congress on efforts by House Republicans to limit the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to curb greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. "Preventing EPA from exercising its authority, or rolling back any of its actions, would cost the economy in human health, in terms of illness that often results in lost work days, and more," she told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The rollback effort subsequently failed.

Corporate sustainability activism is also reaching beyond Washington to the state level. BICEP companies played a leading role in fending off a repeal of California's landmark climate law. They also led in advocating for stronger national automobile fuel economy standards - now set to go into effect this fall.

In other regions, corporations are working hand-in-hand with lawmakers to encourage clean energy development. When BICEP member company eBay wanted to use clean solar energy to power an expanded data centre facility in the state of Utah, it required a change in state law. Together with Rocky Mountain Power, the state's largest electric utility, other high-tech companies such as Google and Oracle, and a Republican state senator, they crafted legislation this spring to make renewable energy available to large energy users and create a real alternative to coal-fired generation. That legislation is now law.

"I'm looking for choice in a state, and if I want clean power I want to be able to get it. That's what this law does," said eBay's global data centre strategy director Dean Nelson, who is already planning to build a second data centre and add nearly 2,200 new jobs in the state. The law will also help eBay diversify its energy portfolio, providing a hedge against volatile fossil fuel prices.

Other businesses are flexing their muscles in different ways. Aspen Ski Company, a major ski area operator facing shorter ski seasons as global temperatures rise, is taking on the US Chamber for its resistance to climate change policies. Last month, it led a successful effort to have the Aspen Chamber of Commerce disassociate itself from the national organisation.

Although many companies are disheartened by the current dysfunction in Washington, one former US Department of Energy official recently appealed for businesses interested in clean energy policies not to disengage.

"Please do not abandon Washington," former US Department of Energy official Cathy Zoi recently told an audience convened by Fortune magazine. "This is important…because you guys are thinking about reliable, affordable electricity, and Washington needs to know that you care about it."

Even today, with a presidential race slowing national policy-making to a crawl, companies like Levi Strauss see opportunities for positive action.

"In an election year…companies should use this time to create a foundation of support for when the policy environment is more ripe for action," Anna Walker, senior manager of government affairs and public policy at Levi Strauss, told an audience in Boston last week.

"Like the Chinese proverb of a thousand cups of tea, this is an opportunity to build relationships with policymakers, to tell your story, and strengthen alliances with like-minded companies and organisations," Walker added. "In a time when big action won't happen, those smaller actions - those cups of tea - can help secure change for the future."

“Last Call at the Oasis” does far more than recount the alarming woes of our country’s most water-stressed regions; it’s a beautifully produced, detailed picture of an immense global crisis bearing down on us as we speak – and thankfully a roadmap of sorts to what we can do about it.

I hesitate these days to even string together words like “immense global crisis” – there’s much crisis fatigue, and so many people and issues screaming for our attention.

But water’s one of the really big issues – we literally can’t live without it, our economies depend on it and in many regions supplies are running short. Two billion people are already being affected by water shortages. Population growth and climate change add even more pressure to the situation.

In America, where clean water is taken for granted, it’s far too easy to forget this reality. But if we can view what’s portrayed in “Last Call” as a giant opportunity to change our world for the better, it just might infuse us with hope and energy instead of dread.

One of the experts interviewed in “Last Call” frames a key source of our problem with water. “We think of it as the air,” says Robert Glennon, a law professor at University of Arizona, “infinite and inexhaustible.”

But it’s neither – even in hydrologically-blessed countries like our own.

We are overdrawing, over-polluting and under-pricing this exhaustible resource here and globally, and like an overdrawn bank account approaching zero we will soon see the consequences. Think oil in the Middle East – the pressures on vital resources even in faraway places can deliver disruption to our own, more secure doorsteps.

So we’ve got to get water use and management right, and it’s going to take loads of work and some true paradigm shifts. Here’s where the good news starts: Scientists, some major businesses, and organizations like mine are fixated on this challenge and are eager to spread their knowledge.

At last week’s Ceres conference in Boston, Michael E. Sullivan, IBM’s top executive for water solutions under the company’s “Smarter Planet” effort, told an audience of 600 that better access to data and better ways to analyze it have created big opportunities for companies to cut water use and save money.

IBM’s own experience at its big semiconductor plant in Burlington, VT, is an example worth emulating. The plant once used half of Burlington’s municipal water supply, but new water-management techniques cut that usage by 30 percent. An unanticipated surprise was that Burlington’s water prices rose as IBM’s usage dropped – but Sullivan said significant savings from reduced energy and chemical use led to cumulative savings totaling about $3.6 million annually – and that doesn’t count the environmental benefit.

Other Ceres conference speakers had their own real-world examples of dramatically reduced water use. Places like water-poor Singapore, which has shored up its water supply through massive investments in efficiency, rainwater capture and recycled wastewater. And giant water users like Coca-Cola, which has improved its water efficiency by nearly 20 percent and has a worldwide water stewardship program in place to monitor its water performance globally.

But greater political will and public focus is essential, and businesses can play a big role as catalysts. Global problems demand large-scale solutions. Business, researchers, NGOs and governments must join hands on water scarcity – just as they often do for medical, defense and other forms of research.

One great current example are two complementary and free-of-charge water risk tools pioneered by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Ceres. With much of the data provided by Coca-Cola, WRI’s new Aqueduct tool maps localized indicators of water risks globally, identifying company operations and supply chains facing potential water challenges. Then companies can use detailed steps outlined in Ceres’ new Aqua Gauge tool to catalyze effective water risk management.

Collaborations like these get the whole picture: This one accurately values water and lets stakeholders help shape resource protection strategies. It also gives investors a tool to evaluate growing water risks in their portfolio companies.

More collaboration is vital. Journalist Alex Prud’homme, whose book “The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century,” inspired “Last Call at the Oasis,” put it this way in an interview at the Ceres conference:

“I’d like to see the private sector play a greater role in working with the public sector. The private sector’s done a reasonably good job at developing new water efficiencies. I think they can do a lot more, and I think they can share some of those lessons with public bodies. So I’d like to encourage them to become part of this policy debate.”

Water scarcity is a global issue – one that we will need to solve together. The business world is a crucial part of the equation, and as “Last Call” shows us, there’s no room for sitting this one out.