Governance

Prudent investors recognize that their long-term interests are better served by companies with strong management and accountability systems for identifying and responding to environmental and social challenges.

Investors in the Ceres Coalition work closely with Ceres network companies to ensure that sustainability is integrated in governance structures. They specifically seek to:

• Strengthen company governance structures by helping shape new board committees and committee charters to reflect sustainability interests
• Create more effective management systems, including tools that link company executive compensation to sustainability-related goals
• Deepen understanding and skills for assessing and quantifying business sustainability risks and opportunities in their own investment decision-making.

Ceres also supports investors in this regard through their membership in Ceres' Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR).  INCR is a powerful tool for aggregating investor voices on policy issues, whether with the SEC or Congress. It also spotlights member sustainability “best practices” in research and other investment decision-making, including proxy voting guidelines, requests for proposals (RFPs) and more.

Ceres Investors in Action ”Although financial markets are rightly focused on picking up the pieces from the global financial crisis, the climate challenge hasn’t gone away. In fact, it threatens to destroy wealth and disrupt social and economic relations on a scale that could make the current crisis seem modest by comparison.” – Karina Litvack, Head of Governance & Sustainable Investment at F&C Asset Management, Ltd and INCR Member CALPERS’ BUSINESS PLAN Sustainability is one of three “overarching enterprise priority areas” in the 2010-11 business plan for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), an INCR member, Ceres Coalition member and the nation’s largest public pension fund with an investment portfolio of $225.7 billion (as of 12/31/2010). Download CalPERS' Business Plan... RAISING INVESTOR VOICES ON CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICY Ceres connects North American investors with their global counterparts in calling on world governments to adopt a strong climate change policy framework that will shift today’s risk-reward balance in favor of low carbon technology investment.  INCR also works to shift this balance in the United States through adoption of tougher air pollution and fuel economy standards under consideration by federal agencies. Read more…

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Download The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, which lays out five key expectations for corporate governance.