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Performance

The ultimate measure of an investor is performance: Not just returns for this quarter or this year, but for the long-term as pensions and benefits obligations continue to balloon and become due.

Paper showing investors and graph. Sustainable investing is investing for  long-term performance, not just quarterly gains.  It goes beyond the bedrock practices of stakeholder engagement and ensuring corporations operate from strong governance and disclosure policies.  It includes incorporating sustainability into the investment policies and practices as an inherent consideration in how due diligence is performed, analysis conducted, investment allocations and decisions are weighed and operations steered.

Sustainable investing also generates its own rewards in the form of new innovations and investment opportunities, particularly in the clean tech and energy efficiency sectors.  Sustainability has the capacity to reduce costs in a carbon-constrained world, turn waste into assets, eliminate costly inefficiencies and reduce the business risks associated with conflicts or disruptions in operations and supply chains.

The Ceres-led Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) works directly with its member investors to incorporate sustainability into investment performance through:

  • Webinars and meetings offering specific guidance for sustainable investing with opportunities for colleague discussion and follow-up
  • A members-only listserv providing a forum for discussion of specific issues and questions
  • Working Groups allowing deep dives into sustainability issues by industry or asset class
  • Leading-edge reports about the latest in sustainability risks and solutions, including how to incorporate sustainability into proxy voting policies and ways to work most effectively with Asset Managers to incorporate sustainability into investment practices and decisions
  • Member communications that spotlight “best practices” for investors and corporations

 

Ceres Investors in Action

Barbara Krumsiek”Calvert is convinced that climate change could have devastating impacts on the global economy—even with aggressive action in the short term. As we learned from the Stern Report, climate impacts could lead to global cuts in GDP of up to 20% per year if left unchecked. We need to prepare our portfolios for that risk, while also working diligently to deploy investment capital and political capital to generate solutions to secure sustainable growth. While doing all we can to help mitigate emissions, we must also plan to adapt portfolios to the impacts we cannot head off.”
– Barbara Krumsiek, President and Chief Executive Officer, Calvert Investments and INCR Member

PennsylvaniA Treasurer: A Vanguard for Energy Efficiency Financing

PA Treasurer, Rob McCordThe Pennsylvania Treasurer’s Office expects that the anticipated sale of its $25 million portfolio of residential energy efficiency loans in 2011 will serve as a prototype for national efforts to take such loans to scale on the secondary market. That means that one day, large numbers of private investors will be able to reap the investment rewards of supporting loan programs that benefit homeowners making energy efficiency improvements. Read more...

For More Information

To learn more about corporate sustainability performance, download The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, which lays out key sustainability performance indicators for operations, supply chain, transportation, products & services and employees.
The Road to 2020

Ceres_Roadto2020_600.jpgThe Road to 2020: Corporate Progress on The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability assesses how U.S. businesses are progressing on sustainability and uses as a framework, The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, a guide for integrating sustainability across a company’s entire enterprise.

Learn more...