Ceres honors California partners making the case for clean, affordable energy

San Francisco Climate Week underscored the scale of clean energy and climate progress happening all around us. California now gets two thirds of its energy from wind, solar, and other zero-carbon sources, with battery capacity up more than 2,000% since 2019. In 2025, the state not only reauthorized but strengthened its landmark cap-and-invest law. Because of that remarkable progress, California is staying on track to meet its clean energy and pollution reduction goals, despite unprecedented headwinds from the federal government. 

Last night at the Ceres Partners Reception on San Francisco’s waterfront, Ceres honored the businesses, investors, and nonprofit partners that made California’s 2025 clean energy accomplishments possible. It was a chance to reflect on last year’s success — and to prepare for another set of big policy debates in 2026. The state must now get down to the difficult work of implementing an updated cap-and-invest program. And policymakers must continue to tackle rising energy costs on an aging power grid that is facing increasingly extreme weather and volatile fuel prices. 

Leading businesses recognize the opportunity and the urgency to modernize our systems to enhance reliability and compete in the 21st Century global economy. The 2025 Ceres BICEP Network award winners that we honored last night helped us maintain California’s leadership last year, and they’ll chart the path forward on energy affordability solutions in 2026. 

State Lawmaker Climate Champion: California State Sen. Josh Becker 

Sen. Becker is a longstanding champion of California’s clean energy sector. We were proud to celebrate him as our 2026 State Lawmaker Climate Champion. He was an original author of several major bills signed into law in 2025, including an ambitious energy affordability package and a landmark effort to create a new western electricity market. Sen. Becker understands energy issues as well as anyone in the California Legislature. He’s been a consistent leader for Ceres and our partners—getting into the complexities of California’s energy systems and advancing solutions that make it cleaner and more affordable. 

Most Valuable State Partners: Clean and Prosperous California and Better World Group 

Clean and Prosperous California has been a fierce advocate for strengthening California’s landmark cap-and-invest program. In 2025, we worked together to organize a diverse group of more than 40 business entities to push for the legislature to extend a strengthened program. Clean and Prosperous California also brought reems of data and research to ground the reauthorization conversation in sound economic fundamentals, highlighting not just the economic opportunities, but also the costs of inaction. That kind of “economic thinking,” as they often put it, was key to making the case for reauthorization at a time when energy affordability was top of mind for every legislator in the state.  

Better World Group was instrumental last year in bringing stakeholders together and working with Ceres to advance the future of transportation electrification in California. Their staff is reliable and highly knowledgeable, and their expertise fosters engaging policy discussions. They convene important coalitions that enable Ceres to expand the scope of our policy advocacy impact. Better World Group has been key in building support for California transportation leadership across the world, and we look forward to working with them again this year to advance public health and economic benefits of reduced pollution on California’s roads. 

Investor Climate Policy Advocate: Environmental Commodity Partners  

Environmental Commodity Partners brought home our Investor Climate Policy Advocate award this year for its consequential work elevating the investor voice to reauthorize California's cap-and-invest program. Alongside Ceres, they made the case to California lawmakers that we can reduce climate pollution while growing the economy, and their voice was key to the debate because investors faced huge uncertainty without reauthorization. Thanks in part to their work, clean tech investment will continue to flow in California for decades to come, keeping the state competitive in the global economy.