(Credit: Ceres)Ceres has launched the Valuing Water Finance Initiative, a way for 72 corporate water users and polluters to consider water as a financial risk and to better protect water systems.
The Ceres Valuing Water Finance Initiative offers guidelines available to investors while also considering the full suite of water-related issues, from water availability and quality to board oversight and public policy engagement, Ceres says.
It also provides investors with the tools required to “make the case” for prioritizing water risk. The initiative prioritizes a set of six Corporate Expectations for Valuing Water, which align with the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goal for Water (SDG6). The expectations lay out steps for focus companies and encourage engagement in these sectors:
The initiative and expectations were guided by an advisory council of investors including members of the Valuing Water Finance Task Force and other investor and NGO partners. Task Force members include ACTIAM, AustralianSuper, California State Controller Betty T. Yee, New York City Comptroller Brand Lander, and PGGM Investments, among others.
“Private sector involvement is critical to our ability to better manage and protect global water resources,” says Iris Bijlsma, Lead for the Valuing Water Initiative, an effort of the Government of the Netherlands to bring about the systemic change needed to appropriately value water. “The Valuing Water Finance Initiative engagement and its corporate expectations provide investors the framework they will need to move companies to better prioritize water and understand its material, reputational, regulatory and legal risks.”
Other initiatives Ceres has been involved with recently include an open letter to President Biden in which hundreds of US business and investors showed their support for his commitment to climate action and for setting a federal climate target to reduce emissions. The letter encouraged the Biden administration to formally adopt an emissions reduction target that will cut GHG emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, and to “place the country on a credible pathway to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.”
