Ceres
Ceres is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1989, focused on integrating environmental sustainability into corporate practices and investment decisions. It originated in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, when a coalition of environmental groups and investors convened to encourage corporations to consider their environmental impact more seriously. Initially known as the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, Ceres promotes the idea that progress in environmental stewardship requires changes in corporate behavior, rather than relying solely on government regulations.
Ceres developed the Ceres Principles, a ten-point code of conduct designed to guide corporations in their environmental responsibilities. Companies that adopt these principles commit to protecting the biosphere, using resources sustainably, and ensuring public transparency about environmental practices. Over time, many organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, have endorsed these principles, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
In addition to the Ceres Principles, Ceres launched the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in 1997 to standardize corporate environmental reporting. GRI reports allow stakeholders to access consistent information about companies' sustainability efforts, thus enabling informed investment decisions. By 2022, a significant majority of the world's largest companies adopted GRI standards, demonstrating a growing commitment to corporate environmental accountability and sustainable practices.
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Ceres
IDENTIFICATION: American nonprofit organization dedicated to injecting environmental considerations into investment decisions
DATE: Established in 1989
Ceres promotes the well-being of the environment and human society by uniting investors and key stakeholders, environmental organizations, and public interest groups to work with corporations and capital markets to integrate sustainability and environmentally responsible practices into their day-to-day operations.
The 1989 Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound was the for the formation of Ceres. Meeting in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, fifteen major environmental groups joined with investors and public pension fund managers to encourage greater corporate consideration of the environmental consequences of their actions. With participation by the New York and California state pension funds, the Social Investment Forum, and a coalition of more than two hundred Protestant and Roman Catholic groups, the initial members of that group represented more than $150 billion in invested capital. The group was originally known by the acronym CERES (for Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture), which stood for the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies; it eventually dropped the longer name altogether and became simply Ceres.
Ceres was founded on the notion that government regulation alone is not sufficient to effect material improvements in the environment. Rather, progress requires fundamental changes in corporate behavior and more responsible attitudes toward the environment. According to Ceres, investors can influence this shift in beneficial ways if their investment decisions include consideration of corporations’ environmental track records. Ceres’s first project was the development of a corporate code of environmental ethics. Originally called the Valdez Principles as a reminder of the oil spill, the code later become known as the Ceres Principles. This ten-point code of conduct calls for corporations to protect the biosphere, use natural resources sustainably, reduce and responsibly dispose of wastes, conserve energy, reduce environmental and health risks to employees and communities, offer safe products and services, restore the environment, inform the public of hazards, ensure management commitment to environmental responsibility, and issue audit reports.
Ceres uses shareholder resolutions to initiate discussions of environmental responsibility at the highest corporate levels. In some corporations, such resolutions eventually lead to formal endorsement of the ten Ceres Principles. By endorsing the principles, companies acknowledge their environmental responsibility, actively commit to an ongoing process of continuous improvement, and agree to initiate comprehensive public reporting of environmental issues.
Initially, the Ceres Principles were adopted by companies that already had strong “green” reputations. In 1993, following lengthy negotiations, Sunoco became the first Fortune 500 company to endorse the principles. Several other large companies, including BankBoston, Bethlehem Steel, Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Polaroid, soon followed Sunoco’s example. By 2024 more than fifty companies had endorsed the Ceres Principles, including thirteen Fortune 500 companies that had adopted their own equivalent environmental codes of conduct.
In 1997 Ceres launched the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which standardizes corporate environmental reporting to generate the equivalent of a financial report. Just as an official corporate financial report includes required information on expenses, revenue, and profitability, each company’s GRI report includes required information on sustainability, environmental and social impacts, technological innovation, and other pertinent issues. GRI reports improve corporate accountability by ensuring that all stakeholders—investors, fund managers, groups, environmentalists, and labor organizations—have access to standardized and consistent information. Armed with these data, environmentally conscious investors can measure corporate compliance with the Ceres Principles and thus use capital markets effectively to promote sustainable business practices.
Ceres partnered with the United Nations Environment Programme to issue draft GRI sustainability reporting guidelines in 1999. Finalized guidelines were released in 2000, and fifty organizations responded with their reports. In 2002 the GRI was established as an independent international body based in the Netherlands, and in 2009 more than twelve hundred organizations had adopted GRI standards for reporting, and by 2022, 78 percent of the world's largest 250 companies had adopted these standards.
Bibliography
Ceres. Twenty-first Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability. Boston: Author, 2010.
"Four in Five Largest Global Companies Report with GRI." Global Reporting Initiative, 31 Oct. 2022, www.globalreporting.org/news/news-center/four-in-five-largest-global-companies-report-with-gri/. Accessed 15 July 2024.
Friedman, Frank B. Practical Guide to Environmental Management. 10th ed. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Law Institute, 2006.
Leipziger, Deborah. The Corporate Responsibility Code Book. Sheffield, England: Greenleaf, 2003.
Thomson, Cedric. "Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): Purpose, Standards, and Importance." Investopedia, 17 May 2023, www.investopedia.com/global-reporting-initiative-7483127. Accessed 15 July 2024.