Website ceres.org Founded 1989 | Method Advocacy Founder Linda Smith Number of employees 65 | |
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Slogan "Mobilizing investor and business leadership to build a thriving, sustainable global economy." Motto "Mobilizing investor and business leadership to build a thriving, sustainable global economy." Similar Global Reporting Initiative, United Nations Global C, World Resources Institute, Skoll Foundation, The Climate Group Profiles | ||
Ceres is a non-profit sustainability advocacy organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1989, Ceres' mission is to "mobilize investor and business leadership to build a thriving, sustainable global economy". Ceres brings together disparate stakeholders - investors, companies and public interest groups - to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy.
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In 2007, Ceres was named one of the 100 most influential players in corporate governance by Directorship magazine. Ceres was a recipient of the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2006, as well as a recipient of the Fast Company Social Capitalist Awards in 2008. As of January 2014, its president is Mindy Lubber.
History
Ceres was founded in 1989 when Joan Bavaria, then-president of Trillium Asset Management, formed an alliance with leading environmentalists with the goal of changing corporate environmental practices. She named the organization the "Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies", or CERES, after the Roman goddess of fertility and agriculture.
That same year, following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, CERES announced the creation of the Valdez Principles (later renamed the CERES Principles), a 10-point code of corporate environmental conduct to be publicly endorsed by Ceres companies.
In 1993, following lengthy negotiations, Sunoco became the first Fortune 500 company to endorse the Ceres Principles. Since then, over 50 companies have endorsed the Ceres Principles, including 13 Fortune 500 companies that have adopted their own equivalent environmental principles.
In 2003, the organization dropped the CERES acronym and rebranded itself as "Ceres".
Ceres principles
First published in the fall of 1989, the Ceres Principles are a 10-point code of corporate environmental ideals to be publicly endorsed by companies as an environmental mission statement or ethic. The 10 Ceres Principles are:
Key accomplishments
Programs
Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR): Is a network of investors and financial institutions coordinated by Ceres that promotes better understanding of the financial risks and investment opportunities posed by climate change.
Business For Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP): BICEP is a co-operative group of consumer facing businesses coordinated by Ceres whose primary goal is to call on the U.S. government to pass progressive energy and climate legislation. BICEP currently has 20 members.