The Ceres Investor Network includes more than 220 institutional investors managing more than $46 trillion in assets. We work with our members to advance sustainable investment practices, engage with corporate leaders, and advocate for key policy and regulatory solutions to accelerate the transition to a just, sustainable, net zero emissions economy. Our global collaborations include Climate Action 100+, The Investor Agenda, the Paris Aligned Asset Owners, and the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.
Influential investors from leading asset management firms, public pension funds, labor and socially- responsible investment funds, foundations, endowments and family offices make up the Ceres Investor Network. Members include BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, State Street Global Advisors and Nuveen, as well as public pension funds in California, New York and Quebec.
How We Work
- Provide top-level expertise and support for investor engagements and proxy voting on climate and sustainability issues in nearly every sector of the economy including oil and gas, electric utilities, transportation, food and agriculture, and banking.
- Deliver cutting-edge research and interactive reports and tools that help investors navigate and understand complex environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks.
- Support investors in ramping up sustainable investments in clean energy, clean technology innovation, and global food and water systems.
- Advocate for clean water, forest protection and climate justice policies and standards at the federal and state level.
- Engage with stock exchanges and financial market regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the International Organization of Securities Commissions, on strengthening climate-related financial risk disclosures.
We track shareholder resolutions filed by our Investor Network members, focusing on the climate crisis, energy, water scarcity, and sustainability reporting. These resolutions are part of broader investor efforts to encourage companies to address the full scope of environmental, social and governance issues.
Network Members
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Join a network of influential investors that is advancing sustainable investment practices and decision-making to build an equitable, sustainable global economy and planet.
Ways to Get Involved
Paris Aligned Investment Working Group
The Paris Aligned Investment Working Group provides a forum for discussion and exchange of investment practices, frameworks, and resources to support both asset owners and managers in setting and implementing investor climate action plans and net zero portfolio targets. As investors worldwide seek to align their portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement and determine what net zero means for investments, portfolio construction, engagement, reporting, and advocacy, this working group also helps members navigate among global initiatives.
Climate Action 100+ North America Working Group
The Climate Action 100+ North America Working Group was launched in November 2017. With more than 75 Investor Network members participating, the working group has organized investor teams to begin engagements with 33 North American focus list companies, and will be coordinating and supporting these engagements.
Land Use and Climate Working Group
The Land Use and Climate Working Group serves as a center of investor coordination and collaboration on climate and land use issues. Designed with a broad and overarching focus, it allows for multiple work streams with specific goals and objectives to protect, improve and restore natural landscapes.
Shareholder Initiative on Climate and Sustainability
The Shareholder Initiative on Climate and Sustainability works with investors seeking to engage companies on key climate, energy and sustainability issues by providing research, hosting events and tracking climate-related shareholder proposals.
Policy Working Group
The Policy Working Group works with investors to engage global, federal and state policy makers and regulators on key climate change and clean energy issues through a variety of vehicles, including direct advocacy, thought leadership and media engagement.
Carbon Asset Risk Working Group
The Carbon Asset Risk Working Group works with investors to develop strategies and tactics for engaging with oil and gas and electric power companies as they transition to a low-carbon economy.
Valuing Water Finance Initiative
Launched in August 2022, Ceres’ Valuing Water Finance Initiative (VWFI) is a global investor-led effort to engage 72 companies with a high water footprint to value and act on water as a financial risk and drive the necessary large-scale change to better protect water systems. The initiative launched with 64 founding signatories representing $9.8 trillion in assets under management. This initiative continues to grow as the private sector increasingly recognizes the water crisis's material risks.
Private Equity Working Group
Ceres' Private Equity Working Group is the largest in the world based on collective assets under management. Ceres facilitates sessions that provide General Partners (GP) and Limited Partners (LP) with the latest climate-centric and sustainable investment practices, policies, frameworks and tools to assess, manage and mitigate ESG and climate risks, adopt investment practices in alignment with the Net Zero Investment Framework, align environmental and social impacts of investments to support sustainable development, and develop and implement investor climate action plans. Ceres also co-leads the North American Chapter of the Initiative Climate International (iCI), a global, practitioner-led community of private market investors that seek to better understand and manage the risks associated with climate change. Ceres and iCI co-convene six meetings per year, and provide research, guidance, and tools for decarbonizing the PE asset class.
Banks Working Group
The Banks Working Group supports investors engaging with banks on the financial risks stemming from the climate crisis – clear downside risks that investors have a fiduciary duty to their clients to manage. Participants in the Banks Working Group engage with US and International banks to align banks’ lending, financing and investing to manage climate risks and finance the transition to a net zero economy. Ceres, along with its partners, convenes discussions with investors on engagement interests related to banks, providing sector-specific guidance and benchmark analysis of banks’ progress towards addressing climate risks and opportunities.
*Ceres’ Banks Working Group does not make investment recommendations or require investors to take any specific action, collectively or individually. All participating investors are independent fiduciaries and are solely responsible for their own investment, engagement and voting decisions.
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Join a network of influential investors that is advancing sustainable investment practices and decision-making to build an equitable, sustainable global economy and planet.