Dear John,
In addition to the ongoing climate crisis, we are also facing an increasingly alarming global water crisis. Water is a critically important resource for people, nature and business, but poor resource management—exacerbated by climate change—is degrading and depleting water around the world. Severe droughts are common place. Industrial pollution is poisoning our rivers and lakes. Inadequate access to safe drinking water is disproportionally impacting our most vulnerable communities. There is no business that survives without water. And right now, every industry across the globe is starting to experience the impacts of the growing water crisis. If we don’t act quickly to
preserve and protect global water supplies, people, our environment and our economy are at great risk.
To address this problem, Ceres, along with 64 investors representing $9.8 trillion in assets, launched the Valuing Water Finance Initiative today. Our newest effort will engage 72 of the world’s biggest corporate water users and polluters to value and act on water as a financial risk and drive much needed large-scale change to better protect water systems. The initiative is the only global investor-led engagement initiative aimed at moving companies to respond to the global water crisis.
Our initiative prioritizes a set of 6 science-based, actionable Corporate Expectations for Valuing Water, that aligns with the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goal for Water (SDG6) and supports the aims of the Ceres Roadmap 2030.
Investor signatories have committed to engage focus companies in:
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Ensuring that their current practices don’t negatively impact water quality and water availability
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Integrating sound water management into business processes and governance, including board oversight and policy engagement
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Securing access to water and sanitation across company value chains
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Protecting ecosystems critical to the freshwater supplies that their businesses depend on
Investors interested in joining this initiative are invited to apply by filling out this brief interest form.
You can learn more about the Ceres Valuing Water Finance Initiative on our website.
 And be sure to join us today at 1pm ET for our free webinar:
A Watershed Moment for Climate: Moving Investors and Companies to Value Water. |
| The
Valuing Water Finance Initiative
builds on more than a decade of work by Ceres to build the scientific and financial cases for investor water action and draw attention to the water crisis’ risks. I hope you’ll join us to support this important work. |
