The document can also be used as a resource to guide dialogues and due diligence processes between companies, their suppliers, civil society stakeholders and investors.

The guidance builds on and integrates common recommendations from existing reporting frameworks and sustainability initiatives. It is not intended as a new verification standard or as a separate reporting survey or scorecard. Companies are encouraged to report the information outlined in the guidance document through existing channels, such as sustainability reports, dashboards, and existing reporting frameworks.

While the document sets out “better practice” reporting, it can be used to improve reporting and transparency through a process of continuous improvement, regardless of where companies are in their sustainability journey.

Download an bahasa indonesia language version of this report here.

With few exceptions, the world’s leading fossil fuel companies have based their long-term business plans on an assumption that demand for fossil fuels will continue to grow robustly for decades to come.

In the past year, however, experts ranging from the CFO of Shell to analysts at Citi to the head of CNPC, the largest oil producer in China, have raised doubts about this business-as-usual approach to planning.  As the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, the prolonged oil price downturn, accelerating implementation of global climate policies, rapid evolution of clean energy technologies and a wide range of other economic, regulatory and societal conditions are raising the possibility that global demand for oil could peak much earlier than expected, with profound implications for the industry and its investors.

In light of these shifting market dynamics, investors have begun calling on oil and gas companies to assess the resilience of their portfolios to climate- and technology driven shifts in demand, and to disclose how climate risks are being addressed as part of the strategic planning process.

To help illuminate this complex set of risks, Ceres and global energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe have developed this new resource entitled, A Framework for 2 Degrees Scenario Analysis: A Guide for Oil and Gas Companies and Investors for Navigating the Energy Transition.

Download the report to learn about the framework, how it enhances the current practice of scenario analysis, and how it can provide decision-useful insights that will help fossil fuel companies mitigate the vulnerabilities they face as energy markets transition to a low carbon future.

These sustainability risks will have far-reaching economic implications that investors cannot ignore. In the decades to come, they will challenge businesses and affect investment returns across all asset classes. As recent events have shown, waiting to respond is not an option.

This Blueprint is written for the 21st Century investor— institutional asset owners and their investment managers—who need to understand and manage the growing risks posed by climate change, resource scarcity, population growth, human and labor rights, energy demand and access to water—risks that will challenge businesses and affect investment returns in the years and decades to come.

Based on interviews conducted with dozens of corporate directors, senior corporate leaders and governance experts, this Ceres report, View from the top: How Corporate Boards Engage on Sustainability Performance identifies key strategies for effective board engagement that can produce tangible environmental and social impacts. The report builds on The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability.

Specifically, the report recommends two inter-related approaches for weaving sustainability more deeply across board functions:

1) Integrating sustainability into board governance systems, and

2)Integrating sustainability into board actions.

By combining robust systems and meaningful actions, boards will have a far better chance of encouraging substantive performance improvements.

Learn more about corporate governance and board level engagement on sustainability by downloading the report. We also invite you to learn more by watching this webinar discussion:

In the past few years, carbon asset risk (CAR) has gone from a fringe topic discussed primarily by NGOs to a serious consideration of some of the largest companies in the world. Recent market action, investor pledges, new models and results, and significant shareholder resolutions are all contributing to pushing CAR into the public attention.

The report follows the basic structure of the recently released UNEP FI/WRI CAR framework, a multi-stakeholder and multiyear process to develop a common terminology and language surrounding CAR assessment and management. It first summarizes the framework, which identifies carbon risk factors and explains how companies and financial institutions can assess their exposure, evaluate financial impacts, and manage risk. Importantly, the framework separates the risk that carbon-intensive companies are exposed to ("operator carbon risk") from the risk that is passed on to lenders and investors with a stake in these companies ("carbon asset risk"). Exposure and risk evaluation have to be done at the asset level by companies (operators of those assets) and at the portfolio level by owners of our financial intermediaries to those operators. Risk is then managed using several options: disclosure, diversification, divestment (avoidance), and engagement. UNEP FI/WRI had over 200 participants in the webinar launch of its Framework.

This report now looks at the evidence for action by operators (disclosure) and investors (divestment and engagement) in particular (there is limited evidence of action by financial intermediaries at this stage) in relation to these issues in the fossil fuels and utility sectors. It also analyzes how recent market volatility, a primary risk factor in the CAR framework, may be contributing to such action. It focuses on the evidence of action in four spheres: market action, corporate disclosure and engagement, and direct investor action (divestment and portfolio exposure and stress testing).

This first-of-its-kind report entitled Water Connection Charges: A Tool for Encouraging Water-Efficient Growth found that 93% of the fee structures in the Southeastern states and 62% of the fee structures in the Western states used uniform water connection charges for single-family homes that took no account of key factors in influencing the design of a home's water footprint. As a result, owners of new homes are typically paying the same amount to be connected to local water systems despite wide-ranging differences in their water use.

This report examines and compares the stack air pollutant emissions of the 100 largest power producers in the United States based on their 2013 generation, plant ownership, and emissions data. The report focuses on four power plant pollutants for which public emissions data are available: sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), mercury (Hg), and carbon dioxide (CO2). These pollutants are associated with significant environmental and public health problems, including acid deposition, global warming, fine particle air pollution, mercury deposition, nitrogen deposition, ozone smog, and regional haze.

Key findings of the report include:

• Air pollution emissions from power plants are highly concentrated among a small number of producers.  Among the 100 largest generators:
• Five (Duke, AEP, Southern, NRG, and MidAmerican) generate 25 percent of CO2 emissions, though Southern has seen a significant decline in emissions (27 percent) since 2000, and Duke has seen a 10 percent decline in its emissions rate even after its recent merger with Progress Energy.
• Three (AEP, Southern, and NRG) generate nearly 25 percent of SO2 emissions.
• SO2 and NOX emissions in 2013 were 80 percent and 74 percent lower, respectively, than they were in 1990, when major amendments to the Clean Air Act were passed.
• Mercury emissions have decreased 50 percent since 2000, when the industry was first required to report their mercury emissions to EPA.
• Coal accounted for 40 percent of the power produced by the top 100 power producers, followed by natural gas at 26 percent, nuclear at 22 percent, and renewable power, including large hydroelectric, and other at 14 percent.
• The utilization, or capacity factors, of coal plants continues to decline relative to natural gas plants, with coal plants’ average utilization rates declining from 73 to 61 percent, and natural gas plants increasing their utilization from 40 to 48 percent between 2008 and 2014.

In September 2013, Ceres and the Carbon Tracker Initiative launched the Carbon Asset Risk (“CAR”) Initiative with support from the Global Investor Coalition. The CAR Initiative was launched as 75 investors representing $3.5 trillion in assets called on 45 of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to come clean on the risks of stranded assets.

This report chronicles major shifts in the financial landscape since the CAR effort began. Some of these changes can be linked directly to actions or progress achieved through the CAR Initiative or its many collaborative partners, while others are more indicative of the increased relevance of the carbon asset risk framing around wasted capital, stranded assets and unburnable carbon.

Showcasing dozens of real-world examples of investor engagement with companies, contributors cover issues like setting ESG standards in the marketplace, public policy engagement, collaboration, shareholder resolutions, board of director engagement, divestment, creating a focus list, strategies for international engagements, and other topics. The guide also features a set of ESG-themed questions that portfolio managers and analysts should be asking of companies in key sectors

With the active engagement and support of INCR members, we have accomplished much together over the past year. From helping bring the concept of Carbon Asset Risk into mainstream financial markets, to driving the formation of a Sustainability Working Group of leading global stock exchanges, to shareholder engagements resulting in an unprecedented 66 corporate commitments on climate and sustainability, INCR members have made the world a better place to live and to invest.