Supply Chain

Reporting Guidance for Responsible Palm

Brian Sant — 2017-01-24T16:40:00Z

This document aims to increase understanding, transparency, and accountability regarding responsible palm oil production by providing a shared set of reporting guidance for companies across the supply chain. Its primary purpose is to inform the content of public corporate communications and transparency on responsible production and sourcing activities including and beyond certification.

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.

The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability: Revised Expectations

Laura Devenney — 2016-05-02T21:15:00Z

The race toward a sustainable future is on—and the competition is fierce.

Since the release of the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability in 2010, there’s been a dramatic shift in the economic, environmental, social and political landscape. As we better understand the urgent action required to address environmental and social risks, it’s becoming increasingly clear that corporate leaders need to integrate sustainability into core business systems and decision-making, and to capture the competitive advantage that sustainable business offers.

The Ceres Roadmap presents 20 expectations in the areas of governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure, and performance that companies should seek to meet by 2020 in order to transform into truly sustainable enterprises. As we pass the halfway point on the road to 2020, it is an important time to take stock of our changing world and refresh the Ceres Roadmap expectations themselves to reflect global sustainability trends.

To view the revised expectations in an abbreviated two-page PDF, please complete the form below.

View From the Top: How Corporate Boards Engage on Sustainability Performance

Laura Devenney — 2015-10-28T12:45:00Z

Corporate boards are responsible for overseeing the interests of shareholders in the long term and have a critical role to play in championing sustainability across the enterprise. Over the years, Wall Street research, academic papers, corporate reports and trends from major investors have all underscored the same message: Companies that adopt sustainable practices deliver superior financial results and can face the future with more resilience.

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:

Feeding Ourselves Thirsty: How the Food Sector is Managing Global Water Risks

Brian Sant — 2015-05-07T15:55:00Z

In Feeding Ourselves Thirsty, Ceres takes a closer look at how the food sector is managing water risk. The report evaluates publicly available information on the water use, stewardship and policies of 37 major food sector companies in four industries: packaged food, beverage, meat and agricultural products. The report examines how water risks affect the profitability and competitive positioning of these companies using indicators and scoring drawn from the Ceres Aqua Gauge.

The report provides recommendations for how investment analysts can more effectively evaluate food sector companies on their water risk exposure and management practices. It also provides recommendations for how companies in the food sector can improve water efficiency and water quality across their operations and supply chains to reduce risks and protect water resources.

The Future is Now: Ceres Annual Report 2013

Megan Doherty — 2014-05-06T17:20:00Z

This year’s annual report is a celebration of Ceres’ 25th anniversary. In these pages, you will find examples of how Ceres’ work has had a profound and lasting impact. In many ways, the interventions devised by Ceres and its powerful network of companies, investors and public interest groups have truly been game-changers. Ceres has driven decisions in corporate boardrooms that have, in turn, trickled down through operations and supply chains, resulting in tangible progress such as reduced energy use, lower GHG emissions, new good-paying jobs and savings for everyone.

Gaining Ground: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability

Megan Doherty — 2014-04-30T13:10:00Z

This report, Gaining Ground: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, evaluates how well 613 of the largest, publicly traded U.S. companies are integrating sustainability into their business systems and decision-making. The report— a collaboration between Ceres and Sustainalytics—assesses corporate progress across the four strategic areas first outlined in 2010 in the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability: Governance, Stakeholder Engagement, Disclosure and Performance.

Key findings include:

While many companies are taking action to reduce GHG emissions, few have set time-bound targets.
A growing number of companies are incorporating sustainability performance into executive compensation packages
More companies are setting clear sustainability standards for suppliers

In addition to informing the sustainability efforts of companies, the report provides important information to shareholders about how the companies in their portfolios are performing in key areas, such as disclosing material issues and engaging with stakeholders.

The Future is Possible: Ceres Annual Report 2012

Megan Doherty — 2013-09-25T14:25:00Z

Our latest annual report highlights our accomplishments over the last year in mobilizing our powerful networks of investors and companies to integrate environmental and social concerns into their decision-making and operations. It discusses our efforts to move key economic players like the insurance industry and to transform capital market systems in order to address the most pressing sustainability challenges of our time—water scarcity, the depletion of natural resources, and the growing impacts of climate change.

Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ): Building the Foundation for Sustainable Supply Chains

Megan Doherty — 2012-08-31T12:10:00Z

The Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ): Building the Foundation for Sustainable Supply Chains will be useful for all companies seeking to strengthen their supply chain engagement, though it was designed with the industrial goods sector in mind, as well as those that are just beginning to address sustainability issues in their supply chains. Drawing on leading practices in the field, and addressing environmental, social, and governance issues, the SAQ is a “conversation starter” for companies to use with their suppliers as they begin to assess the sustainability risks in their supply chains. The goal is to help companies be more competitive and build resiliency in their supply chains by identifying, assessing, managing and disclosing supply chain sustainability risks.

The SAQ is part of a broader strategy to raise the bar of supply chain sustainability performance across the global economy. Traditionally, supply chain management has focused on whether a particular supplier facility is complying with certain minimum standards or codes of conduct related to treatment of workers or environmental impacts.

The Road to 2020: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability

Brian Sant — 2012-04-25T10:40:00Z

The Road to 2020: Corporate Progress on The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability assesses how U.S. businesses are progressing on sustainability and uses as a framework, The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability—a guide for integrating sustainability across a company’s entire enterprise. Specifically, it evaluates where 600 large publicly traded companies stand on sustainability issues in terms of governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure and performance.

Improving Workers' Well-Being: A New Approach to Supply Chain Engagement

Brian Sant — 2012-04-25T07:00:00Z

Pioneering a new strategy for its supply chain requires that LS&Co. also design a new approach to the engagement and support of its manufacturing suppliers. At the heart of this new approach is the company’s ongoing commitment to the protection of human rights and improvement of supplier performance through its current TOE, which remains as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. The following chapter presents the core components of this new strategy, along with a summary of key stakeholder feedback and guidance gathered throughout these Ceres’ led dialogues.

The Ceres Aqua Gauge: A Framework for 21st Century Water Risk Management

Brian Sant — 2011-10-18T07:00:00Z

This report introduces experts and newcomers alike to the Ceres Aqua Gauge™, a new framework for assessing corporate management of water risk. The report provides a broad overview of how competing freshwater demands and limits to supply are beginning to affect corporate financial performance in a range of industrial sectors. The report also identifies trends in corporate and investor responses to emerging water issues — and explains how investors can identify holdings in their portfolios more likely to be exposed to water-related risks.

The 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability

boese.josh@gmail.com — 2010-03-10T15:55:00Z

March 2010 - The Ceres Roadmap serves as a vision and practical guide for integrating sustainability into the DNA of business — from the boardroom to the copy room. It analyzes the drivers, risks and opportunities involved in making the shift to sustainability, and details strategies and results from companies who are taking on these challenges. The Ceres Roadmap is designed to provide a comprehensive platform for sustainable business strategy and for accelerating best practices and performance.

Facility Reporting Project: Guide to Stakeholder Engagement

Brian Sant — 2007-11-09T08:00:00Z

November 2007 - Developed in collaboration with the U.S. EPA and Industrial Economics, this document provides detailed guidance to companies on how to engage local stakeholders as part of developing a facility or site-level sustainability report. Numerous case studies illustrate lessons learned and best practices by facilities that have undertaken facility level engagement and reporting.

Facility Reporting Project: Sustainability Reporting Guidance

Brian Sant — 2005-03-01T08:00:00Z

Developed in 2004, Ceres' Facility Reporting Project's guidance is a tool to support facilities (and their parent organizations) in voluntary public reporting of facility-level sustainability performance information. It consists of environmental, social, and economic indicators relevant to local stakeholders, and provides step-by-step guidance to assist in the reporting process.