$900bn investor coalition to write to Russell 1000 CEOs in sustainability push

A group of 30 institutional investors collectively managing $900bn in assets, including CalPERS, the largest US pension fund, will next week write to the CEOs of 1000 of the largest US corporations urging their management teams and boards to address sustainability issues across their organizations. Anne Stausboll, chief executive officer of CalPERS, told a conference today in Oakland, California held by Ceres, the US environmental investor coalition, that the letter will be addressed to the heads of companies in the Russell 1000 Index. The CalPERS chief said it would ask the CEOs to adopt a sustainability strategy: “from the boardroom, to their operations, and across their supply chains.” The call follows the launch at the conference of the Investor-Business Roundtable for a Sustainable Economy alongside an announcement by Levi Strauss & Co thatit would improve factory conditions among its suppliers and “make a material difference to the people and communities across its global supply chain” to kick off the new initiative. The company said it would set itself responsibility targets aligned with the key United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Levi Strauss CEO, John Anderson, said: “Levi Strauss & Co. is proud to heed Ceres’ call for action with a new commitment in our supply chain. We’re proposing a new standard for supplier factors because we believe that it will produce positive results for workers and for companies.” CalPERS’ Stausboll said companies could start their sustainability shift by adopting the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, a list of 20 expectations for sustainability based around governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure, and performance.
Link to Ceres Roadmap