About Freedom To Invest
For decades, the largest U.S. institutional investors and Fortune 500 companies have long integrated all material financial risks – from extreme weather to inflation to labor shortages -- and business opportunities, including the value and benefits of clean energy investments and other innovative solutions, into decision-making. These decisions are based on prudent risk management and financial analysis to ensure long-term profitability, competitiveness, and value. Investors and companies remain firmly committed to responsible business strategies because it is critical to their jobs. Climate-related risks are estimated to cost the world’s economy $178 trillion by 2070 if left unchecked, and pose significant to investment portfolios, business operations, and supply chains. When acted on, they present enormous business opportunities in the economic transition to a clean energy future.
However, some elected officials and special interests are working to ban investors and companies from considering climate risk and other material issues in decision-making. In the last few years, the fossil fuel industry and other special interests in Congress and statehouses have waged a relentless politically driven campaign designed to undermine and interfere with responsible business practices. State lawmakers have introduced hundreds of bills to use government power to ban investors and companies from considering all financial risks and opportunities in decision-making. On the federal side, congressional lawmakers have introduced several bills, including one U.S. House bill that would impede shareholder democracy and the right to engage companies they own on financial risk through proxy voting.
The good news is many restrictive measures have failed or stalled due to private and public sector pushback over the economic impacts of such policies. Hundreds of private and public sector leaders have mobilized to send a unified message to policymakers: protect the freedom to invest and operate responsibly.
In March 2023, Ceres launched the Freedom to Invest initiative to support investors and companies protect their long-standing rights to invest and operate responsibly, ensuring long-term value and a more stable, resilient economy. The initiative is at the forefront of defeating state and federal legislation that seeks to ban responsible business practices, where investors and companies consider all financial risks and opportunities in decision-making. Freedom to Invest has rallied leaders from across the business world to remind policymakers that building profitable businesses and investment portfolios demands an analysis of all material financial factors, and the economy is stronger and more resilient if they are free to make their own decisions.