Franklin Templeton, with $9.8 trillion in Assets Under Management, has signed on to the Valuing Water Finance Initiative from Ceres, in a new investor-led effort to engage 72 of the world’s biggest corporate water users and polluters to value and act on water as a financial risk and drive change to better protect water systems.
Water has emerged as a major systemic risk and challenge that institutional investors and financial institutions worldwide are facing since it is a unique resource that underpins all drivers of economic growth. Starting from energy generation, food production, human health, industrial activities, and political stability. Despite this, it is chronically mismanaged in most countries in the world.
The accelerating physical impacts of climate change are making water supplies increasingly unstable.
Financial institutions and investors with exposure to large industries face potentially large and often unrecognized water related risks.
“The world’s fresh water supply is under severe stress in all regions, which poses risks not just to local communities, but also to those companies reliant upon water across their value chains. Investors have a critical role to play in helping companies assess those risks, and to respond to the opportunities ahead as we build resilience to climate change. The Valuing Water Finance Initiative reflects investors’ fiduciary duty to generate sustainable risk adjusted returns on behalf of the millions of people who rely upon those investments for their financial security. Benjamin Franklin wisely commented that ‘when the well is dry, we know the worth of water.’ We are perilously close to that point and as fiduciaries must act,” said Anne Simpson, Ceres Board Member and Global Head of Sustainability at Franklin Templeton.
The initiative builds on previous water research and resources developed by the Ceres Water Program and Investor Water Hub as well as by other critical stakeholders and uses the UN Valuing Water Principles as guideposts.
Water has emerged as a major systemic risk and challenge that institutional investors and financial institutions worldwide are facing since it is a unique resource that underpins all drivers of economic growth. Starting from energy generation, food production, human health, industrial activities, and political stability. Despite this, it is chronically mismanaged in most countries in the world.
The accelerating physical impacts of climate change are making water supplies increasingly unstable.
Financial institutions and investors with exposure to large industries face potentially large and often unrecognized water related risks.
“The world’s fresh water supply is under severe stress in all regions, which poses risks not just to local communities, but also to those companies reliant upon water across their value chains. Investors have a critical role to play in helping companies assess those risks, and to respond to the opportunities ahead as we build resilience to climate change. The Valuing Water Finance Initiative reflects investors’ fiduciary duty to generate sustainable risk adjusted returns on behalf of the millions of people who rely upon those investments for their financial security. Benjamin Franklin wisely commented that ‘when the well is dry, we know the worth of water.’ We are perilously close to that point and as fiduciaries must act,” said Anne Simpson, Ceres Board Member and Global Head of Sustainability at Franklin Templeton.
The initiative builds on previous water research and resources developed by the Ceres Water Program and Investor Water Hub as well as by other critical stakeholders and uses the UN Valuing Water Principles as guideposts.