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The City of Göteborg International Environment Prize 2004 is awarded to two economists, Joan Bavaria, USA, and Tessa Tennant, Great Britain. They are pioneers in the movement for “sustainable investments” and through their investment companies and funds they have inspired companies to take ethics and the environment into consideration.As early as the 80’s, Joan Bavaria and Tessa Tennant started focusing on socially, environmentally and financially responsible investments.
More about Joan Bavaria”Wall Street should judge companies not merely on their financial returns but on the kind of world they support.” Joan Bavaria has been a leader of social and environmental issues within the financial world for more than 20 years. Through her work she has influenced major corporations, primarily in the USA, to pay more attention to environmental matters and to work more with social justice.
Joan Bavaria served as Chairman of CERES between 1989 and 2001. The organisation released principles for environmental codes of conduct in 1989. Today these principles are known as the CERES 10 Principles. Ms. Bavaria initially called the principles the Exxon Valdez Principles, since she introduced them after the big oil disaster. No enterprise wanted to be associated with Exxon’s bad reputation, hence they made sure the principles were taken seriously within their business. Through CERES Joan Bavaria worked with many proactive businesses, which then acted as leaders in the forefront of environmental accounting and responsibility. Through her commitment to CERES, she put pressure on the shareholders in Exxon-Mobile during an Annual General Meeting to demand the company set up environmental objectives. CERES also threatened to stop their cooperation with GM unless they rethought their policies on fuel efficient cars, principally for their so-called SUV vehicles. 
Joan Bavaria with students at Universeum.
- In 1981 Ms. Bavaria co-founded the Social Investment Forum, which is an organisation for research, financial advice, banking and social investment.
Long before Joan Bavaria became involved in the investment market investors have considered other than financial criteria but she is the only person who has contributed to the current movement that is inspiring an increasing number of investors to scrutinise companies’ social responsibility linked to publicity. She has made enterprises examine their social and environmental behaviour, particularly by bringing facts to light. Even though Trillium does not manage large amounts of money in-house, the firm puts a great deal of pressure on other investors worldwide to take responsibility for sustainable development. Globally, many companies take Trillium’s advice into consideration after reading their analyses.
Joan Bavaria has received several awards for her dedicated work:
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Joan Bavaria started an investment company which focuses on sustainable investments. She has been a front figure for socially and environmentally responsible investments in the financial world and has succeeded in influencing American enterprises to take a greater interest in the environment.
Tessa Tennant founded Great Britain’s first sustainable investment fund in 1988. Ten years later she co-founded the first fund for sustainable investments in Asia. By creating public opinion she has shown the importance of social investment funds in a society’s social and environmental development.
She founded the investment company Trillium Asset Management in Boston in 1982 and is still its CEO. Trillium is an employee-owned investment consulting bureau focusing on investment and portfolio management. The firm has created a niche for itself as an investment advisor for clients who are concerned over the social and environmental impact of their investments and it manages capital of 700 million USD (2004). Trillium gives a yearly donation of 5% of its pre-tax profits to charitable organisations.