European ESG Conference Highlights Efforts to Drive Improvements

During this year’s Responsible Investment Forum: Europe, it became clear that the conversation on ESG had shifted from how ESG data could be gathered to how best the data could be utilized. With this is mind, several general partners have focused on harnessing the competitive spirit among portfolio firms to drive improvements in ESG by demonstrating how firms perform in comparison to their peers.

The ESG Data Convergence Initiative has led efforts to advance ESG benchmarking in private equity. The initiative is currently in its third year of analyzing and aggregating ESG data.

Many influential managers and investors in the private equity space are involved, with over 450 GP and LP members committing to reporting on some common ESG metrics. While the benchmarks produced from the ESG data are shared with the initiative’s members, they aren’t shared with the public.

Samantha Hill, Managing Director of Sustainable Investing at CPP Investments, highlights how the initiative could help drive action in portfolio firms. She explains that the data informs firms of their current position in the market and provides them with the knowledge to better their position as they compete with their peers.

Katharina Neureiter, co-head of sustainability at Carlyle, adds that deal teams are also driven by competitiveness. She notes that investment professionals are very competitive, so benchmarking their data against others in the industry fuels their need to be at the top.

Other firms are taking an almost similar approach to increasing competitiveness among portfolio companies.

Jennifer Flood, North America Head of Sustainability at Investindustrial, reveals that they measure ESG ratings on all their portfolio firms on a quarterly basis. Once this is done, the data is then shared with the deal team, management team, and senior leadership team, which ensures everyone’s on the same page while also improving their understanding of where they need to improve.

Investindustrial is one of the leading independent investment groups in Europe focused on accelerating value creation and international expansion for its portfolio companies.

Denise Odaro, Head of ESG and Sustainability at PAI Partners, explains how the firm’s sustainability awards are supported by 4 strategic pillars; responsible supply chains, diversity and inclusion, nature and biodiversity, and climate change. The company announces winners across the 4 groups based on the data collected as part of a program it has with portfolio firms in an annual celebration which encourages firms to do better.

PAI Partners is a private equity company focused on investing in market-leading firms around the globe. It is committed to building businesses that create sustainable value for all.

Entities like Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX.V: BAY) (OTCQB: ATBHF) in other regions around the world could take notes from the developments in Europe and see how to integrate any helpful systems in order to advance their own ESG efforts.

NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX.V: BAY) (OTCQB: ATBHF) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/ATBHF

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