ESG KPI report 2024 by Invest Europe

Published 13 March 2024

PrintCategory: Impact and ESG

Invest Europe has published an ESG KPI report covering data from 2022. Compared to their first edition published last year (covering data from 2021), which we touched upon in our previous Pulse update, there has been a 60% increase in the number of firms covered by the survey.

More specifically, data has been collected from 1,057 European private equity and venture capital firms with input from 2,216 funds and 6,531 portfolio companies. Below are some of the key takeaways from the report:

PE / VC firms

  • 78% of the firms covered had a policy describing its approach to identifying and managing ESG factors. For VC firms specifically, this share was 71% (1% higher compared to 2021).

PE / VC funds

  • SFDR classification for funds subject to SFDR: 66% were classified as so-called article 6 funds, 25% as article 8 funds, and 6% as article 9 funds. The percentage of article 6 and 9 funds was higher for VC funds whereas the percentage of article 8 funds was higher for PE funds.
  • Of funds subject to SFDR, 45% took into account principal adverse impacts (PAIs) of investment decisions on sustainability factors.

PE / VC portfolio companies

  • Environmental
    • 6% of VC stage companies had a Net Zero Target, while the share was 20% for PE stage companies. For comparison, the percentage for all companies in the survey was 12%.
  • Social
    • 38% of full-time employees working in VC backed companies were female. The number was only 1% higher for PE backed companies.
    • 29% of board members in VC backed companies were female board members compared to 24% in PE backed companies.
  • Governance
    • 52% of VC stage companies had anti-corruption and bribery policies in place. The number was 84% for PE stage companies. For comparison, the percentage for all companies in the survey was 70%.

The full report can be found here.

Tags:  Sustainability


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