Applying ESG in Private Equity

Limited Partners (LPs) are increasing the pressure on General Partners (GPs) to investigate and disclose their portfolio’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standing. LPs hope that this will increase returns, meet their members’ expectations, minimize headline risk, and help foster transparency in the financial industry. Specifically, many LPs expect GPs to have an ESG policy, incorporate ESG into the due diligence process, and track KPIs.

By integrating ESG into the investment process, GPs can meet their LPs’ expectations while mitigating risk and identifying opportunities across a company’s operations (e.g., resource reduction, supply chain evaluation, product stewardship review, and community impact assessment).

Join Topaz Simply, an ESG specialist with RPS North America, as he highlights the fundamentals of ESG, reviews example LP questions, and discusses case studies where ESG screening identified risks and opportunities in target companies.

Topaz Simply | Topaz Simply is a Senior ESG Consultant at RPS Group, a leading environmental consultancy. He helps private equity firms develop ESG strategies, processes, and policies aimed at satisfying their limited partners’ expectations, identifying risk and opportunities, and enhancing reputation.

Specifically, over the past 5 years, Topaz has helped clients (1) address limited partners’ ESG expectations during fundraising; (2) assess target investments’ ESG standing during the due diligence process; (3) develop and implement action items within the first 100 days of the investment; and (4) generate KPIs and analyze data to create a firm-wide ESG program.