The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Ernst & Young LLP launched the pilot phase of Green Ops for PE, a program that assesses corporate sustainability metrics within private equity portfolios. Given the growing interest among investors around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, the Green Ops project intends to ease the measurement and management of ESG performance within private equity portfolios, and to make ESG a central aspect of investment practices.
The initiative has been tested over the past two years with the firms Kohlberg Kravis & Co., and The Carlyle Group. The program has allowed these firms to successfully identify value add opportunities closely related to sustainable processes.
Green Ops for PE offers customized assessments of the environmental opportunities across portfolios and suggest strategies to capture increased environmental and financial value. Its purpose is to successfully complete the pilot phase and reach out to a larger number of private equity firms.
“What is interesting to me is that across the globe, interest in environmental governance issues is exploding,” said Tom Murray, managing director of corporate partnerships for EDF. “They are no longer floundering with the ‘why should we do this?’ question.”
Leveraging its audit, tax, transaction and advisory services, Ernst & Young Private Equity and Climate Change & Sustainability teams will support private equity firms and their portfolio companies to operate more efficiently and in line with ESG principles, which will in turn enhance their ROI.
About Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Defense Fund is a national nonprofit organization that creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. EDF links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships.
About Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young offers assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services through its team of 141,000 employees around the world. Ernst & Young refers to the global organization of member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. The initiative mentioned in this article has been issued by Ernst & Young LLP, a client-serving member firm of Ernst & Young Global Limited located in the US.