ESG monitoring and reporting

ESG monitoring and reporting

Permira undertakes annual ESG monitoring and reporting for companies in the Permira private equity and direct lending funds. A questionnaire is sent to portfolio companies, covering ESG-related policies, as well as core KPIs. For the buyout funds, it also covers additional questions on thematic risks and tailored KPIs, as relevant and applicable.

Data in this report are disclosed for 50 companies in the buyout funds.1

We are able to use insights taken from the annual monitoring and reporting to more effectively target ESG engagement and to share best practices.

In 2022, responsible investing and consideration of ESG risks continued to play a key role in Permira’s investment activities. Investors and regulators are looking to align on definitions for key ESG metrics which is helping ensure greater consistency in reporting across the private equity industry.

In addition, we continued to disclose data to the ESG Data Convergence Initiative, which aims to achieve comparative reporting in private equity. This initiative sets out six standardised ESG metrics: Scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions; % renewable energy; board diversity; work-related injuries; net new hires; and employee engagement (as marked by * in the table below). We continue to collect portfolio company data on these KPIs, amongst other metrics.

KPI data collected from portfolio companies2

Policies
  • Overarching ESG, sustainability or similar guidelines

Policies
  • Environmental
Core KPIs
  • Greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1, 2, 3)*
  • Renewable energy %*
  • Material environmental incidents

Policies
  • Health & safety
  • Anti-discrimination & anti-harassment
  • Human rights
  • Diversity, equity and inclusion or similar
  • Employee engagement survey*
  • Procurement practices
Core KPIs
  • Workforce (headcount, FTE)
  • Employee churn / attrition
  • Diversity (gender,* racial / ethnic)
  • Health & safety accidents and incidents*
  • Net new hires*
  • Material social incidents

Policies
  • Employee and supplier Codes of Conduct and / or Code of Ethics
  • Anti-bribery and corruption
  • Gifts / entertainment
  • Risk register / management including ESG
  • Conflicts
  • Whistleblowing
  • Audit committee
  • Cyber security and data protection policies and controls
Core KPIs
  • Material governance incidents
  • Cyber-security breach attempts

Focus area: Climate risk and resilience in portfolio companies of buyout funds

In order to identify, monitor and build resilience to climate change within the Permira buyout funds’ portfolio companies, our ESG integration approach, monitoring and reporting is refined annually to consider current trends and regulatory developments.

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1 50 buyout fund portfolio companies (across Permira VIII, Permira VII, Permira VI): ABS, Althea and Vacanceselect (where exits were signed before the end of 2022), and Acuity (a new P8 investment signed in January 2023) were all excluded. For the first time, data for listed companies were based solely on publicly available data, where available, otherwise, all data is self-defined and self-reported by portfolio companies and has not been subject to audit or verification by Permira. For companies where 2022 data were not yet available, information is drawn from the most recently available report (e.g. 2021 or 2022).

2 Note this is an indicative list and may vary by strategy. For the buyout funds, the monitoring is more extensive; the list here represents a snapshot of what we typically gather across the growth, buyout and direct lending funds. Certain portfolio companies in the buyout funds also have ESG KPIs tailored to their sector or business operations.