Environmental, social and governance

We work in partnership with our portfolio companies, providing hands-on support to help them achieve good environmental, social, governance (ESG) standards. We ensure that our investees comply with our Policy on Responsible Investing, which uses IFC Performance Standards as the basis of our requirements. We work with our investees to develop practical plans to reach these standards within a reasonable time frame – it is expected that all investees are in line with the Policy or work towards it as a condition of investment. We also support our investees to enhance their existing ESG practices.

We use a risk-based approach to focus resources and attention to investments based on an assessment of the potential of an ESG incident occurring and our ability to provide additional value.

We want to share and encourage good practice across the industry. We run regular training programmes on environmental, social and governance matters for investors and companies. In addition, investees and others can access our online ESG Toolkit – a free archive of digital resources.