Vicky Meek

Private equity firms are placing a greater emphasis on employee ownership, engagement and wellbeing. In this article, from affiliate title Private Equity International's Responsible Investment special report, we ask how far-reaching such could initiatives become.

Incentives tied to impact targets have come a long way in a short space of time, but best practices around these mechanisms are still evolving.

Cultural change, patience and ambition are needed for private equity firms to move ahead in tracking portfolio-level gender diversity.

Impact investing may have started out with a focus on social issues, but environmental concerns are rising further up investors’ agendas, and influencing their strategies.

Investors increasingly seek positive environmental and social outcomes alongside financial returns from their portfolios, but there is much more to the impact label than simply building a wind farm.

The industry still has a long way to go on decarbonisation, but the creation and adoption of private equity-specific science-based targets could really move the needle.

Private debt managers had been wondering how they could exert ESG influence over portfolio companies. This is the year they saw the light.

Hear from one GP who has opted to tie carry to an impact target, and another who believes alignment on impact is naturally built-in to the private equity model.

Pioneering fund managers are making the ultimate GP prize – carried interest – contingent on impact or ESG metrics. In part one of this deep dive, we ask who is doing it and what their motivations are.

Momentum is gathering behind the movement to link carried interest to impact or ESG targets. In the second part of this deep dive, we discover that it is easier said than done.