Sustainable Private Equity in Asia: Through the Lenses of Compliance, Strategy, and Branding
Produced in collaboration with Mayer Brown, Sedgwick Richardson’s Sustainable Private Equity in Asia: Through the Lenses of Compliance, Strategy and Branding (“Report”) provides crucial insights into the evolving landscape of ESG and sustainability-related regulations, practices and challenges in the Asian private equity (PE) industry.
Mirroring the ESG and sustainability journeys of many PE fund managers, the Report first identifies some of the regulations that initially drive managers to examine these issues in Asia.
The Report then provides insights into how Asian PE managers are integrating ESG factors into the investment process, based on a review of publicly available responsible investment reports from 28 managers across Asia.
Finally, the Report highlights how some PE fund managers are going a step further by evolving basic ESG integration into holistic approaches to sustainability, through strategies and branding, based on a review of publicly available information from 139 managers across Asia.
Key insights from the Report include:
1. Hong Kong and Singapore regulators have taken the lead in Asia in developing detailed requirements for PE managers on issues relating to climate change and the environment.
2. ESG integration among Asian PE managers may benefit from more structured stakeholder engagement with LPs to align with their sustainability priorities, as well as more capacity building to support value creation efforts at the portfolio company level.
3. While many Asian PE managers are taking significant steps to integrate ESG issues into the investment process, fewer have developed holistic sustainability strategies and incorporated related concepts into their branding and communications.