ESG

ESG is now a top priority within the asset management industry, and many GPs consider are now prioritising a focus on measuring and improving ESG metrics across their portfolios.

For a number of years we at NVM have recognised the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, and are committed to enhancing our decision making and investment management, not only to ensure that we and our portfolio companies operate in the right way and positively impact our wider surroundings, but also in driving value for our investors.

NVM operates an ESG policy guided by five key pillars which help to inform our own decision-making processes, and provide an ESG framework for our portfolio companies to ensure they act in a responsible manner:

• Environment – minimising and managing environmental impacts
• People – investing in and developing employees
• Ethics – operating to the highest ethical standards
• Governance – working to the highest standards of corporate governance
• Community – making a positive contribution to the communities in which they operate.

Before making any investment decision we assess our potential investments against these criteria.

In addition, we have started to measure the ESG journey of our portfolio companies by asking each of our portfolio companies to carry out the ‘B-Impact Assessment’ – the online assessment tool provided by the B-Lab. This is the first step for companies wishing to seek B-Corp accreditation, and, whilst we recognise that this won’t be appropriate for every company we invest in, it provides a comprehensive external scorecard against which to benchmark our investments. We are pleased to report that within our portfolio we have one company which has achieved B-Corp status and we are discussing with others where it might be appropriate to go for this.