London-based Asper Investment Management announced that both renewable energy funds it manages won top marks in the 2018 edition of the GRESB ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance benchmarking, taking the 1st and 2nd places in the ranking of European Renewable Infrastructure Funds.
GRESB is a global organization benchmarking ESG performance of investments in the real asset space. Its members include over 300 institutional investors representing over $18tn of institutional capital, who report extensively on the ESG performance of their investments and funds. This year’s infrastructure benchmarking included 75 funds and 280 investments across 24 sectors.
The Asper funds first took part in GRESB in 2016. In 2017 they also received strong scores and took the top two places in their category. This consistently strong performance is underpinned by the focus of the Asper portfolio team on keeping up the highest ESG standards and the hard work of the local management teams to improve ESG performance at the level of the investment platforms, which also received top scores.
Asper is committed to driving ESG performance in addition to financial returns as part of its investment strategy to build successful sustainable infrastructure businesses.
About Asper
Asper is a specialist investment firm that focuses on private investments in sustainable real assets, including renewable power, sustainable heat and other clean infrastructure. It serves institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies and funds-of-funds.
Asper was previously part of the private equity firm Hg, under which it raised two dedicated renewable energy funds with total AUM of €850m. In December 2017 Asper and Hg jointly announced the spinout of the renewable energy team and funds to Asper.