London, 2nd of October
For the eighth consecutive year, Asper has benchmarked the ESG performance of its funds and portfolio companies through the GRESB Assessment. The 2023 results have been now published, and we are very proud to announce that all our funds and platforms have again scored significantly better than the industry benchmark, and -more importantly- succeeded in raising the standards further compared to 2022. GRESB is an industry leading, independent organization that has been assessing ESG performance of financial institutions with $7 trillion AUM since 2009.
Maintaining top position in the sustainability benchmarking
Asper was one of the first fund managers to enroll in the infrastructure GRESB assessments: since 2016 all of our active funds and investments participate in this comprehensive benchmarking process. The data is directly collected from our portfolio companies, with the assistance of experts who support us with systematic data collection templates to ensure data quality.
The GRESB scores represent an overall measure of a fund or asset’s ESG performance, with 100% being the maximum score. We consistently achieved higher scores at the fund level: Asper Columba scored 95% (from 92% last year) and Asper Dorothea 94% (from 90%). At the asset level the Invis Energy onshore wind platform scored 93% (from 89%), and Dutch district heating platform EVE scored 92% (from 86%). North Star (Vasa Vind group Holdings) achieved again an outstanding score of 96%.
These significant increases have been the result of several improvements we worked on with the platform teams through 2022. These improvements include among others; enhancing policy documentation by applying Asper’s ‘best practice’ templates, obtaining several ISO 9001, 14001, and 45001 accreditations, sharing sustainability practices and lessons learned among platform teams, and increased employee engagement efforts.
Continuous journey for future improvements
We see our commitment to Sustainability as an ongoing and evolving effort, and we work to constantly and proactively adapt to the rising standards. This year, the GRESB assessment has been adapted to the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), which introduced new transparency requirements concerning key ESG criteria for financial market participants. With all of our funds classified as Article 9, this has been an important development and one we will keep working on. Looking ahead, we anticipate further enhancements in our ESG practices and the integration of emerging sustainability standards to align our strategies with global sustainability objectives, ensuring a more sustainable and responsible future for our portfolio and investors.
For more information on our approach to Sustainability, please have a look at the Sustainability section on our website.