Responsible investment
Impact investment
Building on our heritage of responsible investment, in March 2018, we launched PG LIFE, a dedicated impact-at-scale investment strategy focused on investments that contribute towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The blended private markets strategy has the dual mandate to achieve attractive risk-adjusted financial returns alongside measurable, positive social and environmental impact.
Our methodology
Over the years, we have constantly strived to improve our approach to ESG integration and engagement. We have developed our impact-at-scale investment strategy to go one step further by investing in companies whose core products and services contribute to achieving the SDGs, and credibly assess, deliver and report our impact.
Specifically, we aim to bring scale to impact by using:
- our capital to make larger investments in larger enterprises for larger impacts, signaling that measurable impact matters;
- our governance rights to actively engage and imbue "mainstream" management teams with impact sensibilities and effective impact management; and
- our resources to improve the quality of impact due diligence, measurement, and reporting.
We use the Impact Management Project (IMP)'s five dimensions (What, Who, How Much, Contribution and Risk) to frame our impact goals. Specifically, we target SDGs that are a high priority in the countries or regions where a particular investment operates (What); we target the underserved in relation to those SDGs, whether it is people or the environment (Who); we aim to improve the lives of stakeholders in a lasting (enduring) and meaningful (deep) way – at scale (How Much); we signal that measurable impact matters and engage actively through business-building, active ownership and governance (Contribution); and we aim to invest in companies where the risk that positive impacts will not materialize is relatively low (Risk).
Operating Principles for Impact Management
In 2019, Partners Group became a first adopter of the IFC's Operating Principles for Impact Management. Partners Group played an active role in developing the Principles, which provide a clear common market standard for what constitutes an impact investment, and has applied them to its impact-at-scale strategy.
Partners Group's annual Disclosure Statement is available below:
Operating Principles for Impact Management Disclosure Statement (incl. Verification Form)
Blue Earth Capital is an independent global impact investment firm, headquartered in Zug, Switzerland with operations in New York, London and Singapore. It manages investment strategies for an international clientele of professional investors who are seeking investment solutions that offer market-rate returns, while also helping to address pressing social or environmental challenges.
Initiated in 2015 by Urs Wietlisbach and backed by the Wietlisbach Foundation, Blue Earth Capital has been incubated and built-up with the support of Partners Group, leveraging its experience as a leading global private markets firm.
Blue Earth Capital is fully owned by Blue Earth Foundation, a Swiss not-for-profit organization which protects the impact mission of Blue Earth Capital and re-invests 100% of the firm’s operating profits in support of its philanthropic activities.