East Ventures, a enterprise capital (VC) agency working in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, not too long ago unveiled its East Ventures Sustainability Report 2024. The report showcases the agency’s ongoing dedication to integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks all through its operations and ecosystem. It highlights the agency’s strides in producing constructive societal impacts whereas guaranteeing accountable enterprise practices.
East Ventures has crafted insurance policies that underpin its funding choices, emphasising sustainable investments. It integrates ESG and affect administration ideas, serving as a guideline in fostering accountable investing practices and enhancing company governance inside its portfolio corporations.
In an electronic mail interview with e27, East Ventures Companion Melisa Irene explains the agency’s strategy to ESG and the way it’s selling it to its portfolio corporations.
East Ventures’ funding technique fosters constructive impacts and mitigates ESG dangers. By its ‘Doing Good’ strategy, the agency evaluates its investments’ potential constructive environmental and societal outcomes utilizing a Idea of Change framework. Concurrently, the ‘Avoiding Hurt’ side focuses on danger mitigation, incorporating ESG requirements into the choice course of and guaranteeing ongoing compliance with laws and greatest practices.
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To know the method, take a look at an edited excerpt of the dialog.
What specific challenges do you face in selling ESG in your work? How do you sort out them?
ESG dangers and alternatives cowl broad subjects, together with greenhouse gasoline emissions, range and inclusion, and enterprise ethics. Every matter adheres to numerous requirements and frameworks that define the very best degree of ESG efficiency for corporations. Aligning to all these requirements and frameworks requires in depth effort and sources; therefore, prioritisation is crucial.
Our strategy is tailor-made to the distinctive traits of our enterprise and portfolio corporations. We utilise a materiality-driven technique, which signifies that by partaking collaboratively with our portfolio corporations, we outline the precedence of ESG subjects most related to respective corporations’ verticals. This enables us to deal with essentially the most important ESG dangers and alternatives quite than addressing all of them indifferently.
Furthermore, we additionally think about the maturity degree of our portfolio corporations when implementing ESG. We don’t demand that our portfolio meet the total standards of ESG instantly whereas disregarding the businesses’ monetary sustainability. The underside line is that the corporate must adjust to all related ESG laws. Past compliance, we collaboratively develop an ESG and affect motion plan with our portfolio corporations, laying out rapid and long-term enhancements. Consequently, ESG turns into not only a compliance train however a value-adding initiative that fosters firm development.
What steps do you are taking to advertise sustainability in your portfolio corporations?
Our funding staff and ESG Specialists actively work with our portfolio corporations to map out their ESG integration and maximise alternatives for sustainable development and affect creation.
For instance, we work with our portfolio firm within the agriculture sector to establish their detailed ESG dangers and alternatives for enchancment. The challenge’s outputs embody suggestions on aligning with sustainability greatest practices to attenuate biodiversity danger and enhancements in Environmental and social administration practices.
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Following the challenge, we labored with the corporate to develop a technique to enhance inner processes and deal with respective ESG dangers higher.
Allow us to get again to the fundamentals: How is implementing sustainability good for companies?
Sustainability is a long-term aim that may be achieved by means of ESG implementation. ESG parts have gotten extra essential in influencing world enterprise and funding decisions. This pattern stems from the realisation that sustainability and accountability are very important for mitigating dangers and fostering alternatives, resulting in enduring worth creation.
As a enterprise capital agency, our position in shaping the longer term includes supporting modern corporations that drive constructive change. By incorporating ESG standards in our funding methods, we goal to generate worth for our traders, portfolio corporations, and the broader society.
We proactively search for funding prospects in corporations aligned with our ESG commitments. Our funding emphasises enterprises tackling native challenges, enhancing effectivity and effectiveness, and making a major constructive affect. Our sustainable funding strategy is designed to construct a portfolio with significant affect, contributing to long-term worth.
What elements do you want to enhance on in your sustainability journey?
Now we have been launching our annual Sustainability Report for the final three years. It helps us higher perceive our efforts and serves as an evaluation of our operation and initiatives for long-term sustainability/ESG objectives.
Now we have gained some insightful insights/findings that assist us strategise our operation higher, and so they have been carried out in our operation not too long ago. We consider that if we do properly, we need to do good, too. So, we wish to create extra initiatives and collaborate extra with the related stakeholders to additional create impacts and promote sustainability.
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What’s your massive agenda relating to sustainability this yr?
We’re devoted to constantly enhancing our sustainability initiatives and upholding our ideas and pledges. From an funding perspective, we are going to proceed making investments that align with our ESG commitments.
Furthermore, we stay dedicated to creating and supporting this area’s initiatives; as an example, we now have once more launched the Local weather Impression Improvements Problem with Temasek Basis to empower climate-tech options in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
We additionally launched a free web-based emission calculator for corporations in Southeast Asia known as ECOVISEA.
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Picture Credit score: East Ventures
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