Capital Innovations Sustainable Investing Principles
ESG and Sustainability
We continue to expand our offering of ESG strategies and tailored solutions to provide value to our clients. Their creation is made possible as a secondary output of our fully ESG-integrated investment approach. Our ESG principles are embedded throughout our operations and help us ensure that our business model will be sustainable well into the future.
Ensure the well-being and safety of employees:
Employee Well-Being: Meet or exceed all applicable labor laws and standards in jurisdictions where we operate, which includes respecting human rights, offering competitive wages and implementing nondiscriminatory hiring practices.
Health & Safety: Aim to have zero serious safety incidents within our businesses by working toward implementing consistent health and safety principles across the organization.
Be good stewards in the communities in which we operate:
Community Engagement: Engage with community groups that might be affected by our actions to ensure that their interests, safety and well-being are appropriately integrated into our decision-making.
Philanthropy: Encourage our employees to participate in the communities in which we operate.
Mitigate the impact of our operations on the environment:
Environmental Stewardship: Strive to minimize the environmental impact of our operations and improve our efficient use of resources over time.
Conduct business according to the highest ethical and legal/regulatory standards:
Governance, Ethics, and Fairness: Operate with high ethical standards by conducting business activities in compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements, and with our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.
Transparency: Be accessible to our investors and stakeholders by being responsive to requests for information and timely in our communication.
Sustainable Energy
- Microgrids
- Solar Energy storage
- Lighting
- HVAC systems
- Fuel cells
- Geothermal
- Biomass & biogas
- Building automation & sensors
- Heat pumps
- Smart meters
Sustainable Mobility
- Electric Vehicles
- Hydrogen Vehicles
- Autonomous Vehicles
- Charging Depots & Infrastructure
- Fleets
Sustainable Water, Waste & Agriculture
- Anaerobic Digesters
- Wastewater Treatment
- Desalination
- Food Waste Management
- Recycling/Reuse
- Precision Agriculture
- Farm Automation
- Irrigation
- Sensors & Meters
United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment
Capital Innovations was one of early signatories of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), formally demonstrating our ongoing commitment to responsible investment and environmental, social and governance (ESG) best practices. Based on our heritage as an owner and operator, we have a long history of embedding ESG considerations into our operations. Michael Underhill is Chairman Emeritus of the UNPRI Infrastructure Workstream. He was elected to the position in 2011.
The PRI is one the world’s leading proponents of responsible investing, with an emphasis on understanding the investment implications of ESG factors and supporting an international network of investor signatories in incorporating these factors into their investment and ownership decisions.
Integrating ESG considerations into our investment process.
Pre-acquisition
In our due-diligence process for all of our potential investments, we use both internal experts and outside consultants as well as different ESG frameworks to identify material ESG factors. This analysis includes everything from ensuring environmental, legal, and regulatory compliance to the identification of opportunities to add value and mitigate risk in our portfolio of companies. Our investment teams are using an ESG due-diligence questionnaire to ensure that all potential risks and opportunities have been considered.
All investments made by a Capital Innovations fund must be approved by the fund’s Investment Committee. Investment teams provide a detailed memorandum to the committee that outlines the merits of the transaction, as well as disclosures relating to risks, including any material ESG issues and potential mitigation strategies.
Post-acquisition
Once a company is acquired, we create a tailored integration plan to ensure that all material ESG-related matters are prioritized. ESG risks and opportunities are updated regularly and actively managed by the portfolio companies, with guidance from our in-house teams. This allows us to draw upon local expertise and share best practices across the organization.
Fostering Diversity & Inclusion
As a 51% Female owned firm, embedded in our culture is a commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion across our organization. This begins at recruitment, continues in leadership training programs and is woven into our policies and procedures. As a global firm, we know that the best ideas come from having people from different backgrounds, perspectives, experiences and skills across all businesses, levels of seniority and offices.
Training programs set clear expectations for our leaders in terms of their role in helping all team members achieve their potential. The training emphasizes building trust with their teams, becoming aware of unconscious biases and provides guidance on how to add rigor to decision-making especially in recruiting, performance feedback and promotion, with the goal of creating a more diverse and inclusive environment.
Women’s networks in our various regions help our female colleagues connect with each other and provide support for career growth and leadership development.
Global LPs and GPs representing $8.7 trillion USD in AUM
Private Equity Industry’s First-Ever ESG Data Convergence
Capital Innovations, LLC is honored to be one of a select group of GPs & LPs focused on Private Equity Industry’s First-Ever ESG Data Convergence Project representing $8.7 trillion USD in AUM and over 1,400 underlying portfolio companies including Apollo Global Management Inc., Ares Management Corporation, & GSAM.