ESG

Responsible Investment Forum New York: What we’ll hear

The two-day conference has over 130 confirmed speakers, including ESG and impact professionals from some of the biggest fund managers and allocators in private markets.

-

New Private Markets‘ Snehal Shah is at Private Equity International‘s Responsible Investment Forum in New York this morning. The two-day conference has over 130 confirmed speakers, including ESG and impact professionals from some of the biggest fund managers and allocators in private markets: Ares, Apollo, Permira, CBRE, PGGM, CPP and Harvard Management Company.

Amid a jam-packed agenda, here are three panel discussions we’re particularly looking forward to.

  • EDCI update: The ESG Data Convergence Initiative recently released its 2023 results – a landmark report giving us some of the earliest quantitative, statistical evidence for how effective ESG initiatives are in private equity, how they correlate with value creation and how they compare with other markets. Boston Consulting Group’s Ben Morley will be joined by CPP’s Samantha Hill, Apollo’s Carletta Ooton, PSP’s Catherine Isabelle and Key ESG’s Heleen van Poecke to discuss those results and share what EDCI has on its agenda for this year. Read BCG’s takeaways from a second year of data here.
  • Outlook on federal and state ESG disclosures: With the US Securities and Exchange Commission on the cusp of finalising its long-awaited climate disclosure rules, fund managers are eager to hear what will be required of them and how they can prepare. We’ll hear from Apollo senior counsel for ESG Robert Esposito, Capstone’s Daniel Silverberg and Apex’s Katie Blum.
  • Building a long-term vision for ESG data: Last year’s conference saw LPs and GPs frustrated with the ESG data tug-of-war. LPs submit lengthy and difficult reporting requests, and GPs describe drowning in such requests and consequently being unable to find bandwidth to implement sustainability improvements. This year, we’ll have both sides of the debate on the same panel. NYC Office of the Comptroller’s Tara Mei Smith joins General Atlantic’s Lexi Wachter, Kinterra’s Laura Fernandez and ACA’s Julian Seelan explaining their perspectives, what is essential and what is achievable.

Are you attending the conference? Email snehal.s@pei.group to schedule a chat.