San Mateo, CA
Paine Schwartz Partners, a global leader in sustainable food chain investing, today announced the publication of its fifth annual Sustainability Report, which provides transparency on the firm’s near- and long-term Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) priorities. The report can be viewed and downloaded on Paine Schwartz’s website.
Kevin Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer of Paine Schwartz, said, “Investing thematically in sustainability has been a core tenet of Paine Schwartz Partners for more than 20 years and is embedded in our investment and value creation processes. While we believe that our investments inherently drive sustainability, we take seriously our responsibility to be a good corporate citizen and are proud of our team and portfolio companies for their commitment to strong ESG practices. We strongly believe that food and agribusiness present important opportunities to create value and simultaneously drive positive impact. Moving forward, we will continue to seek out opportunities to invest in and grow companies that can help drive sustainability across the food value chain.”
Highlights from the report include:
- Continued tracking and reporting of Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”) for both Paine Schwartz and its portfolio companies. The KPIs consist of critical environmental and social factors, including greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions, energy and water usage, diversity statistics, and employee satisfaction and safety.
- Portfolio company case studies illustrate activities and progress on issues aligned with Paine Schwartz’s focus on the core themes of productivity & sustainability and health & wellness.
- Annual sustainability and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (“DE&I”) scorecards at portfolio companies have been established with a portion of CEO compensation tied to these goals.
- Enhanced ESG due diligence process focused on identifying material ESG opportunities and risks and aligning them with portfolio company investment theses.
- Continued analysis of portfolio company alignment with certain United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) and potential agribusiness impact, now quantified through the Sustainable Development Indicators (“SDIs”).
- Initiated the tracking and disclosure of its own GHG emissions and energy footprint, including Scope 1 and 2 and partial Scope 3 (business travel) to compliment the work completed over the past three years on Scope 1 and 2 emissions for its portfolio companies.
- The Paine Schwartz ESG Committee has been formalized and its overall ESG program has been enhanced, informed by international standards including the Principles for Responsible Investment (“PRI”), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (“SASB”), Global Reporting Initiative (“GRI”) and Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”).
- Paine Schwartz has become a signatory to the ILPA Diversity in Action initiative.
- Enhanced DE&I efforts at Paine Schwartz, tracking the firm’s own diversity statistics in hiring and setting goals for the next three years, which include the assessment and reporting of DE&I metrics as part of an overall firm evaluation.
- Personnel updates note that 48% of Paine Schwartz’s workforce identifies as female with 30% of Director or higher positions held by women. In addition, four of the last five senior hires at Paine Schwartz have been women.
- Plans to introduce an LP Sustainability Council for strategic investors focused on ESG and Impact to help increase LP input on the firm’s ESG platform and create a forum to discuss best practices, emerging trends and key challenges.
About Paine Schwartz Partners
A global leader in sustainable food chain investing, Paine Schwartz Partners is a private equity firm focused exclusively on investment opportunities in the fast-growing, dynamic global food and agribusiness sectors. The firm’s investment, operations and finance professionals invest throughout cycles across the food and agribusiness value chain, and bring a collaborative and active management approach to portfolio companies. For further information, please see www.paineschwartz.com.
Contacts:
Andy Brimmer / Aaron Palash
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
+1 212-355-4449
