The BVCA promotes private capital’s role as committed responsible investors, building value in businesses for investors, society, and a greener future. The BVCA looks to support its members with ESG-related challenges and opportunities via sign posting of best practice, facilitating engagement, and knowledge sharing and education. The BVCA’s research, events and training programmes provide a great platform to support this.
The BVCA has updated its Responsible Investment Toolkit, which provides practical advice for GPs and LPs with ESG Strategy, and signposts to useful guides for best practice.
Climate and Net Zero
The BVCA supports the objectives of the Paris Agreement and welcomes the commitment from the UK and a growing number of major economies to achieve Net Zero by 2050. The BVCA is actively encouraging the private capital industry to sign up to initiatives such as iCI, SBTi, IIGCC and Ceres. Via developing and sharing best practice and guidance specific for private capital, these initiatives are supporting private capital to work with their portfolio companies to reduce their carbon emissions, set science-based targets and secure sustainable investment performance by recognising and incorporating the materiality of climate risk.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
An integral part of the BVCA’s mission is to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) within our industry and support firms to build inclusive environments in which everyone feels supported and can thrive. Further information about how we promote diversity and inclusion within our industry can be found here.
Policy: sustainability regulation and reporting
The BVCA’s policy work in this area spans UK, EU and US legal and regulatory developments affecting private capital firms, their investors and their funds’ portfolio companies.
- We work closely with our members and other associations to track and respond to developments in UK sustainability regulation, including climate reporting rules based on recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the FCA’s Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).
- We also work on developments in EU sustainability regulation alongside Invest Europe and others to contribute to the development of EU frameworks, such as the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D).
- Similarly, we engage regularly with US industry associations, including ILPA and the AIC, on the SEC’s evolving approach to sustainability regulation and its impact on the US and global markets.
Private Capital and ESG – The Business Drivers
Research
BVCA research is key for our industry advocacy. See our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion research, our Creating Sustainable Growth reports and ESG_VC's Turning Intention into Action report, supported by the BVCA.
ESG Training
The BVCA has introduced an ESG stream within our training services, which will continue to expand. Further information is available here. Courses include a Responsible Investment Digital Learning Course and classroom-based training on ‘Developing an ESG Strategy for Your Portfolio’ and ‘Future-proofing Investments: Decarbonisation Strategies’. Our training will help equip new and existing ESG professionals and investment teams with the knowledge required to navigate ESG-related challenges and opportunities.
Excellence in ESG
To recognise key achievements and share best practice, BVCA runs an annual award. Running since 2019, the BVCA ‘Excellence in ESG’ awards celebrate firms from across the private capital ecosystem which have made an outstanding commitment to ESG principles. Read more here.
Events
In recognition of the integrated role that ESG plays across all of our members’ investment activities, ESG is a common theme within most of our events at the BVCA. A specific ESG stream has been created to explore issues affecting the industry in more depth. This series includes our ESG Conference, Impact Forum, and flagship Summit.
Insights & Publications
We keep our members are kept up to date with the latest ESG trends and developments within our technical bulletins, technical updates, thought leadership insights, and case studies.
Promoting ESG best practice
The BVCA is a supporter of ESG_VC and Initiative Climat International (iCI) and actively encourages the private capital industry to continue deepening its engagement on Net Zero and broader climate issues.