Corporate Responsibility, ESG and Employee Engagement

We take a proactive approach to social responsibility, governance, sustainability, employee engagement, workforce diversity and, of course, to how we conduct ourselves as a firm and as individuals.
 
Principles
 
Our mission is to build an enduring firm that makes a positive contribution to our colleagues, clients and wider communities. Our collective effort is to attract and retain a diverse, motivated team of talented individuals who are committed to working collaboratively with each other, our clients and our external partners to grow and sustain our firm into future decades. Achieving our ambitions requires us to embed a responsible attitude and approach into every aspect of our daily activities: how we invest our clients’ capital, how we develop our services, how we conduct ourselves as individuals and professionals, and how we manage our firm’s waste and energy.

We care about how and where we allocate capital and believe Environmental, Social and Governance issues shouldn’t be an after-thought. Please click here for further details on Pantheon’s approach to ESG.

We have a long history of engagement with the UNPRI having signed up in 2007. We achieved strong scores for Private Equity, Infrastructure, and Strategy & Governance in the most recent annual assessment by the UNPRI. Our commitment to developing a thoughtful approach to ESG remains a key component of our investment approach.

As a prominent and sizeable investor in private markets we believe we are positioned to make a difference and follow this through with active engagement across the GP community and industry trade associations:

Pantheon is a member and joined the LP Working Group of iCI – Initiative Climat International, a collective commitment to understand and reduce carbon emissions of private equity-backed companies and secure sustainable investment performance.

Pantheon is a Supporter of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures initiative to improve and increase reporting of climate-related financial information.

We are an Influencer for Pensions for Purpose, a collaborative initiative of impact managers, pension funds, social enterprises and others involved or interested in impact investment. Its aim is to promote understanding of impact investment.


We are a Signatory of the Global Investor Statement on Climate Change. Established in 2009, the Global Investor Statement on Climate Change has been used to engage with world government leaders and other policymakers on climate change.

We are a Signatory to the collaborative engagement initiative formed by the New Zealand Crown-owned investors with the objective of strengthening controls to prevent the live streaming and distribution of objectionable social media content on Facebook, Alphabet (YouTube) and Twitter.

The PRI is the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment. Its purpose is to understand the investment implications of ESG factors; and to support its investor signatories in incorporating these factors into their investment and ownership decisions. Pantheon signed the UNPRI in 2007.


Pantheon initiated the establishment of and chairs the ESG Committee of the Hong Kong Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. The HKVCA’s mission is to encourage a vibrant VC and PE industry in Asia while promoting the role of member firms in value creation, innovation and economic development.

As part of our roles in various ESG industry initiatives, including iCI, BVCA and Invest Europe, we provided feedback on behalf of Pantheon and our industry peers to regulatory consultations, including the FCA’s consultation in 2023 on Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and investment labels and the ESA’s 2023 consultation on proposed changes to the SFDR Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS).

Pantheon Corporate Emissions:

Pantheon undertook an assessment of our 2021 operational emissions, including scope 1, 2, and certain Scope 3 emissions (related to business travel) across our global offices to better understand our emissions using a tool aligned with the principles and recommendations of the GHG protocols standards. The findings of the analysis are as follows:

  • Scope 1 emissions – 113 tCO2e
  • Scope 2 emissions – 89 tCO2e
  • Scope 3 emissions (business travel) – 88 tCO2e

 

Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation


Article 4(1)(b): Article 4 of the EU Regulation on Sustainability-Related Disclosures in the Financial Services Sector (Regulation (EU) 2019/2088) (the “SFDR”) provides a framework designed to provide transparency in relation to the adverse impacts of investment decisions on sustainability factors. Click here to read more.
Article 5: Pantheon’s remuneration policy (which is maintained in line with applicable regulatory requirements) takes into account the manner in which sustainability risks are integrated into its investment decision-making process as described in its ESG Policy. Click here to read more.

SFDR Article 8 Product Web Disclosures

UK Stewardship Code

Although Pantheon is not a signatory to the UK Stewardship Code which is principally focussed on public equity investments, the principles contained within the UK Stewardship Code are akin to Pantheon’s ongoing active engagement with the managers in which we invest. Effective post-investment care and the maintenance of close relationships are important to maximize the value of Pantheon’s fund investments, protect client interests and to evaluate the investment activity within each fund.

Shareholder Rights Directive II

SRD II seeks to promote shareholder engagement and is part of a series of EU wide measures intended to improve stewardship and corporate governance. The Directive aims to encourage effective stewardship, in part, by improving transparency about how stewardship is exercised across the institutional investment community. Underpinning it is an assumption that greater transparency will make effective stewardship a differentiating factor across firms and that this will encourage higher standards. Among other things, the Directive imposes requirements on asset owners and asset managers to develop and publicly disclose (on a comply or explain basis) an engagement policy. It also requires them to disclose annually how this policy has been implemented.

Pantheon has not adopted an engagement policy (pursuant to Article 3g of SRDII) on the basis that it considers SRD II is largely inapplicable to Pantheon’s investment strategies which are focussed on investment in private, illiquid assets. Pantheon does have policies regarding proxy voting as well as corporate responsibility and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and considers that the principles behind this approach are aligned with those of SRD II. This includes the, monitoring of portfolio investments, exercising of voting rights attached to portfolio investments and engagement with managers of portfolio investments.