At ECI we care about ESG because we’re responsible for companies’ growth and protecting value and I don’t think you can care about those things and not care about ESG. Ultimately, businesses that care about the environment sustainability and social good are more likely to attract and retain talent. We think at ECI that those businesses are more future proofed and more set up for success. If you don’t care about ESG, you’re potentially exposing yourself to quite a lot of risk. So whether that cyber risk, climate risk, discrimination risk or brand reputation risk or simply getting left behind as your customers become more concerned about ESG with many of our more recent investments. We’ve been able to build in an ESG ratchet and what that means is by signing up a business to committing to certain ESG targets which might be around carbon offsetting carbon reduction – if we’re able to build a debt ratchet into one of our deals there will be more capital hopefully available to reinvest into the business and will accelerate our value creation plan long term. We want to have conversations with management teams about the opportunities so that might be how they differentiate to customers who are often on their own ESG journey and their products and services can support that they may be net zero they may be looking for lower carbon suppliers and it may be about how you can attract new talent as well. So, Tusker is a great example of a business that was able to future proof and find opportunities in the evolving ESG landscape Tusker moved a large portion of their car fleet to electric vehicles and which meant that they were able to capitalise on that trend and also ultimately make the product that they were offering more environmentally sustainable in the long run. ECI works very collaboratively with the management teams that we invest behind to design an ESG strategy that’s fit for purpose and speaks to the aims of the business. Fundamentally, ESG matters because it helps businesses build more long term sustainable growth. Businesses that have ESG at their heart are able to attract and retain high quality talent they’re able to drive commercial growth through new products and services. It drives value on exit and allows businesses to keep growing during our investment and beyond.
