As ESG legislation becomes increasingly strict, more private equity firms are spending a lot of time and effort to ensure their portfolios are regulation compliant. KEY ESG’s innovative software solution takes the hassle out of ESG management, streamlining processes, providing actionable insights, and collating all ESG data in one place.
PARTNER CONTENT
As ESG legislation becomes increasingly strict, more private equity firms are spending a lot of time and effort to ensure their portfolios are regulation compliant. KEY ESG‘s innovative software solution takes the hassle out of ESG management, streamlining processes, providing actionable insights, and collating all ESG data in one place. Heleen van Poecke, CEO at KEY ESG, give further details about the recent developments in the ESG field.
Can you outline the industry trends that have been driving growth and development within your firm over the past year?
Two trends are raising the bar for ESG disclosure. The first relates to the convergence of reporting metrics.
2022 marked the SFDR’s (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation) inaugural year – a regulatory push coinciding with a voluntary EDCI (ESG Data Convergence Initiative), which is gradually becoming an industry standard.
The second trend is the increasing impact of ESG performance on value creation. As more investors factor ESG performance into their capital allocations, integrating ESG into the equity story becomes increasingly important for exits and fundraising.
KEY ESG ensures its software is up to date for the latest regulatory and LP requirements.

How have client needs and demands changed, and what has your response been in terms of your service offering?
More firms are realising that quality ESG reporting requires cooperation with portfolio companies. But portfolio companies do not always have the data readily available of processes in place to measure ESG performance.
KEY ESG’s software provides a connected fund manager and portfolio company solution, that allows for aggregation at the fund level or to drill down on individual company performance. The software educates portfolio company users on ESG metrics, conducts in-depth carbon footprint analysis, and automates calculations and processes that save time. Our experts provide onboarding support to first-time users.
What are the primary challenges your firm and your clients are facing and what is critical to these being overcome?
Fund managers currently face three main ESG challenges.
Firstly, regulations are evolving, making it time consuming to keep up-to-date. KEY ESG helps users to stay on top of legislative changes by automatically updating reporting requirements and flagging upcoming shifts.
Secondly, sound decision-making and reporting on ESG requires accurate data. Our software supports granular data collection, automated calculations that ensure accuracy and detailed reporting.
Thirdly, ESG reporting is often new and ESG expertise limited. Without automation, ESG reporting becomes a time-consuming manual process. Our software is built for the business-user and makes ESG reporting and management accessible and efficient.
Can you list three key teachings you are passing on to clients in the current environment?
ESG performance and disclosure will have an impact on private equity’s ability to attract investment and generate returns. This can be seen in the increasing number of questions raised through fundraising and regulations, like the EU’s SFRD, CSRD or the SEC’s climate reporting requirements.
ESG is a process, not a one-off effort. Required reporting processes must be integrated into ongoing business processes to ensure there is accountability and effective management towards improvement.
It’s better to start small and improve than delay work on ESG. Given current market trends, we can safely say that, if you haven’t yet started, now is the time!
Heleen van Poecke, CEO, KEY ESG – Heleen van Poecke is the CEO and co-founder of KEY ESG, a Software-as-a-Service company that enables companies and fund managers to manage their ESG data, reporting and performance. Prior to founding KEY ESG, Heleen worked at B2B SaaS unicorn Collibra and private equity investing and finance at AlpInvest Partners and Greenhill. She holds a BSc and MSc from Erasmus university and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She serves on the boards of several energy transition focused firms.
