Sustainability
Doing Good Is Good Business
For three decades, EQT has focused on being more than capital. For us, this means that we invest with the aim to maximize returns for our clients while also contributing to long-term sustainable growth.
Sustainability is an integral part of EQT’s active ownership strategy and a central part of how we create financial value. We are convinced that a more sustainable company is a better company.
Sustainability is holistically integrated into EQT’s strategy, from identifying investment opportunities to setting companies up for success long after our ownership period. EQT believes sustainability is a value-creation opportunity. By investing in companies that can play a meaningful part in tomorrow’s economy and in innovation that, for example, can help decarbonize society, EQT can make a lasting positive impact.
EQT’s investments into sustainability span from catalytic capital with the EQT Foundation investing in early-stage ideas and research, through to venture, growth, buy-out, and to our flagship impact strategy EQT Future investing in the impact potential of mature businesses. In practice, this means that EQT invests in driving operational sustainability in businesses across maturity stages and in accelerating sustainable products and solutions.
EQT’s influence reaches vastly beyond its own organization – from the millions of pensioners who trust EQT with their savings to the thousands of employees across the global investments, and the countless individuals around the world who use products and services enabled by EQT investments. Our reach and legacy put us in a distinctive position to drive change.
- Sustainability diligence
EQT takes material sustainability factors and value creation potential into consideration when assessing investment opportunities.
- EQT’s Sustainability Expertise
EQT has a sustainability team of 30+ working dedicatedly to integrate sustainability in EQT’s operations and its investment processes. All EQT employees are offered training in sustainability, to ensure that they are equipped to carry out sustainability in their day-to-day jobs, with the support of dedicated resources.
EQT believes that doing good is good business – it’s not an either-or proposition.
In order to help its investments prosper and drive long-lasting impact, EQT integrates sustainability into our active ownership approach through:
- Accountable Leadership
- Equitable Business Practices
- Regenerative Processes
EQT portfolio company, Vinted.
Accountable Leadership
EQT integrates sustainability into its plan for each investment and develops business-specific transformative KPIs¹. Further, EQT also draws on sustainability value creation levers such as appointing a sustainability board champion to the companies, ensuring accountability at the highest level of the company, and recommending investments to become a signatory of UN Global Compact Principles.
Accountability is supported by monitoring progress towards the established KPIs, and for certain EQT funds and investments, by encouraging sustainability performance through sustainability-linked financing options.
To lead by example, EQT has integrated sustainability into governance and decision-making by establishing a board-level Sustainability Committee, ensuring accountability at the highest level of the company. Further, EQT has dedicated sustainability heads in each business line, responsible for integrating sustainability into our processes.
Equitable Business Practices
EQT is committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace culture across its operations. This includes efforts to promote diverse representation and perspectives. Initiatives include, for example, gender-neutral parental leave, inclusive for families globally, aiming to create an environment where our employees can pursue long-term careers with continued development.
In the EQT funds’ portfolio companies EQT encourages employee engagement and aims for gender balance and diverse representation across the board and management to promote equal rights and opportunities.
Regenerative Processes
One of EQT’s flagship initiatives is its commitment to the Science-Based Targets initiative, a global gold standard for carbon emission reductions aligned with the Paris Agreement. EQT had its near-term emission reduction targets validated in 2021, which also encompasses having the EQT funds’ portfolio companies set near-term science-based targets² by 2030. In practice, this means that EQT helps the investments develop decarbonization plans and supports them in achieving their goals during our ownership period.
Leading by Example
To truly accelerate EQT’s impact, we must drive change not only within our own company and portfolio but also across our industry and beyond. EQT is committed to contributing to innovating and accelerating action through strategic partnerships.
EQT’s strong, local foothold across Europe, North America, and Asia gives us a genuine understanding of the markets and helps us build long-term relationships with clients and companies. EQT’s vast network of advisors gives us access to industry veterans with deep sector expertise, who support EQT in empowering decision-making at the highest level of the companies we invest in and in driving performance and transformation. These differentiators make EQT confident in our ability to not only set a high bar for our own sustainability efforts but also to lead by example.
As a testament to EQT’s commitment to driving sustainability performance, EQT has been selected for inclusion in the Dow Jones Best-in-Class Indices (previously Dow Jones Sustainability Indices) for three consecutive years based on its results in the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment, covering the sustainability performance of thousands of publicly listed companies across 61 industries.
- Driving Sustainable Transformation
EQT’s active ownership approach enables us to drive sustainability performance and growth. We can pioneer sustainability initiatives and share the success and learnings across the hundreds of companies in our portfolio, making an impact at scale. Results³ from these initiatives include, for example:
- Having business-specific transformative KPIs: 88% of portfolio companies
- Appointing a sustainability champion on the portfolio company Board: 92% of portfolio companies
- Increasing share of renewable electricity consumption: 61%, average share of renewable electricity consumption across portfolio companies4).
- EQT Foundation & the GIIN Impact Lab
EQT Foundation is a founding partner of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) Impact Lab. Through the Impact Lab, the EQT Foundation is contributing to developing critical infrastructure for the impact industry, such as common standards and norms for impact investing. Further, the Impact Lab is looking to drive a deeper understanding of impact performance and the relationship between impact, risk, and financial return.
- Sustainability Benchmarks and Ratings
S&P Global CSA Score 2024
70/100 (Oct 18, 2024). Member of Dow Jones Best-in-Class Indices
MSCI ESG Rating
AAA, on a scale of AAA-CCC (2024). Member of MSCI ESG Leaders Index
Sustainalytics ESG Risk Rating
Low risk, 16.7 (2025)
ISS ESG
C+ (Oct 1, 2024). Transparency level: Very high. Decile rank: 1. ‘Prime’ status
Last updated February 2025
- Documents and Policies
- Document name
- EQT Responsible Investment and Ownership Policy
- EQT Net Zero Guidelines
- EQT Real Estate ESG Investment Policy
- EQT Real Estate Vendor Code of Conduct
- Sustainability Reports
- Document name
- EQT SLB Second Party Opinion from ISS ESG 2021
- EQT Sustainability Linked Financing Framework 2022
- EQT SLB Second Party Opinion from ISS ESG 2021
- EQT Sustainability Linked Financing Framework 2021
- RI Transparency Report 2021
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2023
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2021
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2020
- EQT Climate Transparency Report 2020
- EQT Climate Tranparency Report 2019
- EQT Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report 2018
- EQT Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report 2017
- EQT Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report 2016
- EQT Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report 2015
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2019
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2018
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2017
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2016
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2014/15
- EQT RI Transparency Report 2013/14
- Disclosures
- Document name
- Operating Principles for Impact Management - Signatory Disclosure Statement
- Verifier Summary
- Footnotes
1) EQT funds’ portfolio companies within EQT VII-X, EQT Mid Market Europe, EQT Future, EQT Infrastructure II-VI, BPEA Fund VI-VIII, BPEA Mid Market Growth, EQT Mid Market Asia III.
2) Calculated as % invested capital according to SBTi’s guidelines for private equity firms.
3) The metrics cover EQT funds’ portfolio companies within EQT VII-X, EQT Mid Market Europe, EQT Future, EQT Infrastructure II-VI, BPEA Fund VI-VIII, BPEA Mid Market Growth, EQT Mid Market Asia III. Data as per 31 December 2024 if not stated otherwise.
4) Data as per 31 December 2023.