Shaping the future

Responsibility at DPE

ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance and refers to the three key categories by which companies and investments are assessed for sustainability and social responsibility.

Carbon footprint

Environment

We calculate our company’s carbon footprint every year based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in collaboration with an external partner. For Scope 3 emissions, we take the following activities into account: business travel, commuting, working from home, catering, emissions from external data centers, and consumption of office supplies. We are working to reduce our own environmental footprint and currently offset unavoidable emissions by purchasing voluntary emission certificates that support renewable energy projects.

The CO2 emissions of the portfolio companies are not part of our Scope 3 footprint and are measured separately. The total financed emissions of our investments amount to approximately 151 kt CO2e (Scope 1-3) – here we support our portfolio companies in implementing reduction measures.

Equality

Social

As part of our equality and integration policy, we have set ourselves the goal of continuously increasing the proportion of female managers.

Salaries are based on objective criteria such as experience and position.

We have joined Level20 to actively promote diversity and inclusion – in particular by supporting a higher proportion of women in management positions. Level20’s pan-European network and commitment to sharing best practices are in line with our values of partnership, responsibility, and sustainable growth. In this way, we want to stimulate innovation, talent development, and a more inclusive corporate culture, while at the same time further developing ourselves professionally and organizationally. Several mentors from our senior team are already actively involved, and a growing number of colleagues have signed up to participate.

Transparency

Governance

Our principles and guidelines for governance and risk management are designed to create greater transparency and contribute to the ongoing development of our business processes. This minimizes risks and strengthens the personal responsibility of our employees. The following functions at Deutsche Private Equity ensure compliance:

• Chief Risk Officer
  
• Compliance Officer
  
• Risk Controller
  
• Information Security Officer*
  
• ICT Risk Controller*
  
• Data Protection Officer*
  
• Money Laundering Officer
  
• ESG Officer
  
• Emergency Officer
  
• Outsourcing Officer
  
• Internal Auditor*

*Outsourced functions

Responsibility in the portfolio

Responsible investing has been an important concern for us since Deutsche Private Equity was founded. We strive to identify all sustainability and ESG risks as early as possible and minimize them in a timely manner.

We support our portfolio companies in seizing the opportunities offered by the transition to a more resource-efficient and sustainable economy and in managing the associated risks. At the same time, we help them to meet regulatory requirements in the area of sustainability – with targeted expertise, best practices, and access to our network of experts.

To this end, we assess the non-financial performance of our portfolio companies based on annual sustainability data, an internal maturity scoring system, and environmental factors (including greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption), social factors (including staff turnover and absenteeism), and governance factors (availability of guidelines for good corporate governance). This data-driven approach enables our companies to measure their progress and develop in a targeted manner, which is reflected in their annual maturity score.

Social commitment

At Deutsche Private Equity, we see social commitment not just as a trend, but as a fundamental value that is anchored in our corporate culture. We take our social responsibility seriously and are involved in a variety of ways.