Publications
& Policy

Invest Europe has provided input to the IPEV Board ahead of the upcoming review of IPEV Valuation Guidelines. In particular, we provide suggestions for how to incorporate ESG in the Guidelines.

In this latest letter to ESMA, Invest Europe expresses the industry’s outstanding concerns and uncertainties about the application of the SFDR/Taxonomy Regulation, and proposes some tailored, PE/VC specific questions and answers in light of the SFDR Q&A the European Supervisory Authorities are developing.

Listen to the launch webinar of the third part of the Invest Europe Climate Change Guide.

In this new letter to the European Commission, Invest Europe expresses its concerns about the Final Report on SFDR from the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs). In particular, we refer to the significant new legal risk that certain of the ESAs’ changes create for closed-end funds and ask the Commission to address this before putting forward its legislative proposal to the co-legislators.

Invest Europe, as pan-European representative of the private equity and venture capital industry, commits to actively contribute to the EU becoming climate-neutral by 2050, as set out in the European Green Deal.

Invest Europe recognises the announcement of the LP-GP ESG Data Convergence Project which seeks to advance an initial set of ESG metrics and mechanisms for comparative reporting of the private equity industry.

Aimed at firms that are already quite advanced in their ESG journeys, Invest Europe's second Climate Change Guide "Engaging Portfolio Companies" intends to provide practical support and advice to members on how to engage and communicate with their portfolio companies on climate change matters. 

In this letter to the European Commission, Invest Europe expresses the industry's ongoing key concerns about SFDR and its interaction with the Taxonomy Regulation. In particular, we encourage the Commission to address and resolve some of the remaining uncertainties through the revisions which we understand may be contemplated to the draft SFDR Regulatory Technical Standards, due to come into effect on 1 July 2022.

This long awaited official Guidance from the European Commission clarifies the application of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

From our industry’s perspective, the letter clarifies that SFDR does apply to all AIFMs carrying out activities in the EU (including those gaining access through NPPRs), and clarifies the definitions of Article 8 and 9 products.

In our response, we welcome the Commission’s proposal for a CSRD and support the view that in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth it is key to have relevant, comparable and reliable sustainability information. That said, we ask the Commission to pay particular attention to certain aspects of the CSRD of key importance to the industry, such as the need for alignment, coherence and consistency on content and timeline with other pieces of legislation, such as the SFDR and the Taxonomy, and the importance of applying the materiality and proportionality principles when considering the extension of the scope to SMEs.

In this consultation response, which is part of our ongoing efforts on seeking clarification on the application of SFDR, we have stressed the importance of ensuring coherence and alignment between different levels of reporting under EU law and asked the European regulators to introduce an element of proportionality into the reporting of Taxonomy alignment by asset managers.

Maaike van der Schoot (AlpInvest Partners), Erwann Le Ligné (Eurazeo), Patrick Sheehan and Rob Genieser (ETF Partners), and Cilia Holmes Indahl (EQT) joined our launch webinar on 15 March to shed more light on the new Invest Europe Climate Change Guide.

In this letter, Invest Europe expresses its concerns about the draft RTS under SFDR that were published by the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) on 4 February. In particular, we shed light on issues of potential overreach by the ESAs and/or divergence from the Level 1 legislation.

In this consultation response, we have shared our views on the European Commission's Initiative on Sustainable Corporate Governance. Particular areas of focus were directors’ duty of care and due diligence duty. We stressed that while there are a number of good principles behind the idea put forward by the European Commission – such as holding directors accountable for creating real long-term value – it would create significant uncertainties and risks, if directors could be held to account by all different kinds of stakeholders, with no clear prioritisation on how they should weight all the different stakeholders’ interests.