Climate action

We believe that a commercial strategy anchored in the climate agenda will contribute to reduce systemic risk, enhance human capital, and secure our societal licence to operate.

Our environmental programme, that goes beyond our approach to climate action, is strategic to the long-term interests of the communities where our businesses operate. We apply a considered approach to manage our environmental impact and performance with the objective of improving material efficiency, driving a systematic transition to a more circular economy and low-carbon growth.

We believe that a commercial strategy anchored in the climate agenda will contribute to reduce systemic risk, enhance human capital, and secure our societal licence to operate.

Our environmental programme, that goes beyond our approach to climate action, is strategic to the long-term interests of the communities where our businesses operate. We apply a considered approach to manage our environmental impact and performance with the objective of improving material efficiency, driving a systematic transition to a more circular economy and low-carbon growth.

Our commitment to a just and fair transition underpins our approach to creating sustainable value.

A just and fair transition is a critical pillar of our global climate strategy as a majority of our businesses are operating in communities most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

Unavoidably, the burden of a carbon footprint falls heavily on regions where available resources to tackle this problem are scarce. Moreover, deploying available technologies to curb emissions is often more difficult, disruptive and expensive in those economies that are least responsible for global warming.

The decarbonisation pathways of our portfolio companies have to be shaped in the operational context of high-growth markets like India, South Africa and Brazil, where we have strategically allocated our capital to support local entrepreneurs in building digital tech companies. The objective of climate action is clear – net zero – but we must ensure such a societal transition happens in a just and fair way to have a chance of being successful.

Find out more about our position on just and fair transition in the below short-form white paper. For a detailed account of the discussion, please see the long-form white paper.

We intend to significantly reduce GHG emissions from our corporate activities and we are committed to use our position as investor and operator to engage our portfolio companies to implement their own multi-year reduction pathways.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has verified our group GHG emissions reduction targets. They are aligned with the Paris Agreement to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Our validated commitments include (see also image below):

• Operational emissions: We will reduce our corporate emissions in line with a 1.5 degree climate scenario by achieving a 100% reduction in absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by FY2028 from a FY2020 base year. Upon realising this reduction, we commit to maintaining the emissions at zero for the future.
• Supply chain emissions: We will reduce our absolute corporate scope 3 GHG emissions from air business travel by 30% by FY2030 from a FY2020 base year.
• Portfolio emissions: We commit to 50% of our portfolio companies, measured by invested capital, will have set their own science-based reduction targets by FY2030.

We have applied the SBTi guidance for financial institutions and investors to set our portfolio coverage target and will leverage our influence as shareholder and board member to engage and support our portfolio companies to define their climate journey. Details of our portfolio can be found in the supporting document.

We have a longstanding tradition to work closely with our subsidiaries to support their GHG data collection, footprint measurement, emissions management and reduction target development, and with this Portfolio Coverage target, we commit to ensure this happens in alignment with the Paris Agreement and ambition to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

We believe in the transparency of the challenges we face and the successes we achieve, so we will report annually on our progress against these targets.

Science-based portfolio coverage target

We are deeply involved with the measurement, management and reduction of emissions by our portfolio companies, especially our majority-owned investments.

Our strategy for decarbonising has three pillars:

1. We map the environmental impact of each portfolio company and its extended value chain. We onboard all majority-owned portfolio companies on a GHG data management tool and train and support them on GHG accounting and reporting.
2. We support investee companies to identify reduction opportunities, ultimately implementing a GHG reduction pathway spanning multi-year targets.
3. In collaboration with our venture business and investees, we are working to identify scalable technology and partnerships supporting individual decarbonisation pathways.

By centrally managing this data and providing in-depth support on the correct mapping of the GHG footprints, we ensure high-quality data, we can apply group-wide learnings, we increase the understanding of the risks and opportunities related to decarbonisation, and we accelerate the progress of our portfolio companies towards independent management of their carbon footprint.

Powering progress report