Abris Capital named ESG Champion of the Year at the Private Equity Awards 2024
Award recognises Abris’ accreditation as a B Corp, progress towards portfolio-wide carbon neutrality and the launch of the firm’s flagship DEI Code program
19 April 2024 – Abris Capital Partners has been named “ESG Champion of the Year – Mid-Cap” at the 23rd Real Deals Private Equity Awards – one of the longest running and most prestigious private equity awards in Europe. It is the third year in succession that Abris has been shortlisted for the ESG category.
The award comes in recognition of what was a banner year for ESG at Abris, during which the firm continued on its path to carbon neutrality, reducing CO2 emissions by 38.8% per million euros of revenue across its portfolio.
During 2023, Abris was granted B Corp status – the most prestigious, globally recognized ESG accreditation for businesses that demonstrate the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. Abris is the first and only private equity fund in Central Europe to achieve this accreditation, which was granted after a rigorous 18-month approval process.
Abris was further rewarded when its then portfolio company, Velvet CARE – Central Europe’s fastest-growing consumer tissue producer – was also certified as a B Corp, becoming the first company in the Abris portfolio to become a B Corp. Velvet CARE is Europe’s only large tissue producer (more than 250 employees) to be registered as a B Corp, in what is an extremely challenging sector to receive accreditation.
Last October, Abris also launched its DEI Code – a series of commitments that aims to assist in building value for Abris and its portfolio companies through best practice in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The DEI Code sets out six key commitments, covering education, governance, ownership and process, and culminating with a commitment from Abris to take on the role of DEI leadership, promoting inclusion across the private equity ecosystem.
Pawel Gierynski, Managing Partner at Abris, commented:
“We are delighted that Abris has been recognized for its leadership in ESG best practice in European private equity. For us, ESG is a guiding principle, and has been central to our investment philosophy for a number of years. We aim to continue setting standards in this area, and in the coming months look forward to launching our latest flagship strategy, ESG Universe 2026.”
The honour from the Private Equity Awards is the latest recognition of Abris’ industry-leading ESG program. In recent years the firm has been decorated by ESG Investing, for Best ESG Investment – Private Equity in 2022, Private Equity News, which has named ESG Partner Robert Sroka as one of its 20 Most Influential in ESG for the past two years and the Drawdown, which has shortlisted Sroka for its ESG Professional of the Year title for the past three years, including an overall victory in 2022. Abris was also named in Real Deals Future 40 Climate Champions in 2023.