On 6 February 2019, IFU’s Board of directors approved IFU’s new Sustainability Policy. The new policy has gone through an extensive preparation process, which included public consultations. Furthermore, IFU’s Sustainability Advisory Board has reviewed the document and provided important input to the policy.
The new Sustainability Policy consists of a main text giving direction on how to deal with Environmental, Social and Governance issues. For easy reference, the requirements related to specific types of investments have been included.
The main new features of the document are a clearer commitment to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as more elaborate references to key international standards and frameworks relevant for private equity investments. The new Sustainability Policy will be an overarching policy for Environmental, Social and Governance issues in IFU’s investments, and it will comprise of other policies as illustrated below:
It is expected that supplementary policies for human rights, climate and gender will be developed first half of 2019. Since the policy contains several new features, implementation will commence immediately, and the roll-out will happen gradually over a period of time. This includes for instance new disclosure and international reporting obligations for IFU from 2020 and onwards. IFU’s Sustainability Handbook found under Publications will also be updated with the new requirements, and an adjusted version published as soon as possible.
You can download IFU’s new Sustainability Policy here.