Silverfleet becomes a carbon-neutral company

As a further step in strengthening ESG initiatives across our own operations, Silverfleet is proud to announce that we are now carbon neutral across all offices. Commencing with our 2019 carbon footprint, and working with Carbon Footprint - founding members of the Quality Assurance Standard (QAS) for carbon offsetting - this certification forms part of Silverfleet’s long-term commitment to sustainable investing and reducing the impact of our own business operations on the planet.

Silverfleet is committed to a programme of measuring, reducing and then offsetting our firmwide carbon emissions. To offset the Firm’s carbon emissions, Silverfleet has partnered with Carbon Footprint to select high-quality projects that reduce carbon emissions while bringing additional benefits for the local communities where they are based. We are excited to have chosen two ‘Reforestation and Reducing Deforestation’ (REDD) programmes to support in Kenya and the Brazilian Amazon. For each tCO2 being offset, one native tree is planted in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya, and an additional tCO2 is offset through the Brazilian Amazon Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) REDD project to guarantee emission reductions.

Over the last ten years, the project in Kenya has planted over 170,000 trees and rehabilitated over 160 hectares of the forest, including restoring the area’s water catchment ecosystem function. Over twenty community members directly working in the forest make their livelihoods from the project through the ownership of dairy cows and proceeds from the sale of milk to villagers. The project is strongly focused on empowering women, who make up over 50% of the project team.

ESG and corporate social responsibility is embedded within the Firm’s DNA, and we are continuing to look at a broad range of initiatives; from working to reduce the Firm’s future carbon footprint through, for example, more intensive use of remote meetings, to supporting an initiative to install beehives on the roof of our London office, boosting both the bee population and raising money for local charities through honey sales.

While we are acutely aware of our own impact as a firm on the global environment, we cannot ignore the cumulative scale of operations across our portfolio companies. Consequently, we view the Firm’s net-zero carbon achievement as setting a clear benchmark for our own investee companies in measuring and reducing emissions, with the ultimate goal of working towards carbon-neutrality across both our portfolio and at the Firm level.