Sustainability at Polaris

At Polaris, we work with sustainability because doing the right thing is both a moral imperative and important for value creation. We view sustainability as an integrated part of long-term value creation. It is critical to take our responsibility seriously in order to be a successful investor in mid-sized companies.

We have a responsibility towards our many stakeholders, and we recognize that our responsibility goes beyond our own organization. It includes the broader impact we have on all stakeholder of Polaris: Our employees, customers, suppliers, and the societies where we and our portfolio companies are active.

Polaris and EU regulations on sustainability

The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is a European regulation introduced to improve transparency in the market for sustainable investment products, to prevent greenwashing and to increase transparency around sustainability claims made by Polaris and other financial market participants. Compliance with the EU regulations on sustainability is a high priority and fully integrated in our work with sustainability at Polaris.

You can read more about how Polaris’ work with sustainability is aligned with the EU requirements in the SFDR here:

The EU regulations through SFDR defines certain mandatory sustainability-related disclosures related to Polaris and Polaris funds which you can find here:

Our commitment and focus

To honor our responsibility, we have integrated sustainability throughout Polaris at three different levels and our performance is evaluated accordingly:

1

Polaris as a fund manager: How we integrate sustainability in our investment process

2

Polaris’ portfolio: How our portfolio companies work with sustainability and their progress

3

Polaris Management: How we work with sustainability in our own organization and our progress

We also work to promote sustainability throughout the investment industry, and we pledge to be transparent and report on our progress in our annual sustainability report.

Within our scope of sustainability, we include potential social, environmental, and economic impacts across Polaris including our portfolio companies and their supply chains. We dedicate extra attention to three focus areas across Polaris:

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Climate action

Work to combat climate change.
KPI: CO2e emissions.

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Gender Equality

Support gender equality and gender diversity.
KPI: Gender distribution.

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Working environment

Work to ensure a high standard working environment across Polaris.
KPI: Employee turnover.

Our investment criteria

The following sustainability criteria need to be met for an investment to be within Polaris’ investment mandate and for it to be considered an eligible investment for Polaris, from a sustainability perspective:

  • The company is not part of, or has an important exposure to, a “no-go” sector: gambling, weapons, tobacco, and pornography.
  • The company does not have an unacceptable exposure to countries, persons, or entities on the UN sanctions list.
  • The risks of adverse impacts relating to Polaris’ target companies, as defined in our Sustainability Principles, are determined to be acceptable and manageable.
  • The portfolio companies have processes, procedures, and policies in place to govern and manage sustainability and the company’s adverse impact, or we believe that we will be able to establish these, in collaboration with the management team, post-acquisition.
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The Polaris Sustainability Platform

Polaris Sustainability Approach

Our strategic approach, ambitions, and rationale behind our projects in Polaris are based on internationally recognized standards within sustainability:

Definition of Sustainability

Within the scope of sustainability, we include social, environmental, and economic impacts according to the internationally agreed principles for sustainable development consisting of the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs from 2011), and as referenced by the OECD Guidelines (OECD from 2011) and we refer to these as the basis for our “Sustainability Principles”.

Investment criteria

We have well defined minimum criteria that define which companies that we are willing to invest in and not.

Polaris Sustainability Due Diligence

A structured approach for how we evaluate potential investments with respect to sustainability.  The evaluation includes Polaris Sustainability Checklist which is an assessment tool to evaluate the maturity of a company’s sustainability structure and processes.

Polaris Sustainability Program

A standard program containing structure and processes related to sustainability which is used to support the development of a sustainability agenda in each Polaris portfolio company. The program is an integrated part of Polaris Excellence Model which is our way of working together with our portfolio companies.

Polaris Sustainability Group

We regularly gather all the lead sustainability officers in our portfolio companies in a joint working group to share knowledge, best practices and to discuss important sustainability topics.

Polaris Annual Sustainability Report

We encourage you to review Polaris latest Sustainability report for more detailed information about our work with sustainability. We annually publish an extensive sustainability report to provide transparency on our work and our progress.

In the latest report you will learn more about:

  • Our approach towards sustainability in Polaris
  • How we integrate sustainability in our investment process
  • How we work with sustainability in our portfolio companies
  • How each portfolio company is doing with respect to sustainability
  • What we are doing at Polaris Management A/S to address sustainability
  • The governance process around sustainability

Polaris policies regarding sustainability

Our commitment to sustainability is set out and detailed in Polaris Responsible Investment Policy (“RIP”). Our RIP describes our work with sustainability in our private equity funds IV and V and how we work with sustainability in our flexible capital fund PFC I. Our commitment to sustainability is further elaborated in certain other Polaris policies: our Anti-Corruption Policy, Gender Equality Policy, Privacy Policy and Remuneration Policy. All of these documents are publicly available on our web-page below.

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