Apiday

SFDR 2.0 quietly gives private equity a concession most people missed. The Commission text explicitly allows a "phase-in period" for implementing ESG strategies in private assets - acknowledging that post-acquisition, full compliance takes time. That sounds like breathing room. It isn't. DWS. Aviva. Three Art 9 funds flagged by the Danish FSA. The enforcement pattern of the last 12 months is consistent: phase-in periods need to be backed by real data and a documented plan - not a promise in a pre-contractual disclosure. About 90% of PE firms already run a formal 100-day plan post-acquisition (Grant Thornton, 2024). Operational priorities, commercial levers, quick wins. ESG rarely makes the list. Under SFDR 2.0, that's going to cost some of them. The firms that will use the phase-in period credibly are the ones who start mapping ESG data, ownership and KPIs from day one - not the ones who flag it as a Year 2 problem. The regulatory window is real. Whether your data infrastructure is ready to justify it is a different question.

The most fragile part of your SFDR set-up isn't Brussels. It's the one person who still understands the ESG spreadsheet. Every investor has that person. The one everyone pings in around this time because "the SFDR file is broken again." They know why fund II uses a different emissions factor than fund III. They can explain why last year's PAI number doesn't reconcile with this year's. Now add the SFDR reform context: the Commission is moving toward more granular labels - Art. 7, 8, and 9 - while ESAs keep raising the bar on how data and disclosures are documented. More structure, more scrutiny. "ESG as key-person risk" stops being a joke. We're seeing more LPs ask quietly pointed questions: - Who actually owns ESG data model decisions across funds? - Can you walk me through how this PAI was calculated? - What survives if your ESG lead leaves three weeks before the deadline? The next evolution of SFDR isn't just about which label you pick. It's about whether your ESG data infrastructure can survive a team change, a system migration, or a tough LP question - without a single person holding it together. This is the problem Apiday was built for.

How do we move from climate and sustainability data to capital allocation decisions? That was the question on the table last Wednesday in Munich - and the one that has been driving our ESG Breakfast series across cities. This time, we partnered with Altitude to bring together GPs, LPs, and ESG specialists - not to debate whether climate or sustainability data matters, but to understand what investors are actually trying to solve, city by city, conversation by conversation. Munich gave us a few things worth keeping: - Qualitative climate risk assessments are no longer enough. Investors need quantitative, financially material signals to make decisions that hold up. - The challenge is not collecting data. It is knowing what to do with it once you have it. - Integrating climate risk into investment strategy is not a compliance exercise. Done properly, it protects value and creates it. This is exactly the kind of clarity we are building Apiday around: the gap between ESG reporting and real decision-making is an infrastructure problem, not a motivation problem. Christian Schuetz (Golding Capital Partners), Frederike Kress (PAI Partners) and Niranjan Raghavan (AXA Climate) - thank you for the sharpness and honesty you brought to the conversation. And to Camille Bissolati and Alice Ellenbogen at Altitude - thank you for making this stop exactly what it needed to be. Next one: Italy. More details soon.

The next ESG problem is not more reporting. It’s whether the data holds up when someone actually uses it. For years, the job was simple: get the report out. Now the pressure shows up earlier. Investment committees, lenders, LPs, they don’t care that the report is done. They care whether the numbers make sense. That’s where things break. A lot of ESG data still relies on: • manual inputs • unclear ownership • changing methodologies no one tracks properly So one number gets reused, adjusted, reinterpreted, and suddenly data ends up in a file and not used for decisions. That’s risk. The teams that are getting ahead are not asking for more dashboards. They’re asking: • where did this actually come from? • who is responsible for it? • what changed since last quarter? • can we defend this number if someone challenges it? That’s the shift. Less time spent producing reports. More time making sure the data behind them doesn’t fall apart under pressure.

On 22 April, Apiday is co-hosting an ESG Breakfast in Munich with Altitude. The topic: how to integrate climate risk into ESG strategy - and actually act on it. Because the gap between collecting ESG data and making real decisions with it is still massive. That's exactly what this session is here to close. On the panel, three practitioners who are doing it for real: - Christian Schuetz, MD & Head of Sustainable Investing at Golding Capital Partners - Frederike Kress, ESG Officer at PAI Partners - Niranjan Raghavan, Sustainable Finance Lead at AXA Climate They will get into the hard questions: - How do you translate climate risk into value creation? - How do you move from data collection to actual investment decisions? - How do you measure ESG impact and prove ROI? Invitation-only. A few seats left. If you want in, fill the form - we'll come back to you. ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ehw8mCpU

50 sustainability professionals. One room. A lot of candid conversations about where ESG in private markets is really heading. We hosted Apiday's ESG Breakfast in London at The Dorchester – and the takeaways are worth a read. ESG is no longer a reporting exercise. It's embedded in diligence, 100-day plans and exit narratives. The firms ahead of the curve are treating it like any other value creation lever – and building the infrastructure to match. -> Our CEO & Co-founder Charles Moury shares below what stood out from the room.

Apiday will be attending Time To Change 2026 La transformation durable du secteur financier s’accélère et les attentes en matière d’ESG n’ont jamais été aussi fortes pour les investisseurs. C’est dans ce contexte que l’équipe Apiday participera à l’événement Time To Change 2026, qui réunira investisseurs, experts ESG et acteurs de la finance engagés dans la transition. Au programme : • échanges entre pairs sur les évolutions réglementaires et de marché • retours d’expérience d’investisseurs et de sociétés engagées • discussions autour de la création de valeur et de l’intégration ESG dans les stratégies d’investissement À très vite à Deauvillle ! #PrivateEquity #ESG #Sustainability #PrivateMarkets #Impact #FinanceDurable

What rigorous ESG portfolio scoring looks like ESG scoring in private markets often falls short in one specific way. Scoring exists, but it is frequently static, self-reported, and designed primarily for reporting cycles rather than investment management. That creates a structural limitation. If ESG data is collected only to satisfy disclosure requirements, it is less likely to surface operational signals such as rising energy cost exposure, governance drift post-acquisition, or sector-level shifts influencing exit positioning. At the fund level, structured ESG scoring typically includes: → A baseline captured at entry → Sector-specific materiality mapping → Monitoring intensity aligned with SFDR classification (Art. 8 or 9) → Continuous data collection that flags deviations from the investment thesis → Trajectory tracking toward exit, evidencing value creation over time Private markets are entering a phase where process discipline is increasingly visible to LPs. The discussion is moving beyond outputs toward how monitoring is embedded into asset management. Firms approaching ESG scoring as infrastructure rather than reporting are building optionality into future exits. #PrivateEquity #ESGDueDiligence #SFDR #PrivateMarkets #SustainableFinance

Article 8 and 9 funds have outperformed. Jose Zudaire said it in the room yesterday... and it landed. At our ESG Breakfast in Madrid, the conversation made one thing clear: → LPs are no longer asking "do you have ESG policies?" → They're asking "can you prove your impact?" → And GPs are contractually on the hook to answer Diego Morata from Alantra put it plainly: sustainability tracking is already having a financial impact. It's not coming. It's here. Thank you to Diego Morata, Rafael Matos Martinón and Álvaro Molina de Porres for an outstanding panel. More to come. #ESG #PrivateEquity #ImpactInvesting #Apiday

The LP/GP capital allocation paradox Two signals currently define European private markets… and they point in different directions. Many LPs indicate they intend to maintain or increase private equity allocations. At the same time, European PE fundraising has fallen to multi-year lows. This is less a contradiction than a concentration effect. Capital has not exited private markets. It has become more selective. The criteria for selection now extend beyond track record and IRR. Distributions as a percentage of NAV have remained subdued relative to historical averages. LPs are managing significant unrealized exposure. In that context, how a GP measures, monitors and communicates portfolio performance (including ESG performance) influences confidence in future allocations. As leverage becomes a less dominant driver of returns, operational value creation becomes more visible. This includes measurable improvements in energy efficiency, workforce productivity, and supply chain resilience. Research from institutional investors and academic partners has examined correlations between ESG integration and enterprise value creation in private markets. The consistent finding is not that ESG guarantees outperformance, but that structured integration supports operational discipline. This is not a soft sustainability argument. It is an argument for data-driven management. The GPs investing in that discipline now are positioning themselves for a more selective fundraising environment. #PrivateEquity #ESG #ValueCreation #PrivateMarkets #SFDR