Private-Equity Firms, Foundations Team Up for New ESG Platform

Several philanthropic groups, including Ford Foundation, have teamed up with private-equity firms and others to build a platform to track the environmental, social and governance performance of privately held companies.

• The platform, called Novata, will offer a vetted ESG reporting framework built around 10 key metrics that consistently appear in leading ESG methodologies
• “The majority of the world’s economic activity is driven by private companies,” said Novata Chief Executive Officer Alex Friedman. “It is their approach to environmental and social impact which will ultimately accelerate the ideals of inclusive capitalism”
• Novata, backed by a consortium that includes private-equity firm ...