The report goes beyond the Company’s immediate sustainability obligations by providing in-depth details on the Company’s sustainability journey, its proprietary approach to biodiversity, and its industry leading ESG initiatives, that deliver a real environmental and social impact. The report covers the Company’s ESG performance over the financial year 2021/22 whilst articulating how the Company builds its sustainability strategy around the three pillars of NextEnergy Solar Fund’s Sustainability Framework, which are material to the Company’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) approach. These three pillars are:
- Climate change
- Biodiversity
- Human rights
The report shares many detailed case studies of NESF’s industry leading approach, including seizing the opportunity to lead on biodiversity by supporting the Global Goal for Nature’s targets of “nature-positive by 2030”, and “nature-recovery by 2050.” Also, playing a key role in improving human rights through the solar supply chain with the launch of the Solar Stewardship Initiative, with Giulia Guidi, Head of ESG at NextEnergy Capital, contributing her extensive ESG knowledge in this industry wide project to develop confidence in how, where, and by whom, solar products are manufactured.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) act as reference points for NESF’s progress against the Company’s high-level ESG goals and also inform the Company’s high-level decisions. NESF’s sustainability report summarises the Company’s alignment with those SDGs that are most relevant to it and thereby acknowledges the direct and indirect impacts the Company has within the environment and communities it operates in, alongside measuring those impacts where possible.
This report enhances NESF’s transparency by explaining how the Company approaches ESG and how its sustainable performance indicators are reported, capturing each aspect of “E”, “S” and “G”, including climate change, water, circular economy, community impact, supply chain, and biodiversity. For climate-related metrics, NESF uses the Green Investment Group’s Green Analytics team to independently calculate the CO2e emissions avoided of the portfolio. This ensures a high standard of delivery, transparency and continuity in relation to its positive contribution to climate change mitigation. As a result, NESF is able to quantify the substantive positive impact generated by its operating activities.
NESF is committed to continuously improve the accuracy, scope and transparency of its ESG and sustainability reporting.
The full NextEnergy Solar Fund Sustainability Report can be found on the Company’s website here: https://cdn.nesf1.nextenergysolarfund.com/nesf/2022/11/NextEnergy-Solar-Fund-Sustainability-Report.pdf
