Program overview
As HarbourVest marks its 40th anniversary, we take pride in our longstanding focus on ensuring that the interests of all key stakeholders – our investors, investment partners, and our global team – are aligned. Over time, this consistent approach has allowed us to build and maintain a strong culture of ethical behavior, transparency, and social responsibility across both our investments and operations.
Integrated strategy
From investing responsibly to being conscientious corporate citizens, ESG is a firm priority
Investment practices | Monitoring and reporting | Corporate culture
Integrate ESG factors into investment practices
As a signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), HarbourVest is committed to incorporating ESG analysis and high ethical business standards into all of our investment activities.
Foster GP adoption and support
We encourage GPs to adopt or strengthen commitments to responsible investment through dialogue and monitoring of their ESG integration practices.
Reflect values in policies and products
We have developed policies and procedures to support the enactment of our ESG values and have experience helping clients achieve their ESG objectives through customized investment solutions.
Govern efforts through senior leadership
Our commitment to ESG starts at the top, and our senior leadership takes responsibility for developing and executing on our strategic vision.
Provide transparency to stakeholders
We work to align our interests with investors, investment partners, and employees by providing stakeholders, including clients, with transparency into our decision-making.
HarbourVest’s mission is to enable and extend the benefits of private markets.
Our ESG Policy aims to create meaningful change while securing the financial futures of our clients and their stakeholders. We aspire to bring value to our partners by advocating for broader and deeper adoption of ESG principles, and to repay our clients’ trust in us by delivering on their sustainability-related objectives.
Our ESG commitments
HarbourVest is a member of BSR, a global non-profit business network and consultancy dedicated to sustainability. BSR provides us with strategic training and advice on ESG themes.
HarbourVest has been a proud signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) since 2013. We strongly believe that ESG factors can affect the performance of investment portfolios, to varying degrees, across companies, sectors, and time periods.
We also recognize that applying these Principles may better align investors with the broader objectives of society. HarbourVest strives to adhere to both the letter and spirit of the PRI: we consider the potential impacts that our investment and operational decisions could have, encourage the GPs we invest with to adopt the PRI, and have experience helping clients achieve their ESG objectives through customized investment solutions.
HarbourVest’s co-CEO, Peter Wilson, has joined the Private Equity CEO Task Force of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (PESMIT). The Sustainable Markets Initiative was launched at The World Economic Forum in 2020; its mission is to build a coordinated global effort to enable the private sector to accelerate the transition to a sustainable future. PESMIT was launched in 2021 and marks the first time the private equity industry has united at the C-suite level to drive action on sustainability. As part of our commitment to the SMI, we have confirmed our support for the Terra Carta, which provides guiding principles to put 'Nature, People and Planet' at the heart of global value creation.
PESMIT is focusing on three areas: climate action through carbon pricing, biodiversity risk, and ESG metrics.
