ESG in VC

Welcome to the latest episode of the ESG in VC podcast where I’m joined by Hannah Leach and Johannes Lenhard.

Hannah is a Partner at Houghton Street Ventures, a new venture firm backing companies founded by students and alumni of the London School of Economics. She is also a co-founder of a global industry-wide non-profit initiative, VentureESG, whose aim is to help the VC sector recognise the importance of ESG and to provide resources and guidance to make ESG a standard part of diligence, portfolio management and fund management.

Johannes is an ethnographer of venture capital and homelessness and currently teaching and researching at the University of Cambridge. Having worked towards a better understanding of survival practices of homeless people in London and Paris for his PhD, he has spent the last four years researching the ethics of venture capital investors interviewing 200+ VC General Partners.

Together with Johannes and Hannah, we discuss if VCs have time to be good, what factors are contributing to VC’s persistent lack of diversity, especially at the senior ranks and what levers are out there that can help us to scrutinize VCs and much more.

Guest: Hannah Leach and Johannes Lenhard

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. Join me and Lubomila Jordanova in this latest episode.

Lubomila is the co-founder and CEO of Plan A, a Berlin-based company developing an end-to-end platform that manages and improves carbon and ESG performance for businesses. She is also the co-founder of the Greentech Alliance, a community of over a thousand startups which are connected to over 500 advisors.

Together with Lubomila, we discuss who are Plan A’s customers and who they engage the most from the client side, what challenges do they face internally within their respective organisations. We also explore what are the unintended consequences of ESG frameworks and how we can unify to conquer current challenges.

Guest: Lubomila Jordanova

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. Join me and Ben Knight in this latest episode.

Ben is Head of Environmental Sustainability at fintech company GoCardless, a global payment company with more than 70k customers. He previously worked at space-telecoms start-up OneWeb and was assessing the environmental impact of the space sector.

Together with Ben, we discuss how an organisation can have an external impact and influence Its customers to implement various ESG initiatives. Ben also shares if GoCardless had to make any substantial change within their organisation (for example using new tools or changing team structure) to deliver on their ESG and sustainability strategy.

Guest: Ben Knight

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. Join me and Henry Philipson in this latest episode.

Henry leads marketing and communications for Beringea in the UK and he is also a co-founder of ESG_VC, an industry initiative to help portfolio companies improve their ESG performance.

Together with Henry, we discuss how ESG_VC have started and now has 150 firms across UK and Europe trying to build tools and consistent frameworks to use in venture industry, which is based on National Social Value (TOMs) framework. We also dive a bit deeper into how many funds have adopted ESG principles fully and the process they went through and why it is imporant to start as soon as possible.

Guest: Henry Philipson

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. Join me and Merit Valdsalu in this latest episode.

Merit is the CEO & Co-Founder of Single.Earth, a startup tokenizing the world’s nature to save it. She was one of the early employees at Pipedrive as the Head of Localization.

In this conversation, we explore how with the help of technology we can turn the existing model of rewarding land owners by paying them for essentially depleting the earth into a model where they are incentivized to nurture bio-diversity. We also briefly touch on Singe.Earth recent funding journey and what they are doing internally to be ESG conscious.

Guest: Merit Valdsalu

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. Join me and Tracy Barba in this latest episode.

Tracy is currently the Head of ESG at 500 Startups, one of the most active global early-stage VCs. She has been a true ESG leader dedicating her career to be at the forefront of the social and environmental initiatives within private equity and venture capital firms, as well as family offices, and angel investor networks.

We discuss when is the right time to start thinking about ESG practices for early stage businesses and what are the main barriers to increase the industry wide adoption of ESG within the venture community.

Guest: Tracy Barba

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. Today we have Alexander Rhodes joining us.

Alexander is Head of Mishcon Purpose, Mishcon de Reya's dedicated sustainability business. He works with a variety of clients and helps them navigate the rapidly changing commercial, legal and regulatory environments that underpin the sector.

In this conversation, we talk about what ‘purpose’ really means and what role legal frameworks will play in the adoption of ESG in the business community. “Fundamentally the transition that we're looking at, towards ESG, if we articulate it like that is to do with a change in expectations, expectations of the public, expectations of capital providers, expectations of the model.”

Guest: Alexander Rhodes

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. It is great to have Simon Mundy with us.

Simon is currently a Moral Money editor at FT (Financial Times). He began his reporting career in Johannesburg, where he covered Southern Africa for the FT before a period writing on the London financial sector. He then spent seven years in Asia, heading the FT bureaux in Seoul and Mumbai and then two years travelling across six continents while writing a book called, Race for Tomorrow.

Simon spared a moment between following the flow of money to chat to me about Moral Money history and how he joined the team. We also spoke about his book, Race for Tomorrow, and how storytelling makes it ever more real about all the current challenges we face as a society. And this is “why when we think about ESG, we do have to think about these issues in the broadest possible sense. Cause it ultimately comes down to the lives of individual people all over the world.”

Guest: Simon Mundy

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

Please do not forget to rate and review and to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to ESG in VC podcast. Join me and Marc Lepere in this first episode of many more to come.

Mark is currently researching the link between crisis and ESG at King's college. He is also a fellow of the higher education academy and also serves as a visiting lecture at Wharton business.

Listen in as Oksana and Marc talk about what drove him to dedicate his current full time career to ESG and why as some studies show, most of the VC backed companies are slower to become more responsible over time. Marc also shares some of his thoughts on why ESG emerged as the most recognised framework so far despite a myriad of other attempts to draw attention to these issues and what are the risks associated with ESG and automation.

Guest: Marc Lepere

Follow us:

· Linkedin

· Twitter

· Instagram

And to get in touch with the host, Oksana Stowe, email me at [email protected] and you can also subscribe to the ESG in VC Insights Newsletter for insights and updates here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.