Partech marks 3 years’ partnership with ClimateCare to offset carbon emissions with projects that improve lives and fight climate change, and announces a partnership with EcoVadis to rate ESG performance of its portfolio companies

Paris-Berlin-Dakar-San Francisco, January 14th, 2019

Raising awareness for sustainability since 2017 

For three years Partech has partnered with climate and development experts ClimateCare to offset its carbon emissions, as part of our approach to taking responsibility for our impact on the environment. 

With investments in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, and a portfolio spanning 30 countries, Partech meets with thousands of entrepreneurs every year. We strive to use video conferences as much as we can, but travel between our offices and those of startups seeking funding is unavoidable. Besides, our team has also been growing in the past years, with 60 professionals around the world today. We cannot avoid producing CO2 and this is why we decided to carbon compensate our emissions.

 “We are delighted to work with ClimateCare, who are experts in this field, with over 20 years’ experience running some of the most innovative and largest carbon offset programs in the world.” said Omri Benayoun, General Partner at Partech.  “Having worked with them since 2017 has helped us understand how we can integrate action to tackle climate change and improve people’s lives.” 

ClimateCare’s Head of Partnerships, Robert Stevens, explains: “We are delighted to be working with Partech to deliver innovative projects at an unprecedented scale. Our Climate+Care model helps organizations take a smart approach to addressing their environmental impact by offsetting their carbon emissions and supporting sustainable development”.

As well as taking action to reduce our footprint, unavoidable emissions have been offset through several high-impact projects, including:

LifeStraw water filters - Providing safe water in Kenya: 

The award-winning LifeStraw Carbon for Water project provides simple, gravity fed water filters for families in Kenya. Not only does the initiative provide safe drinking water to 4 million people, but it also cuts carbon emissions by removing the need to boil water to make it safe to drink. 

Gyapa Stoves - Improving lives in Ghana: 

This project is creating a market for locally produced efficient cookstoves which cut emissions, reduce exposure to toxic fumes and decrease fuel bills. The project provides skilled employment for 350 manufacturers and extra income for over 500 retailers. As well as cutting more that 2 million metric tons of CO2, this project has saved 4.1 million people a combined total of more than $75 million on their fuel bills so far. 
 
Partech works with climate and development experts ClimateCare to support these and other projects in the Climate+Care Portfolio.
 
Financing tomorrow’s sustainable digital economy 

Partech’s mission is to provide capital and operational resources to entrepreneurs building the leading players of tomorrow, bolstered by secular trends and driven by the new generations of stakeholders, whose preferences are transforming industries. The strong conviction of Partech is that, thanks to their missions and business models, these companies will outperform their industries’ benchmark, sometimes even create new industries, while also having a strong positive impact on society and the environment. 

Many such examples can be found in our portfolio, either in the second-hand circular economy, sustainable tourism, recycling & rental, reduction of datacenter storage, etc., but most certainly the company at the forefront of CSR is EcoVadis, the world leader in business sustainability ratings for global supply chains, which has just attracted the largest round of growth funding for a software business in France and for an ESG-related business. Since 2016, when Partech invested in EcoVadis as its first financial investor, we have been impressed by the way the company has redefined the ESG standards for best-in-class global businesses. 

Consequently, after having successfully put in place carbon emission offsetting at the firm's level with ClimateCare, we have decided to partner with EcoVadis in order to roll out its ratings and methodology across our portfolio, as part of our effort to help entrepreneurs assess and improve their ESG leadership.

“ESG is becoming a key criteria in our investment process in tech companies, and in LPs assessment of GPs. Partech will strive to improve our processes and outcomes on this important matter”, says Omri Benayoun, General Partner at Partech.
 
About Partech:

Partech is a global investment firm with offices in Paris, Berlin, Dakar and San Francisco. We bring together capital, operational experience and strategic support for entrepreneurs at seed, venture and growth stages across multiple continents, with over $1.2B investment capacity. Investments range from $200K to $50M in a wide range of technologies and businesses for enterprises and consumers, from software, digital brands and services, to hardware and deep tech across all major industries. Companies backed by Partech have completed more than 20 initial public offerings and more than 50 strategic exits above $100M.
See our current portfolio. 
 
About ClimateCare:

ClimateCare mobilizes the power and scale of private finance to deliver projects with positive environmental and social impacts around the world. A Certified B Corporation, we combine the vision of a social enterprise and the commercial experience of an investment bank. Leveraging mainstream funding, we profitably deliver some of the largest, most successful corporate sustainability initiatives in the world. 
From offices in Africa and Europe we help many of the world’s leading brands, organizations and governments scale up the impact of their initiatives. By investing their resources in projects that directly combat climate change and poverty, improve health and increase community welfare, we build better futures for millions of people around the world.
 
For media enquiries:
Isabelle Tresson           +33 7 86 08 85 85            itresson@partechpartners.com