Navigating the sustainability 'hype cycle' with Carlyle's Megan Starr

Sustainability and ESG have faced – and continue to face – a political backlash. At one end of the spectrum, the view of ESG is that it has gone too far; that it has become a vehicle for pushing woke ideologies without regard for the financial implications. At the other end, it represents access to better information, prudent investment risk management and value creation opportunities. So how does a modern private markets mega firm position itself to cater to potentially diverging opinions among its stakeholders? To help us navigate what she describes as sustainability's "hype cycle", we speak to Megan Starr, global head at corporate affairs at the listed private markets firm Carlyle, in this inaugural episode of The New Private Markets Podcast. Starr was one of the professionals we named among our 50 influencers in private markets sustainabtility, in part because of the role she played in founding the EDCI (ESG Data Convergence Initiative). The EDCI has been a dramatic step forward in terms of standardised reporting of sustainability data; it is now approaching nearly 500 GP and LP members and is starting to produce time series ESG performance data from private equity porfolio companies. We discuss whether data like this could cut through the political rhetoric around ESG. See the 50 influencers in sustainable private markets here. To subscribe and hear more episodes already online, search for The New Private Markets Podcast wherever you like to listen, or click here.