For years, ESG was viewed more as an exercise in disclosure than a means to value creation. But sustainability is increasingly going beyond ticking boxes. It is becoming an increasingly important method for unlocking value in private equity portfolios.

Ahead of the Responsible Investment Forum: New York on 18-19 March, The New Private Markets Podcast discussed sustainability and value creation in private markets, among other topics, with Evan Greenfield, head of ESG for private equity at Canadian pension plan British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI).

With $25 billion in its private equity portfolio, BCI allocates around half to fund managers and devotes the other half to direct investments, giving it a well-rounded perspective on how the market is evolving.

Greenfield has heard the conversations about ESG change significantly over the years, and says that increasingly these days, investors see ESG as a tool to boost EBITDA growth, improve margins and ultimately increase exit valuations. "Sustainability is one of the last frontiers of value creation in a private equity landscape," Greenfield says.

From re-examining the role of ESG to proving its impact in dollars and cents, this episode explores how sustainability is becoming an advantage for private equity investors.

Impact investing reached an inflection point in 2025 as uncertainty gripped private markets, abetted by political turbulence, fundraising difficulties and liquidity constraints.

But such uncertainty may have been necessary for impact fund managers to focus on a sharper articulation of market fundamentals, according to Rekha Unnithan, global head of private equity impact investing at Nuveen, the asset management subsidiary of retirement services firm TIAA.

An appropriate response, Unnithan argues, is not retreat, but nuance. For climate-focused investors wary of shifting policies in Washington, DC, the emphasis is on backing profitable companies that do not depend on government subsidies. For sceptics, however, it's simple economics – companies that reduce costs, improve climate resilience and deliver real value, regardless of ideology.

While 2025 left behind a number of challenges for the impact investing market, there appear to be signs that things may improve in 2026 with transition activity picking up and capital seemingly starting to flow again.

But which themes will characterise the market in 2026? In this episode, Unnithan sits down with host Michael Bowen to discuss where the sustainable investing market may go from here.

How does a distribution drought affect LPs and how should they react?

In this episode, we speak to Tom Mitchell, partner in the foundation and endowments practice and head of sustainable and impact solutions at Cambridge Associates.

Cambridge Associates has been advising institutions on their investments since 1973. Mitchell has been with the firm since 2007 and helped launch its sustainable and impact investing platform.

This conversation was recorded at PEI Group's flagship private equity meeting, NEXUS, which took place in Orlando in late February. Mitchell was among the speaker lineup for NEXUS's New Private Markets Investor Forum, and in this conversation, he describes the LP experience amid a period of slow distributions and fast-moving news. He also describes where LPs with an impact mindset are focusing their energy and capital in 2026.

Note: NEXUS will return in 2027 and is heading to Scottsdale, Arizona!

Regenerative economic models create value and expand markets, rather than undermine them, says Kat Taylor.

Taylor is an investor and philanthropist, and alongside her husband Tom Steyer founded TomKat Foundation. She is also the co-founder of the Beneficial State Bank and co-founder of the TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation.

Taylor was also one of the speakers at the New Private Markets Investor Summit in New York in November. That's where we recorded this episode of the podcast in which Taylor describes how innovative business models in everything from autoloans to farm credit can, in her words, "make a buck a better way" and show that markets can be recalibrated to be part of a regenenerative, rather than extractive, economy.

Having shot to prominence in the early part of this decade, have sustainability-linked loans (or SLLs) become an enduring part of the private credit landscape? Or have they quietly gone out of fashion?

In this special edition of the podcast, co-hosted with PEI Group affiliate publication Private Debt Investor, we seek to chart the rise of sustainability-linked loans and assess how they are being used today.

To recap: these loans feature a margin ratchet whereby the borrower’s performance against certain sustainability targets can result in a lower interest rate in the case of outperformance, or an increase in the case of underperformance.

To help us assess the situation, we enlisted Nishan Srinivasan, head of origination and partner at Ambienta Credit. Since its inception in 2007, Ambienta has invested in companies operating in the realms of environmental and resource efficiency. Srinivasan spent 22 years at Credit Suisse, latterly as global co-head of leverage finance origination. He joined Ambienta in 2023 to help launch its credit platform.

In the early days of SLLs it was not uncommon to see ratchets of 5 basis points relating to sustainability goals that were easily achievable, says Srinivasan. “Typically this was, dare I say, window dressing,” he said. “Quite de minimis in the context of the cost of the loan”.

Fast forward to today and the targets are more ambitious, the discounts more meaningful – as much as 40bps – and there is more frequently a margin uplift in the event of failure.

Two major talking points at this year's New Private Markets Investor Summit: North America were the transformative force of AI and the pressing need for liquidity in private markets portfolios.

While neither of these topics are unique to impact or sustainable investing, they are of paramount importance and dominated discussions on stage and off.

In this episode, Jennifer Kenning, founder and CEO of Align Impact who served as expert chair for day one of the event, joins New Private Markets' Toby Mitchenall and Michael Bowen for a 10-minute wrap-up of the event.

Optimism, a common trait of sustainable investors, abounds. "In the political environment we are in today, and how much the space has shifted in the last 12 months, there is a misnomer out there at the moment that it is all negative," says Kenning, who goes on to delve into reasons why, particularly in the areas of liquidity and AI, there is much to be optimistic about.

When Kenza Himmi, the head of impact investing and partnerships at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, attends a pitch meeting with a fund manager, she keeps an ear out for a few non-negotiable items.

She wants to know the fund's intent and whether it is designed to direct capital to environmental and social solutions. She wants to know how the fund measures the impact of its investments. And, of course, she wants to know if a fund’s investments will create value over time.

Some managers have impressed; others, not so much. In this episode, Himmi, who will be a panellist at the Investor Summit: North America in New York City on 5 November, takes us behind the scenes and tells us what she likes to hear from fund managers during pitch meetings.

Is the field of impact investing growing in a healthy way, or is it being co-opted by firms for whom positive impact is secondary to asset gathering?

In this episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we explore this fundamental question with Jed Emerson, a true veteran of the impact field, an author of multiple books and papers on the topic, and until April of this year, the chief impact officer for US wealth management firm AlTi Tiedemann Global. He's also the founder of Blended Value Group and holds a number of advisory positions.

The conversation was prompted by a lively online debate surrounding coverage of New Private Markets' Impact 50, in which Emerson had questioned the link between the dollar size of a fund and the size of its impact. You can read about the online exchange here, and you can read about the Impact 50 here.

We also touch on the distinction between NPM's Impact 50 and Impact Assets' IA 50, a different resource for investors in the impact space with which Emerson has been involved for more than a decade.