The Carlyle Group Goes Green
In a move to clean up private equity's image (and save a little money in the process), The Carlyle Group has followed in KKR's footsteps by partnering with the Environmental Defense Fund. But while KKR's partnership served to "green up" a small handful of its existing portfolio companies, Carlyle has gone even greener. (And right around St. Patty's Day! They're related, right?) The mega-buyout firm, in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, will implement something called "Eco ValueScreen." It's a due diligence process that identifies places for improvement as well as that holy grail of "value creation" in acquisition targets, all with the purpose of reducing a company's environmental impact. The screen was developed by Carlyle and EDF alongside environmental consulting firm The Payne Firm. The firms haven't estimated any exact savings figure for Carlyle, but the idea is that the screen goes beyond basic risk mitigation in the diligence process Further, other buyout firms will be able to implement the screen for their own diligence processes.
