KKR adds five companies to green push

Five additional portfolio companies have joined KKR's Green Portfolio programme to improve their financial and environmental performance, bringing the total number of companies in the initiative to 17.

The new participants include the first in Australia for KKR, logistics company BIS Industries, and four new companies in Europe: Duales System Deutschland, Pets at Home, Van Gansewinkel Groep and WILD Flavors. Including the new additions, roughly 30 percent of the companies in KKR's global private equity portfolio have joined the initiative.

The first of two major requirements involved with joining the programme calls for companies to report data on metrics that the programme and the companies together determine are relevant, head of KKR’s Green Portfolio programme Elizabeth Seeger told PEO. 

“The second commitment is the commitment to report results publicly through our web site and through our partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund,” she said. 

Other participating portfolio companies include Accellent, Biomet, Dollar General, US Foodservice, PRIMEDIA, Sealy, and SunGard Data Systems. The 17 total companies represent seven different industries.

The Green Portfolio Programem was launched with three companies in 2008 with the Environmental Defense Fund, and aims to help KKR portfolio companies cut costs by becoming more energy efficient. In June, KKR announced that eight portfolio companies had cut $160 million in operating costs, 345,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, 8,500 tons of paper, and 1.2 million tons of waste.

KKR has also announced its membership to CSR Europe, a European business network focused on corporate responsibility that includes 75 multinational corporations and 27 national partner organizations as members.