Portfolio environmental impact

Climate considerations are integral to how Summa assess potential investments and informs both our overall strategy and individual portfolio company strategies. Within the Resource Efficiency theme, Summa invests in circular business models, sustainable food systems, and sustainable industries to drive the agenda to lower emissions across sectors. Summa is also committed to Science Based Targets to reduce both firm-wide and portfolio emissions.

Summa portfolio companies have minimal Scope 1 and 2 footprints but will typically have a larger Scope 3 footprint as they rely on inputs that lead to substantial value chain emissions. Following new investments, our annualized portfolio emissions have slightly increased from 2021 to 2022, with about 55.6k tCO₂e from all scopes.

Notably, NG has altered their emission reporting methodology, and thus emissions from Scope 3 are significantly higher than previously reported. The previous method kept a separate emissions account related to waste treatment, where the advantage of material recycling was netted against emissions from waste processing. NG’s Scope 3 reporting has therefore shown an incomplete view of the emissions in their value chain. The updated method and reasoning will be explained in NG’s 2022 report.

Biodiversity impact assessment In previous reports, Summa included a biodiversity impact assessment of all portfolio companies. The methodology was based on Scope 3 (supply chain) emission data to calculate the ecological degradation impact. However, as the dataset and model to arrive at the biodiversity impact expired, we were unable to arrive at a viable result. We are continuously assessing providers for an improved method for more accurate measurement of biodiversity impact of the companies and aim to include an assessment in next year’s report.

Certain investments including NG Group, Holdbart, and Kiona can achieve an upside in potentially averted emissions through waste management, reduction of food waste, and energy optimization. This amounted to about 1.37m tons of CO2 equivalents in 2022.

Summa has a long-standing ambition to align our portfolio with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5˚C target. To meet this ambition, we have committed to the Science Based Targets to set validated targets across the portfolio. Sengenics and Axion have received official validation of their targets. Several other portfolio companies have initiated the process and are expected to have validated targets during 2023.