The New Private Markets Podcast

Inside OTPP's revised climate strategy with Anna Murray

In February, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a Canadian pension plan with C$270 billion ($197 billion; €167 billion) in assets, unveiled a revised climate strategy, with new targets and new ways to measure progress.

In this episode, Anna Murray, senior managing director and global head of sustainable investing, takes us behind the changes, explaining why the pension has moved away from emissions intensity as a primary way of measuring climate progress and how the new strategy shifts towards "real world impact".

"While the direction of travel is clear for the energy transition, it's not necessarily linear, so it's going to move all over the place depending on what geographies we're in, depending on what sectors we're talking about," says Murray. "So the idea [is that the new climate strategy] takes into account this nuance, while understanding that the direction of travel is clear."

Murray, who was listed among our sustainable private markets influencers in 2024, also gives her views on the evolution of sustainability within the context of institutional investment: "It is reasonable to see retrenchment from heavy-handed virtue signalling, and it is in fact quite inspiring and exciting that we are now in era of pragmatism and getting to work."

Why APG is 'clamping down' on ESG data, while ramping up impact

APG Asset Management is one of the world's most influential investors in private markets, and a leader in the integration of sustainability and impact into its investment approach. It manages around €590 billion on behalf of Dutch public pension funds and has an ambitious €30 billion target for impact investments.

In this discussion with Patrick Kanters, APG's chief investment officer, private markets, we  dig into a number of topics, including:

• How APG is reassessing its exposure to emerging markets;
• How its impact allocation requires it to rethink the risk curve, and what that means for its underwriting process;
• Why APG is trying to "clamp down" on the amount of ESG information it is asking for from its partners;
• How geopolitcal friction and a more deglobalised world is shaping its approach to private markets investment, and investment in defence.

APG was among the winners of the New Private Markets Global Awards this year. It was named as Limited Partner of the Year (Impact) after making significant headway during 2025 in advancing its impact investment programme and contributing to the wider market.

Note: APG Asset Management will be among the many allocators at New Private Markets' upcoming Impact Investor Global Summit on 19-20 May in London.

BCI: Why ESG is 'one of the last frontiers' in value creation

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.

What's it like raising climate capital today?

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 LPs should manage a private markets impact programme amid slower DPI

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! 

How auto-loans and farm credit can be regenerative

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.

How the sustainability-linked loan market is evolving

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.

Optimism abounds among US sustainable investors

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.