Green Portfolio Project

Green Portfolio Program achieves $160 million in savings after two years. See full results below.

Environmental Defense Fund and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (KKR) have been working together since May 2008 to develop and test a set of analytic tools and metrics to help companies in KKR's U.S. portfolio measure and improve performance in several key environmental performance areas.

Green Returns

As a result of this partnership, EDF developed Green Returns, an innovative and flexible approach designed to create business and environmental value for the private equity sector.

Green Returns provides resources and tools that any firm can use to evaluate operations and identify opportunities to improve business and environmental performance in five key environmental areas:

• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Water
• Waste
• Forest products
• Priority chemicals

Green Portfolio results

To date, eight portfolio companies are reporting performance and have adopted environmental management initiatives and innovations.

Since the program launched in 2008, these companies have saved over $160 million in operating costs and eliminated 345,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, 1.2 million tons of waste and 8,500 tons of paper use.

Learn more about how each company is achieving these results by clicking on the company name in the table below:

Company	Environmental Impact	Financial Impact
Accellent	6,600 metric tons of GHG emissions	$785,000
Biomet	10,500 metric tons of GHG emissions	$2.1 million
Dollar General	160,000 metric tons of GHG emissions 10.8M cubic yards of waste	$106 million
HCA	32,500 metric tons of GHG emissions	$4.7 million
Primedia, Inc.	8,500 tons of paper	$7.5 million
Sealy Corporation	14,000 metric tons of GHG emissions 2.9M lbs. of waste	$12.1 million
SunGard	20,700 metric tons of GHG emissions	$3.8 million
U.S. Foodservice	101,000 metric tons of GHG emissions	$22.3 million

TOTAL
Greenhouse gas emissions	345,000 metric tons	$160 million
Waste	1.2 million tons
Forest resources	8,500 tons

Project timeline

In 2010: EDF released Green Returns, an approach designed for the private equity industry to improve business and environmental performance. Green Returns includes tools and best practices developed through EDF’s partnership with KKR.

KKR expanded the program to include four new companies: First Data; Lehigh Phoenix, a division of Visant; Oriental Brewery and Tarkett. Oriental Brewery and Tarkett represent the first non-U.S. based companies to join the program. With these additions, the Green Portfolio Project now encompasses 20% of KKR’s global private equity portfolio.  Read KKR's announcement [PDF].

In 2009: Five additional portfolio companies joined the Green Portfolio Project to improve their environmental performance: Accellent, Biomet, Dollar General, SunGard and HCA.

Through this initiative, the companies are evaluating their impacts on key environmental performance areas and identifying opportunities to improve performance.

In 2008: We developed and pilot tested the concept and tools with three companies, generating savings of $16.4 million and preventing more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2008.

"One of KKR's core strengths is driving operational improvements that build business value. We are focused on improving environmental performance across our portfolio and providing a framework to help companies take environmental initiatives to scale."
- Dean Nelson, KKR Capstone

Posted: 01-Jan-1900; Updated: 14-Nov-2008