Corporate Partnerships

Green Portfolio Project

Green Portfolio Project

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.

Making Progress, Saving Millions

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.

  • US Foodservice saved $8.2 million and avoided CO2 emissions equivalent to taking more than 4,400 cars off the road. See how US Foodservice is doing it.
  • PRIMEDIA saved $2.9 million and reduced paper use by the equivalent of more than 40,000 trees. See how PRIMEDIA is doing it.
  • Sealy saved over $5 million, avoided CO2 emissions equivalent to taking more than 600 cars off the road and prevented solid waste that would have filled more than 46 garbage trucks. See how Sealy is doing it.

So far 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 evaluated their impacts on key environmental performance areas and identified opportunities to improve performance.

Future plans

To drive broader change across the private equity and other industries, the tools and best practices developed through the partnership will be available through the EDF Innovation Exchange in the fall of 2009.

"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

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Environmental Opportunities

This innovative partnership is developing tools that will enable companies to cost-effectively:

Why Private Equity?

The private equity industry is known for its focus on improving business performance and for the rigorous process it uses to set goals and track improvement in portfolio companies.

This groundbreaking partnership is using the transformational power of private equity to achieve environmental goals.