Client Background
Asper Investment Management is a leading specialist investment management firm focused on building the sustainable infrastructure businesses of tomorrow. Managing over €1.4 billion in assets on behalf of major institutional investors, Asper is at the forefront of energy transition across Europe. Asper’s portfolio is composed of sustainable energy projects, with a primary focus on onshore wind, district heating, and other renewable technologies. For over a decade, Asper supported exceptionally talented teams in building large-scale sustainable energy platforms across Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
At Asper, collecting accurate ESG data is essential for effectively managing and reporting on the sustainability performance of its portfolio. This approach enables Asper to quantify and enhance its impact — across areas like avoided GHG emissions, biodiversity, community engagement, and local employment — while driving progress towards sustainability goals and creating long-term value. Indra Lancien, Sustainability Officer at Asper, plays a key role in managing the firm’s sustainability reporting and data collection efforts.
Key Challenges
Before partnering with Novata, Asper faced some challenges in its ESG data collection process. Indra explains, “Sustainability is at the core of what we do. We realized early on that the manual process of using Excel to track ESG metrics was not scalable with our growth ambitions. We needed a robust tool, like Novata, to streamline data collection and reporting across our portfolio companies.” Asper’s key challenges included:
- Manual Data Collection: Indra noted that the process relied heavily on large Excel files. This led to extensive back-and-forth communication between teams to verify data accuracy.
- Ownership of Data: Sustainability data was becoming more complex and dispersed across the organisations Asper works with. For example, diversity and inclusion data is typically managed by HR, operational metrics like energy consumption and CO2 emissions reduction are tracked by the Operations team, while financial data resides with finance. Asper aimed to simplify this process by minimizing the need for manual data collection from each department, ultimately making the entire data collection process more efficient and streamlined.
Asper’s sustainability team takes an active role in managing ESG reporting with its platforms, but they wanted to use software that ensures portfolio companies could also benefit from ownership of their data. “Ultimately, we want our portfolio companies to know how to calculate their CO2 emissions and health and safety ratios, amongst other key KPIs,” Indra emphasized.
Impact & Results
Since onboarding Novata in December 2023 and completing three quarterly reporting cycles, Asper has transformed its ESG data collection process:
- Streamlined Reporting: The shift from Excel to Novata has been a significant time-saver for Asper’s team. “It’s smoother and more robust,” Indra shared. “The teams are reminded of data collection deadlines, and the process of submitting documentation along with answers has been a game-changer.”
- Efficiency Gains: By implementing Novata, Asper reduced the time spent on data collection and increased the professionalism of the reporting process. The firm also benefited from automated reminders to ensure no survey deadlines were missed.
- Increased Data Accuracy: Asper has noticed improvements in the quality of data. “The Novata platform’s structure encourages our portfolio companies to submit supporting documentation and underlying evidence, something we didn’t see with Excel,” Indra said.
- Outstanding Customer Support: The onboarding process took place over six weeks. Indra highlighted that “the Novata team was really proactive, helpful, and had a very tailored approach. We had a clear vision of what we wanted, and they supported us throughout the process.”
- Enhanced Ownership: With Novata’s platform, portfolio companies are now taking more responsibility for their ESG reporting, setting the stage for more systematic ESG reporting in the future.
- Positive Internal Feedback: Asper’s internal stakeholders appreciated the structured data visualization provided by Novata’s dashboard creator, which allowed for easy interpretation and dissemination of results. This allowed them to dedicate more time to data-driven decision-making based on the collected information.
Looking Forward
As Asper continues to grow, the firm is confident that Novata will support its ongoing sustainability efforts, particularly as it prepares for upcoming ESG regulations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Asper is excited about Novata’s ongoing new feature developments, like the data review module and Carbon Navigator, which the team is adopting to streamline CO2 reporting across its portfolio. “We’re relatively small, but we’re growing fast, and Novata will be crucial in helping us manage that growth sustainably and efficiently,” Indra said.
