In this episode, we sit down with Kyle Flick, Novata’s Head of APAC, to explore the shifting sustainability landscape across Asia Pacific. From carbon accounting becoming the norm to LPs driving demand for better ESG data, Kyle shares insights from eight months on the ground.
We unpack how regulations, value creation, and energy realities are shaping firm behavior, why APAC investors are thinking in decades, not quarters, and what sustainability trends are gaining ground across diverse markets.
About Sustainable Intelligence
Novata’s Sustainable Intelligence podcast brings honest, forward-thinking conversations about sustainability in the private markets. From carbon accounting to turning data into impact, each episode explores how investors and business leaders are tackling real challenges, meeting rising regulations, and building long-term value. Join us for expert insights, practical strategies, and authentic dialogue that empower action and progress in the evolving sustainability landscape. Listen to more episodes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Conversation with Kyle Flick (Transcript)
Ella Williamson: Welcome to Sustainable Intelligence, where we discuss all things sustainability for the private markets. I am Ella Williamson, and I’m thrilled to be your host. Joining me today is Kyle Flick, Head of APAC at Novata. Kyle’s been in the ESG space for over a decade across consulting, impact investing, and now helping private equity firms turn data into action.
He has been part of the Novata journey from day one and earlier this year made the big move to Singapore, to lead our expansion across Asia Pacific. Today, we’re digging into what he’s learned over the past eight months on the ground, the trends shaping sustainability across the region, and what to watch in the quarters ahead.
So Kyle, firstly, so great to have you on. Can I start by asking you about the terminology around ESG and sustainability? We know that it’s been in flux throughout the first half of 2025, and specifically in APAC and in the private markets, how do they tend to refer to this space?
Kyle Flick: Yeah. Thanks Ella. Appreciate you having me. It’s a great first question. I think for the first half of the year, I don’t think it’s any surprise that a lot of the politics in the US and tariff conversations took a front seat. I went to a few different conferences in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. That was a pretty good cross section of what folks were talking about. And although there was a lot of noise, I did get the sense that folks were still chugging along, they were still collecting data from their portfolio companies. They were still interested in carbon reporting and thinking about how to add more value to the companies themselves.
So I think it depends on the type of firm and the type of company, but we saw everything from very granular carbon reporting, think of, like, Australia and India and Singapore here, and other areas I thought folks were just starting to get a baseline measurement.
More broadly across private markets, it’s a bit more nuanced. For instance, a lot of the early stage tech investors in Southeast Asia, so if you think folks that are normally investing in Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines in the tech sector, I think there were some fundraising issues. And that was very real. They’re still in that right now, but more established funds that have a clear track record with clear return profiles are in the midst of deploying more capital because I know they have a lot of dry powder.
But, I don’t think there was any wavering at all in terms of, is sustainability important? Should we go a different direction? Should we abandon what we’ve done so far? And that’s been really encouraging.
Ella: Brilliant. And knowing that it’s still a priority on top of mind is so key. And a difficult question for you, if you had to single out one sustainability trend or priority that you constantly keep seeing across the APAC market, what would that be?
Kyle: If I had to pick one, I would go with carbon accounting. I don’t know if that would come as a huge surprise to people. But I do think it’s becoming pretty standard for folks to ask the question at least. In terms of how advanced or how mature their companies are in getting that data and giving it back to their investors and identifying those climate risks pre-investment has been a really big topic of conversation and maybe a point of difference across the different regions that we’ve worked.
I sense there’s a lot more emphasis on pre-investment risks. But then I think there’s an also really interesting thread around basically the ratio of carbon intensity. As companies grow and scale, there’s a more realistic conversation about not reducing your carbon output to zero; if you’re a growing company, you’re expected to have an emissions profile that probably grows too. There’s a lot of really good conversations there as well.
Ella: That point about being realistic about the size of your company and how it grows is something to really keep in mind. In terms of specific countries, there’s obviously many different regions with many different frameworks and regulations in play. Have you seen any countries really leading the way and pushing this agenda forward?
Kyle: Yeah, I think I could probably get in trouble here by not mentioning someone. But—and I also think, too, some of the folks that I feel like I would mention, we’re just not operating in those countries yet.
When I think of Japan or China and all the renewable energy investment in China, for instance, we just don’t have clients there yet. And so I don’t wanna exclude those two countries, for instance, but in the countries that we operate in and have clients, Singapore, I think I’m biased just ’cause I’m here and I’m having a lot of conversations with firms locally.
So I’d definitely say Singapore, Australia, and India have been leading the way. If you look at the regulatory regimes, you look at the AASB in Australia, that’s pretty well known and folks have been bought into that for quite some time. And then you look at the BRSR for listed companies in India. And so that’s where I’m seeing a lot of uptake both at the private equity firm level, but also at the portfolio company level. So that’s been really interesting as well. Like I said, I mentioned Singapore. There’s carbon disclosure coming up on the Singapore Exchange, but even more broadly in the private markets, Singapore would probably be up there too.
Ella: It’s a very important caveat you made there where we’re not operating, we can’t comment, but based on your experience, this is where you are seeing the real drivers. So thank you for that very honest summary.
On top of the standards that you are seeing really drive the agenda forward, are there any other drivers around ESG adoption that are really making a dent across the region?
Kyle: I’d say value creation’s really the name of the game. Basically, how do certain metrics affect a business’s bottom line? And so when we look at risk, when we look at actually quantifying ESG metrics, like what are the costs of attrition or the costs of energy, right? Or the cost of carbon taxes, if it’s relevant to your jurisdiction. Also, where are the revenue opportunities? And then translating that into a business’s income statement, like that next step is where the space is going. It’s great, but I think that’s where a lot of people are spending their time is how is this actually driving value in their businesses?
If you’re a private equity fund or a venture capital investor, you’re buying or investing in a company to make it better. And how can you actually show that to either the next buyer or if you’re gonna hold it forever? You obviously want to grow the revenue and the margins in that business.
So it’s a super interesting conversation. And it seems to me that every conversation comes back to that.
Ella: Yeah, and that is the golden ticket for sustainability in my eyes. Once we get the value piece really tied down and really be able to show the value of collecting this data, reporting on this data, that is when it’s really gonna drive this agenda forward.
Now Kyle, you are in a really unique position that you spent three years in the US, in the advisory team working with really high profile clients. You’ve now moved to APAC. When it comes to value creation, you’ve obviously seen and experienced these conversations in the US. How do you think it has differed in APAC? And if you have any insights on Europe, that would be really great to share.
Kyle: Yeah, there’s a couple of things. One really quantifying, like we had just talked about, quantifying every risk and every sort of cost opportunity from a sustainability standpoint is more relevant here.
But I think if you just look broadly across the US, Europe, Asia Pacific, the cost of capital generally has increased. And if you’re a private equity fund, you’re typically using debt to some degree to purchase a company in your capital structure. With the bouts of inflation we’ve seen over the past few years, your margins are also getting squeezed.
And it just creates more challenges that we haven’t seen in the past 10 years or so. Now as it relates to being in Asia specifically I do think, I saw an ad the other day. I forgot what the company was. I think it might have been like a spirits company, but their tagline was “Thinking a Century Ahead.” That is the heart of the difference that I could pinpoint between the regions. The group to quarter swings that we may feel from a change of administration or we missed earnings this quarter, if you sort of have the long view in mind, it matters a little bit less.
Not that it doesn’t matter, but you just keep chugging along, you stick to the plan and you keep trying to achieve the goals that you’ve set out in your broader strategy. So I thought that was really, really timely as well.
Ella: Absolutely brilliant marketing. There’s such a balance, isn’t it, between thinking ahead and that’s such a powerful tagline, but also embedding companies in tradition and really being able to showcase that value.
Novata is now in its fourth year. We now have over 220 investors using our platform. Over 10,000 portfolio companies reporting. What is one of the key lessons you’ve learned along this journey and has anything changed since you’ve moved to APAC?
Kyle: Oh my gosh. Time flies. What I have to remind myself is that we do have so many clients and we do have so many reporting companies at this point because to me every relationship, every meeting, it all really matters. And it feels like it’s the first, or especially in Asia because we stood up the practice last year. We’re trying to build the business in the sustainable, long-term way. And so every conversation to me at least feels like it did four years ago when we were convincing folks to trust us and join the Novata platform back in its early days.
But like I said, creating long-term partnerships is really important. I think it’s even more important here. I mentioned planning in years and not months. And so I think at least for Novata, that’s a really great match culturally for a sustainability focused firm, because you can only measure sustainability in years, right? You can’t measure it in months. You can’t measure it in quarters. That’s really important. And what I’ve seen is even the current clients we have in Singapore and even in surrounding countries as well, they want a partner. They don’t want a tool, they don’t want another software that they have to log into, and figure out how to use. They want a partner to help them achieve their goals, whatever that may be. It may be to get data collected from their companies for the first time. And that’s just a really good match and it’s really exciting.
Ella: Partnership is something that constantly comes up in our conversations, and we know that even though we do provide tech and advisory solutions, it’s actually the value that we can provide our clients that is the real value driver. Now, we’ve talked a lot about countries across APAC that have led the way over the last few years. But when it comes to those less regulated markets and countries, what do you think are the core pressures that are driving the sustainability agenda forward?
Kyle: Yeah, really good question. And even in Singapore, for the most part, because we are working exclusively in the private markets, the regulations driving at least the public markets at this point.
Although that is some of the pressure, I’d say most of the pressure is really from LPs. And the understanding that it actually does drive value. If it didn’t drive value and it didn’t make a ton of sense, I don’t think people would do it. I also think if they’re a larger firm and have companies that have operations in Europe, they understand that they’re going to be subject to, those portfolio companies might be subject to CSRD or those regulations there.
And you know, if they wanna stay competitive globally, especially in attracting capital, we talked about the fundraising environment as well. If they wanna stay competitive in that regard, they need clear data from their existing operations to raise that money. And so I think that’s similar sort of in every geography that we operate. Those drivers are very real.
Ella: Great. And then one really big question, what would you say are the three biggest sustainability trends that you think will shape the sustainability landscape across APAC over the next few quarters? And is there anything you are particularly excited about?
Kyle: Yeah, definitely, I feel like in my free time, I’m a nerd for looking at countries’ energy mixes and like how that all works together. So whether it’s natural gas, whether it’s renewables and the conversations around it, because a lot of it gets lost that a lot of electric power comes from natural gas or it comes from hydro, right? So what is that mix? How that capital allocation shifts across the region I think is quite interesting. Here in Singapore, I think natural gas makes up around 90 ish percent of the mix just ’cause there’s not a ton of land on the island. And so you don’t really have the ability to build out large solar fields and large wind farms like you would maybe elsewhere with more land mass. We talked about this in the beginning, the more real realistic conversation of the energy mix and how it really impacts business operations. That’s a big thing.
And then, I would also say I’m just keeping my eye on some of the larger scale energy projects coming out of India and China. If you look at sort of the data center build out trend that we’re seeing globally, I saw a stat the other day where the US has around 5,200 or so data centers, so 5,200. Whereas India and China combined are less than a thousand. And so if you look at that as a trend that’s going to require vast amounts of power, what type of energy is going to be used and how are they going to build that? So that’s something I’m keeping an eye on. And I think Novata has a part to play in all of that as well.
Ella: Thank you. Really great points, and thank you for sharing those stats. I wasn’t aware of the number of data centers globally, let alone in specific regions. Now we always finish these podcasts with a few quickfire questions. Don’t overthink them. Just whatever springs to mind. So number one, one word to describe the future of sustainability in APAC.
Kyle: Initially I was gonna say leadership or something of the sort, but committed is probably a better word to describe it.
Ella: Very positive news for sustainability. And what is one difference in the APAC sustainability space that you didn’t expect when you moved there?
Kyle: I don’t know if I didn’t expect this or not, but just the importance of the personal relationships in business. Obviously anywhere in the world that’s really important.
But something that I’ve learned as well is really getting to know folks before you try and “sell” to them. I feel like, obviously, we all have our goals, we all have our targets. But the end of the day, I’ve really been appreciative of how business is conducted here. I feel like it fits my frame of being more long term anyways, and I think outside of just us building trust with potential clients, that helps us basically trust our clients more as well.
Ella: And finally, what’s one thing you’ve changed your mind about this year? You’ve been in the sustainability space for a very long time, what is one thing you’ve changed your mind on?
Kyle: I would say not to be so reactionary. I feel like if you talk to folks in my personal life, I would say not, not emotional at times, but you react to things in a certain sense. You hear something political, you may not like, you hear something that a sports team you may not like, you react to that.
For me, it’s don’t get too high or too low. On the back of that, it’s like adoption generally takes time. And just ’cause it takes time doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile or people don’t get it. That’s just a part of it. And I think that’s a positive thing as well.
Ella: I’ll definitely take that on board in the way I approach everything. So thank you for sharing that. Now, Kyle, thank you so much for all your insights today. It’s been great to talk to you with an APAC lens on everything. And I think with your experience at Novata in the US and now in APAC, it’s given a really broad overview of your key takeaways. My biggest takeaway from this whole podcast was about planning in years versus months and actually thinking about sustainability in that way.
You measure over years, so why wouldn’t you think long term? And I’m gonna go and find what that alcohol brand is that has the tagline, thinking a century ahead, because I think it’s absolutely golden.
Kyle: I’ll let you know. I’ll send you a picture of that.
Ella: Please do. That would be great. So final things, collecting data, carbon reporting, adding value, those are top of mind across the APAC region.
Until next time, let’s keep building sustainable intelligence together. Find out more at novata.com.
