Schneider Electric announced today at its Global Innovation Summit in Barcelona, October 2-3 that its partners Norfund, EDFI and Amundi have agreed to create the new impact fund named “Schneider Electric Energy Access Asia”. The fund targets the 350 million people who have no energy access mainly in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The strategy is to provide the benefit of electricity to households, small businesses and collective services such as schools or health stations by investing in the value chain of access to energy: manufacturers, distributors, and solution providers. The beneficiaries of these mainly will be chosen based on the three following criteria: (1) contribution to the Sustainable Development Goal N°7 through measurable impact in Asia Pacific, (2) growth potential and financial viability, (3) clear governance and will respect the highest ESG criteria.
“We believe that to drive long-lasting positive change, impact investing is crucial and will accelerate our ambition to quadruple the number of people gaining access to energy. We are talking about roughly 24 million people that gained access to energy since 2009 and 80 million that will gain by 2030, thanks to our offers and investments. It is time now for acceleration to ensure no communities are left behind. We must allocate capital and skills to build the world we want to see for ourselves and our future generations and this new fund brings the proof of our ambitious and challenging targets,” says Gilles Vermot Desroches, Chief Sustainability Officer Schneider Electric.
“With this new fund, a total of 20.9M€ will be dedicated to start-ups that work towards providing access to energy in Asia Pacific and accelerating economic development,” highlights Christophe Poline, Director of Impact Investing, Schneider Electric.
The Group has already created two impact investing vehicles aimed – Schneider Electric Energy Access Fund the Energy Access Ventures Fund - to support inclusive startups, which activity contributes to SDG7 (clean and affordable energy), through equity investments. The expected outcomes of these vehicles is to increase the number of households and small and medium enterprises benefited from electricity access in remote areas (Africa, India and South East Asia), and to decrease the number of households facing energy poverty in Europe.
For more information on Schneider Electric’s sustainability journey and impact investing, visit http://sdreport.se.com
