Vista Equity Partners – Ava (Chih-Han) Chang – 2022

Goals

As one of the first North American private equity firms to sign the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, Vista Equity Partners established the Vista Climate Pledge to help operationalize its climate efforts. Climate Corps Fellow Ava Chang was brought on to execute on this pledge by advancing climate engagement, enhancing portfolio companies’ ESG practices and facilitating portfolio-level GHG measurement and management.

Solutions

The Vista Climate Pledge consists of four stages: measuring annual GHG emissions, setting an annual GHG reduction target, reducing emissions and offsetting the GHG footprint. Since 100% of Vista’s majority-controlled companies (as of May 2022) signed the pledge, Ava’s objective was to support over 50 companies on meeting the first stage of the pledge: annual GHG measurement.

Ava facilitated the adoption of streamlined processes to capture emissions data from major business activities and led a review process to improve report accuracy. Ava also participated in establishing best practices for GHG emission reduction target setting. To align portfolio companies’ ESG efforts with Vista’s goals, Ava identified resources to accelerate ESG integration and collaboration, such as a roadmap for enhancing ESG performance and GHG measurement.

Potential Impact

Ava’s work contributed to 100% of Vista’s Climate Pledge signatories meeting their first stage of the pledge: annual GHG measurement. Additionally, her roadmap and recommendations were shared among several Vista teams which may lead to long-term collaboration and process enhancement.