Vala Capital, the entrepreneur-led venture capital firm has announced a major milestone for EIS portfolio company, Yuchelka, which is rebranding as The Sustainability Group – and bringing onboard an influential, experienced ESG leadership team to create a leading sustainability platform.
The rebrand will enable The Sustainability Group to significantly expand its operations, developing a highly-scalable platform for advising businesses, foundations, financial institutions and family offices on how to make sustainability and social purpose an integral part of their operational approach – which by doing so, potentially leads to lower financing costs.
The Sustainability Group will be headed by Mike Penrose, who has held executive roles at Unicef UK and Save the Children International – and who has a proven track record supporting businesses designing and implementing sustainability strategies. Mike will work alongside, Alex Smith, an experienced commercial director with a background in sustainability across the hospitality and sport sectors.
Mike Penrose, The Sustainability Group chief executive, says: “We have already helped clients renegotiate hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt at a reduced cost because of the sustainability and social impact programmes that they were implementing. We have the investment we need to bring to life our vision of what constitutes sustainability and social impact for business. We want to be the first platform that actively allows companies to show how ‘doing good’ creates value and enables the finance sector to use it as a decision maker around value creation.”
Jasper Smith, founder Vala Capital, says: "Sustainability is a core focus at Vala and we hope will be intrinsic to all business going forward. It is rare that you find a company such as The Sustainability Group that has the skills and technology to become a leader in business transition. We are naturally delighted to support them in this exciting venture."