Thursday 21 October: Glide Group, a market leader in ultra-fast broadband connectivity and deploying fibre infrastructure, today announces that it has achieved an outstanding score of 86 according to GRESB’s annual ESG benchmarking assessment. This is the first time Glide has entered GRESB as it seeks to continue its ESG journey.
GRESB Assessments are guided by what investors and the industry consider to be material issues in the sustainability performance of real asset investments, and are aligned with international reporting frameworks, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, UN SDGs, region and country specific disclosure guidelines and regulations.
As well as exceeding the GRESB average score of 72, Glide has ranked 3rd among nine other European fibre businesses, 4th among twenty-two European Data Transmission businesses as well as 5th of the twenty-nine Data Transmission businesses globally. These scores have resulted in a 4 star achievement.
Assessment participants receive comparative business intelligence on where they stand against their peers, insight into the actions they can take to improve their ESG performance and a communication platform to engage with investors.
Tim Pilcher, CEO of Glide Group comments on the achievement: “This is an outstanding accomplishment for the business, particularly impressive for a first time reporter like us. Reducing our carbon footprint, creating a sustainable business and hence minimising our effect on climate change are priorities at Glide. We are continuously looking for different ways to improve our ESG. Using the data in combination with GRESB’s analytical tools will enable us to monitor our investments, engage with our management team, and make decisions that will lead us towards a more sustainable and resilient industry.”
Tricia Burnell, Head of ESG at Alinda Capital Partners, which is invested in Glide through Alinda Infrastructure Fund III, comments: "ESG and the GRESB process are extremely important to Alinda. We require all of our portfolio companies to implement ESG policies and programs and to participate in the GRESB assessment annually. We are very pleased with Glide's commitment to ESG leadership and performance as reflected in this exceptional performance in its first assessment."
The GRESB survey is devoted to assessing infrastructure enterprises in terms of their environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance activities. GRESB is an independent survey of social engagement and sustainable development of companies. The survey is an important benchmark for investment funds that invest pension funds in infrastructure companies around the world. Find out more about the results at: https://gresb.com/
