The New Private Markets Podcast

This week, the California Public Employees' Retirement System announced that it had compiled $71 billion in climate investments by the end of June this year, on its way to a target of $100 billion by 2030. When it set the target in 2023, it started with $47 billion in climate investments, which it increased to $60 billion last year. In this episode, recorded before the midterm elections in the US and before CalPERS provided an update on its climate investment programme, Peter Cashion, managing investment director for sustainable investments, says the public pension fund remains on track to reach the target, despite the removal of some federal incentives and tax breaks for the energy transition. Cashion also explains that private credit could be a growth area for the pension fund's climate investment plans. CalPERS' private debt portfolio has traditionally focused on senior direct lending without deliberate exposure to the energy transition. But the equity being raised for the transition needs leverage. CalPERS has mapped the leading climate credit managers and, at the time of recording, had closed one investment, with more in the pipeline. The case, Cashion says, rests on returns rather than ideals. Power demand from data centres and wider electrification is pushing capital towards renewable energy projects, which are typically the fastest and cheapest source of new power to bring online. The other topics that Cashion discussed in a wide-ranging interview include: Why CalPERS treats climate as a source of alpha, and how it arrived at the $100 billion target; How GPs have toned down their public messaging on sustainability, but not their investment activity; How CalPERS responds to the non-governmental organisations that have questioned what it classifies as a climate solution; Why embedding climate specialists in deal teams across asset classes required a cultural shift; And his advice to peers in states where political pressure runs against ESG.

There is increasingly widespread acknowledgement that physical climate risks are becoming material to private markets portfolios, but investors are still struggling to fully integrate these considerations into their decision making. In this episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we speak to Cambridge Associates partner emeritus Simon Hallett. He previously led the EMEA endowment and foundation practice, but since 2021 has served as head of climate strategy, and now advises the full range of the firm's clients on integrating climate into their portfolios. Tune in to hear: How private markets investors have improved their ability to measure and report climate risk, which still isn't translating into how deals are actually underwritten, valued or exited. Why the non-linear, self-reinforcing nature of climate risk makes it uniquely hard to price. Why investors should focus on building resilient portfolios and scrutinising managers now, rather than waiting for better data, because the risk window is closing faster than the data can catch up.

At last year's GIIN Impact forum, LeapFrog Investments founder Andy Kuper compared artificial intelligence with the domestication of fire, the invention of farming and the French Revolution in its capacity to grant people agency over their own lives. Kuper is one of the most recognisable names in impact investing. He founded LeapFrog in 2007 to make investments that unite profit with purpose; companies the firm has invested in have reached 622 million people, of whom 460 million are emerging consumers. LeapFrog now works with large institutions such as Temasek, Prudential and AIA to deploy impact capital in emerging markets. In this episode, we explore how the rapid integration of AI is transforming the markets in which LeapFrog operates. Consumers in developing markets, Kuper notes, are far more optimistic about AI than those in the West, and perhaps with good reason: companies in LeapFrog's portfolio are already leveraging AI to deliver better products to consumers. Beyond AI, Kuper explains how strong governance and sustainability credentials in the firm's portcos generate a "LeapFrog premium" on exits, and he offers advice on how investors new to emerging markets impact can start to build exposure.

In light of geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges, how are investors approaching large-scale impact investing today? Last month, New Private Markets hosted its first webcast. With the help of Brookfield's Kelly Goddard, TPG's Steve Ellis and Cambridge Associates' Tom Mitchell, we dissected the Impact 75 – our list of the largest managers of impact capital – and what it tells us about the current state of play for impact investing in private markets. For anyone unable to join us in July, this episode offers an abridged version of the conversation. Listen to hear our guests address some key questions for the market, including: What LPs are looking for from impact managers in 2026; Whether sustainability regulation is a help or a hindrance; The extent to which it is still possible to raise capital from US institutions; How efforts to catalyse capital flows into emerging markets impact are developing In this episode: Toby Mitchenall is a senior editor at PEI Group Kelly Goddard is managing director and chief sustainability officer, energy, at Brookfield Asset Management Tom Mitchell is a partner in the endowments and foundation practice at Cambridge Associates Steve Ellis is co-managing partner at TPG

Given the scorching temperatures much of Europe has been facing this summer, it's not surprising that physical climate risk is high on the agenda for many investors. But actually getting to grips with the topic remains an ongoing process. In this episode, we speak to Nicolas Schneider, senior research engineer and macroeconomist at EDHEC Climate Institute. Earlier this year, EDHEC launched EDHEC-CLIRMAP (EDHEC-Climate-Induced Regional Macroimpacts Projector), an interactive tool that helps investors understand how specific regions will be affected economically under various warming scenarios. Find more information on it here. Schneider visited PEI Group's London office during London Climate Action Week in June for a conversation NPM‘s Toby Mitchenall. In addition to discussing CLIRMAP in more detail, Schneider covers a range of issues important for investors, including: Why markets are currently mispricing physical climate risk, and how that risk feeds into asset valuations. The crucial distinction between headline-grabbing acute events and the "elephant in the room" of chronic, compounding climate risk. The scale of projected GDP losses under a 3°C scenario and what it means for large institutional portfolios.

In this bonus episode, we get taken inside the ACP OeEB Climate Impact Fund, a climate-focused fund of funds targeting private equity and infrastructure strategies in emerging markets. Hannes Manndorff is managing director at Austrian development finance institution Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank (OeEB), which is currently deploying (and raising additional third-party capital for) its emerging markets impact strategy. In a conversation recorded on the sidelines of the Impact Investor Global Summit earlier this year, Manndorff talks us through the strategy, including the target returns, investment pace, co-investment appetite and geographical remit of the fund. He also tells us what OeEB looks for in a GP and what red flags will cause it to back away from a commitment. Our upcoming live webcast: On July 29th, we will be hosting a live conversation with Brookfield Asset Management, TPG and Cambridge Associates to discuss the findings of our Impact 75. Register to attend.

Bonus! In this short bonus episode of The New Private Markets Podcast, we bring you a conversation with Nadia Nikolova, the chief executive officer of ResponsAbility Investments. Nikolova was formerly head of direct lending at Allianz Global Investors and, in September last year, became CEO of ResponsAbility, which is the emerging markets impact-focused subsidiary of M&G Investments. This is another conversation from the sidelines of the Impact Investor Global Summit, which took place in London in May this year. At the event, Nikolova made an on-stage plea to allocators to emulate the Dutch model, and indicate to the market that they are willing to invest 10 percent of their assets into impact. "We don't have a capital problem; we have a capital allocation problem," she said. "Indicate you are willing to allocate, and then the products will be there." Nikolov also describes how institutional investors are increasingly interested in emerging markets debt exposure. "Many...have realised they are structurally over-allocated to the US, and structurally under-allocated to emerging markets," she said. Join us live! We are hosting a live webcast on July 29 to discuss the Impact 75. Join Toby Mitchenall, plus special guests, to discuss the newly launched list of the largest managers of private markets impact capital in the world and to answer your questions live. Click the link to register.

Since its launch in 2023 Altérra has established itself as one of the world's most influential investors in sustainable private markets. It has established fund relationships with Brookfield, BlackRock, TPG, KKR and CIP, and a direct co-investment programme that spans infrastructure and private equity. It has partnered with Spanish bank BBVA and is on the lookout for additional, complementary LP partners to join its co-investment programme. It has also broken ground in terms of blended finance structures on a large scale. In this episode,we welcome back His Excellency Majid Al Suwaidi, the CEO of Altérra, for an in-depth conversation. During a London Climate Action Week that took place amid a record-breaking heatwave, Al Suwaidi joined New Private Markets' Toby Mitchenall at PEI Group's London office, to discuss: How Altérra's co-investment activity has served as an effective manager evaluation tool; Establishing the co-investment vehicle, being on the receiving end of LP due diligence and the type of additional LPs Altérra wants to work with; How to frame returns expectations from a portfolio that spans private equity and infra assets; The evolution of the climate debate and how investors have or have not repositioned themselves; The next step: how Altérra wants to go further into the Global South by rethinking blended finance. On the concept of "first loss" capital: "Nobody wants to be the first loser, right? How do we change up the dynamic so that the first mover is actually the biggest winner?"

With all the discussion about promising VC-backed climate technology facing a "valley of death", what is actually needed to take these companies to scale? Building plants requires a lot of equity, a bit of senior debt, "but ultimately you need many more layers of the cap table", says Temple Fennell, co-founder and managing partner of Clean Energy Ventures. "You need insurance, you need wrappers of all types, you need EPC folks." Fennell spoke to The New Private Markets Podcast on the sidelines of the Impact Investor Global Summit in London in May 2026. He is a veteran investor in climate technology, whose experience in sustainable investment was shaped by being part of the the Keller family office, which among other things converted its 3,500-acre farm to regenerative practices. On the agenda: Clean Energy Ventures' expansion from the US to Europe; How clean tech companies can struggle when it comes to building plants; The specific project financing needs for these industrial companies; The recent glut of allocations to climate funds and how this is working through to returns.

When it comes to decarbonisation, investors have been spreading their capital too thinly across companies and technologies, says Stan Miranda, founder of the True North Institute and co-founder of All Aboard. "We will not make the right investments if we don't face the reality of what's happening at the atmospheric level," says Miranda, "And for some reason or other investors in this space tend to back hope more than reality; and, as many people have said, hope is not a strategy here." Miranda was among the speakers at the Impact Investor Global Summit in May this year in London, where this episode was recorded. Miranda explains the rationale behind the All Aboard coalition, a group of climate tech investors working collaboratively in a bid to find and back the "winners" among climate tech companies. "There's a philosophy in the climate investment world called 'all of the above', and the rationale behind it is that we don't know which technology is going to work, whether it's nuclear fusion or geothermal or clean hydrogen or various versions of carbon capture, so we need to invest in all of them. And that's the enemy of success here," says Miranda. "We really need to talk to each other about what is really working commercially, what is not dependent upon policy support, and concentrate capital in those technologies. It won't be all of them, so it should be very focused and very collaborative, not 'all of the above'."