TPG ESG Performance Diagnostic & Regulatory Reporting Questionnaire

TPG ESG Overview

Thank you for participating in TPG’s Annual ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance Diagnostic and the SFDR PASI Questionnaire. We conduct this diagnostic survey annually across all portfolio companies to understand key issues and, wherever possible, identify value-creation opportunities. You are receiving the SFDR PASI Questionnaire in addition to the annual diagnostic because TPG’s Rise and Rise Climate Funds are subject to EU financial regulations, including the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

This year, TPG has partnered with pulsESG to facilitate the collection and analysis of the ESG data you provide. pulsESG is an integrated and flexible SaaS platform built to support organizations’ ESG needs and efforts to consolidate, report, and derive insight from their ESG footprint.

TPG’s Rise Climate Fund and TPG’s Rise III have defined sustainable investment objectives and so are subject to specific EU financial regulations, including the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). The goal of the SFDR is to channel private investment toward the transition to a carbon-neutral economy while increasing transparency, preventing greenwashing, and ensuring the comparability of financial products.  

To satisfy the requirements of the SFDR, Rise Climate and Rise III investments are asked to report and disclose PASI (Principal Adverse Sustainability Impact) indicators, which are used to verify that an investment does not do significant harm and that it follows good governance practices. TPG collects this data via pulsESG. 

It is understood that, in some instances, requested data for the PASI indicators may not be available. The SFDR requires an explanation in these cases. Where data is unavailable, please mark your response as such and provide text in the “Explanation” box that follows, explaining (1) why the data is not available (e.g., in relation to GHG emissions, “We have not measured our carbon footprint”); and (2) indication as where your company stands in the process of collecting and providing the data in the future (e.g., “We are currently evaluating our carbon footprint” or “We expect to develop this capability in the future.”).

Thank you for your partnership and engagement in the reporting of this information. Please contact Ronica Jithendranath (rjithendranath@yanalytics.org) with any questions or concerns.

TPG’s Annual ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance Diagnostic is focused on understanding, managing, and improving the financially material ESG factors of each company within TPG’s portfolio. These factors have been selected based on their correlation with financial performance, as revealed by extensive research.

Completing this questionnaire will provide a structured perspective of your company’s ESG performance to:

  1. assist you in gauging your company’s performance on material ESG factors over the previous calendar year,
  2. gain perspective regarding progress in performance, including benchmarking against peers and the broader TPG portfolio, and
  3. enable structured recommendations for targeted engagement on ESG initiatives to drive value within your company. 

The survey contains a combination of quantitative and qualitative questions, all of which were developed in alignment with TPG’s “SASB+” ESG Performance assessment framework and are organized into the following topics:

A. Background Information

B. ESG Performance Management

C. Resource Management

D. Climate Change

E. Social Capital / Human Capital

F. Disclosure & Stakeholder Engagement

G. Industry-specific Metrics

The content within this survey is focused on understanding, managing, and improving the financially material ESG factors of each company within TPG’s portfolio. These factors have been selected based on their correlation with financial performance, as revealed by extensive research. We are focused on what matters & what will drive performance.

Questions in Sections A-F cover ESG factors considered to be material for all sectors and industries, and questions in Section G are specific to your company’s industry. This diagnostic is one of many tools TPG leverages to manage risk and monitor performance across our investment portfolio. We have designed it to be supplementary (not duplicative) to other TPG data collection efforts that target ESG-related factors (e.g., periodic Legal/Compliance questionnaires that touch on Anti-Corruption and Bribery). 

Upon completion of the survey, our team will review your responses and may reach out to offer a discussion on our findings. Our team is available to support you in the assessment of your survey data, peer benchmarking and best practice sharing, and other ESG strategy and initiative guidance. In the survey, you will be asked how our team can be helpful to you, and you are welcome to reach out to us at any time.

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful contribution to this effort. Please reach out to Ronica Jithendranath (rjithendranath@yanalytics.org) and Morgan Mills (mmills@yanalytics.org) with any questions related to survey content. The pulsESG team is also available to provide technical support and can be reached at any time within the platform, via the icon found on the bottom right-hand side of the home page.  They can also be reached via email at support@pulsesg.com, or by phone at +1(415)727-9400  for any urgent queries. The pulsESG phone support hours are 8 AM to 8 PM CST, Monday – Friday excluding US holidays.

TPG ESG Performance Diagnostic Training

TPG has partnered with pulsESG to create an integrated and centralized ESG data collection and management process for its portfolio companies. The training modules and the FAQs seen here are complementary to the pulsESG training workshop and are intended to support your organization in the process of responding to TPG’s request for information about your ESG practices.

Collect ESG Data

Catalogs act as repositories for your ESG data, including the data that other organizations, such as TPG, have asked you to report.

Learn more about Catalogs

Respond to TPG for requested Data

Tasks help you to keep track of data requests and their key details, such as due dates and instructions. When you assign questions in a data request to colleagues within your organization, they will receive a dedicated task corresponding to your assignment.

Learn more about Tasks

Gain Insights from ESG data

Analytics synthesizes the data stored in pulsESG into meaningful visualizations that help drive strategic decisions about your ESG performance management. 

If you have responded to TPG’s ESG surveys in prior years, the visualization present in your pulsESG environment, found on the card titled “Trend Report”, allows you to view your historical responses to TPG’s ESG surveys over time in one consolidated table.

Learn more about Analytics

Manage ESG compliance & performance

If you are interested, you may also work with the pulsESG team directly to use the platform to manage your own data collection and reporting needs. The platform is ready for compliance disclosures such as SASB, CDP, & DJSI.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get answers to the most asked questions about pulsESG

How can I access TPG's ESG data requests?

You can access TPG’s ESG data requests through the link in the email you received notifying you of the request, or by logging into the platform and viewing the tasks to be completed.

How can the pulsESG platform support me in collecting data from various sources?
  • You can enter the data yourself in the catalog manually, or collect data from other sources in one of the following ways: 
    • From coworkers:
      • Assign specific metrics to users within your organization. 
    • From data sources:
      • The pulsESG team can work with you to integrate your existing data sources such as HRIS, carbon management systems, utility systems, etc. to directly pool data into the catalog. Please reach out to the pulsESG team to facilitate this. This is NOT a requirement to complete TPG’s surveys and may not be executed within the timeframe allotted to complete them.
What are the steps to complete the data request task from TPG?
  • To complete a data request task, follow the steps below:
    • Access the task through the link in your email, or through the tasks section of the pulsESG platform 
    • Review the instructions on the task 
    • Click on the catalog link provided in the task’s page
    • Enter data for the metrics in your catalog 
    • Publish your data destination from the catalog
  • For a detailed overview of the steps to complete a data request task, refer to the Data Request Task article and the accompanying video.
How can I track changes in the data made by others from my organization?
  • You can view the audit log for any metric in your catalog by clicking on the metric and selecting “Audit”. The audit log provides the history of changes made to a given metric, including the date(s) on which a change was made and the user who made it.
  • The audit log for evidence file uploads for each metric can be found by clicking on a metric and selecting “Evidence”.
How can I add comments on certain data provided to my coworkers or to TPG?

You can use the comment feature in the catalog to communicate regarding any specific metric within your organization and with TPG. Please see the guidance on using the comments feature for more information.

How can I reach out to pulsESG if I have a question about the platform?

You can reach out to the pulsESG team using the Intercom feature on the Home page of the platform, or use one of the two ways:
via email at support@pulsesg.com or by phone at +1(415)727-9400 for any urgent queries. The pulsESG phone support hours are 8 AM to 8 PM CST, Monday – Friday excluding US holidays.

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Recorded Training

Access the recordings of the onboarding webinars.

Training Modules

Tasks

Tasks allow you to track work throughout the lifecycle of external data requests and internal metric assignments to complete them more efficiently

Overview

As a TPG portfolio company, you will interact with the following tasks:

  • Data Request: Respond to TPG’s request for data 
  • Metric Assignment Request: Respond to a colleague’s request for you to complete specific metrics within TPG’s survey
  • Data Request Review: Respond to requested revisions from TPG/K&E. K&E are TPG’s Legal Counsel on SFDR.

You will receive data request tasks from TPG and K&E to respond to their ESG information requests. 

You can access your latest tasks from the home page. 

You can also access all of your tasks from the tasks page. 

Access the tasks page from the left-hand side menu or by clicking “View All” in the tasks section of the home page.

A task’s details include the sender, assignee, reporting period, due date, and instructions provided by the sender for the relevant request.

Data Request Task

Data requests are sent by external organizations; in this instance, TPG has sent you a data request with metrics corresponding to their annual ESG diagnostic and the PASI and MSS and good governance questionnaire required under the SFDR.

To complete this task, use the catalog link in the task to see and submit your response to the request.

Steps to complete a data request task:

  • Access the task from the home page, tasks page, or your task email notification
  • Review details of the task along with any provided task instructions 
  • Click on the catalog link in step 1 to update the requested metrics 
  • Edit data in the catalog
  • Publish the data from within the catalog page
Metric Assignment Task

Metric Assignment task is a way to collect data from coworkers who are better suited to respond to certain metrics.

If you have a Metric Assignment task, someone from your organization has requested data from you on specific metrics.

Steps to complete a Metric Assignment task:

  • Access the task from the home page, tasks page, or your task email notification
  • Review details of the task along with any provided task instructions 
  • Expand the topics to see the metrics that have been assigned to you
  • Click on the pencil icon next to the metric name
  • This opens up the right side panel similar to that in the catalog
  • Enter the data by clicking under the data field, add any explanation under the explanation field if needed
  • You can also attach evidence files supporting the metrics using the evidence upload option
  • Once you have entered the information, click on the ‘submit’ button at top of the task screen to complete the task
Data Request Review Task

Data Request Review tasks are sent by external organizations, in this case TPG, when they need a revision to a metric published to them. After you complete a data request and publish the data, the data goes to TPG’s legal team to be reviewed. If they have any questions, you will receive a data request review task. 

Steps to complete a Data Request Review task:

  • Access the task from the home page, tasks page, or your task email notification
  • Expand the topics and see the metrics for which revisions are requested
  • View the comments added by the reviewer by hovering over the comment column 
  • Click on ‘Review Requested’ for the corresponding metric – this will take you to the catalog with the correct filters 
  • Update the metrics based on the revision request
  • Click publish from the catalog to submit the data back to TPG

Catalogs

A catalog is a set of ESG metrics categorized into different topics as relevant. Catalogs can be created using standard reporting frameworks or with custom metrics.

Within a catalog, you can view, edit, and assign metrics to people within your organization. If other organizations report data to you, you can also see their data from within the catalog view.

Overview

When TPG requests data from you, a new catalog is pre-populated with the metrics requested by TPG. Within this catalog, you will add and edit the requested data, request other members of your team to provide data on specific metrics, and communicate within your team on specific metrics. All of your additions and changes are autosaved within the catalog. When you are completely finished, you will use the “Publish” button to submit your populated data back to TPG.

Expand all the topics at once to see all ESG metrics present in the catalog, or expand one topic at a time to see only metrics within the selected topic. 

You can also view and download data for different reporting periods by filtering this catalog.

You can access your catalog(s) from the home page or at any time from the menu on the lefthand side of the platform.

Collect Data

There are three different ways you can collect data in your catalog: 

  • Manually enter data, explanation & evidence:
    • Directly on the platform
    • Offline in a CSV file and then upload to the platform
  • Assign metrics to different members of your company for them to manually input
  • Integrate an external data source with your catalog metrics for auto-population of requested metrics
    Manually enter data on the platform

    Click on any metric to open the right-side panel. This panel allows you to enter the required data and shows additional metric details, including any instructions, relevant dropdown selections, required units, etc. 

    You also have the option to add an explanation or any evidence files you’d like to share with TPG. 

    If you do not have access to the needed data, select ‘Data not available’, and add an explanation under “Explanation”.

    Manually enter data offline and upload it to the platform

    You can also choose to work on your data offline and upload a CSV file to populate the catalog at once. To do so, follow the steps below:

    • Click on the download icon on the top right of your catalog 
    • Use the ‘Download Metrics (.csv)’ option to download the catalog in a CSV format
    • Open the file in excel or google sheets (Numbers application from MacBook is not supported) 
    • Add data in the data column for the corresponding metric
    • Change the values in the ‘Data Not Available’ as TRUE if you want to select the ‘Data not Available’ option, else leave it as FALSE
    • Add explanation under the ‘Explanation’ column. 
    • Once you have completed the data entry offline, save the file as CSV
    • Upload the file using the upload option on the top right of your catalog screen
    Assign metric internally

    If there is another member of your organization better suited to respond to a specific set of metrics, you can assign those metrics to the specific user. The steps to assign a metric internally within an organization are as follows:

    • Click on the assign icon at the top of the catalog page (the first icon with a check mark inside) 
    • For the metric you want to assign a different team member, click the dropdown arrow under the ‘Users’ column
    • Select the users for each metric you would like to assign to other team members
    • Once you have set up all metric assignments, click on the initiate button at the top right and click save. This sends an email and a task with the metric assignment to the respective users.
    Connect external data sources directly to your catalog

    The pulsESG team can work with you to integrate your existing data sources, such as HRIS, carbon management systems, utility systems, etc., to directly pool data into the catalog. Please reach out to the pulsESG team to facilitate this. This is NOT a requirement to complete TPG’s surveys and may not be executed within the timeframe allotted to complete them.

    Review Data
    View your data

    You can review the data in your catalog at any time. The chips at the top of the catalog provide a summary of your survey response, identifying the number of metrics in each of the below categories:

    • Completed: indicates the no. of metrics that currently have data
    • Required: indicates the no. of metrics are required by TPG to complete them and publish the data request
    • Unanswered: indicates the no. of metrics that have not yet been answered 
    • Data Not Available: indicates the no. of metrics for which the ‘Data not available’ option is selected
    • Metric Validation Errors: indicates the no. of metrics that have validation errors as set by TPG. Clicking on the chip further provides details on metrics with a different type of errors. 

    Clicking on any of these chips will filter the catalog to show you only metrics from the respective category, which you can then populate, edit, or review as necessary. For example, you can use this functionality to see only questions that are unanswered and complete them or view only
    “completed” metrics to review your responses so far. 

    Use the “clear” option to the right of these chips or click on the filtered chip again to clear the filter and see your complete catalog.

    Download your data

    You can download data from your catalog at any point of time (before or after submitting your data to TPG) by using the download options available at the top right of your catalog screen. 

    To download your data as a CSV file, navigate to the “Download Metrics” button at the top right of the TPG ESG Metric Catalog and select “Download Metrics (.csv)”. 

    To download a formatted PDF of your responses, navigate to the “Download Metrics Report” button at the top right of the TPG ESG Metric Catalog. It may take a moment for the PDF to appear in your downloads folder.

    To download all uploaded evidence files at once, navigate to the “Download Metrics” button at the top right of the TPG ESG Metric Catalog and select “Download Evidence File (.ZIP)”. This will prompt the creation of a ZIP file which will be emailed to you for download.

    Analytics

    Analytics synthesizes the data stored in pulsESG into meaningful visualizations that help drive strategic decisions about your ESG performance management. 

    If you have responded to TPG’s ESG surveys in prior years, the visualization present in your pulsESG environment, found on the card titled “Trend Report” allows you to view your historical responses to TPG’s ESG surveys over time in one consolidated table.

    Calculators

    pulsESG’s GHG calculators allow you to  take a measure of your Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions. This tool may be helpful to you in understanding the outline of your carbon footprint. However, any output from this tool does not constitute data reportable to TPG at this juncture, nor is it recommended as a source of reportable data to third parties.

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