Legence Creates One of North America's Largest ESG Consultancies
Legence, a company owned by Blackstone, announced that it had bought LORD Green Strategies, a leading sustainability consulting firm based in Texas. LORD Green will merge with RE Tech Advisors, an existing Legence company.
This transaction will expand Legence's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) consulting and advising capabilities, assisting customers in meeting their fiduciary and investment objectives while decarbonising their operations and asset portfolios.
With this merger, Legence now owns and runs one of the biggest ESG consulting practices in North America. They do this to meet investors' worldwide demand for ESG services.
Big multinational companies already use Legence to help them meet their ESG goals and move toward a low-carbon economy. The company manages assets worth more than $1.5 trillion. RE Tech Advisors and Lord Green have a wide range of clients, including Invesco, UBS, MetLife Investment Management, Principal Real Estate, and the US Department of Energy.
Today, more than 90% of S&P 500 companies publish ESG reports, and 73% of S&P 500 executives have compensation tied to ESG performance. According to organisations like RMI, market-leading companies are improving their understanding and analytical capabilities related to climate risk. Legence can offer these important services to the biggest companies because it has become a leader in the ESG consulting space.
“Our clients now have access to the deepest pool of expertise in the industry as we transition to a low-carbon economy,” said Deb Cloutier, CSO of Legence and President and Founder of RE Tech Advisors. “By bringing together our teams, we offer a more robust approach to integrated ESG services. We look forward to helping our clients respond to the climate crisis at a much greater scale and speed.”
To date, RE Tech Advisors helped over 100 commercial real estate clients achieve more than $300 million in energy-related cost reductions. By adding the LORD Green team, which has been working on decarbonising the built environment for decades, RE Tech Advisors will be in a great position to lead this new sector. RE Tech will seamlessly integrate LORD Green’s team and expertise into Legence’s portfolio to provide unparalleled solutions for the industry.
“LORD Green Strategies was built on the belief that we could make an authentic impact on commercial real estate sustainability,” said Mychele Lord, President and Founder of LGS. “Combining forces with RE Tech Advisors—a well-respected company and fellow trailblazer in the ESG market—will allow our clients and employees to accelerate their positive impact on our future environment. With this transition, we will provide unmatched expertise in all aspects of the built environment to support a wide range of companies in achieving decarbonisation goals.”
Legence CEO Jeff Sprau said, “As Legence continues to build the first Energy Transition AcceleratorTM organisation, we are proud to welcome this leading firm into our growing legion of companies. The LORD Green team was hand-selected based on their expertise and culture, as well as sharing our vision of delivering energy efficiency and decarbonisation to the built environment. Increasingly, Legence is taking on a central role across the multiple sectors serviced by our teams; thanks to prudent federal policy accelerating our energy transition, we’re confident we will do great things together and in collaboration with our clients".
Source: Legence
