News
[Open Letter] Thierry Déau: ”Meridiam – A Force for Good: Balancing Purpose and Profit”
15.12.2022
Since our founding in 2005, Meridiam’s mission has been simple: to operate within the nexus of sustainability and profitability for the long term. Our aim is to deliver competitive financial returns for our investors and critical social impact to the communities in which we develop, build, and maintain our projects. This premise will always be at the core of what we do and has been the driving force of our company’s $18 billion assets under management.
As a mission-driven company, we know that our investments have the power to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges: building resilient communities, tackling climate change, and protecting the environment. For that reason, we are immensely proud to announce that Meridiam has become one of the very few asset managers to receive the B-Corp certification.
The B Corp certification crystalizes our identity and aligns us with other mission-driven entities across the globe in a variety of sectors who are focused on long-term resiliency. Our journey to this moment can be traced back to our inception – a firm founded on the premise of long term, impact investing.
In the years since, we have and continue to act upon this commitment. We were early adopters of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Simpl., our proprietary sustainability impact measurement system, helps us asses how our projects are meeting these targets. We co-founded the Long Term Infrastructure Investors Association (LTIIA) with like-minded investment entities across the globe with the objective of creating a framework for the asset class in 2014. And in 2019, we were among some of the first to receive designation as a mission-driven company under French law.
Looking ahead to next year, we also reflect on the intention we set back in 2005 which has resulted in the global deployment of over $75 billion worth of assets across more than 100 projects. Our presence has touched communities on three continents (Europe, Americas, and Africa) delivering much needed new or upgraded infrastructure investments and creating over 185,000 jobs along the way.
These diverse projects include the Port of Miami Tunnel in Florida where we reduced unnecessary traffic to one the biggest cruise ports in the world, laying the foundation to aid in future development in the local area, and, LaGuardia’s Terminal B in New York where, along with our partners, we upgraded an outdated and overcrowded airport terminal to better serve its current 14 million passengers annually, almost double of what the terminal was intended to serve when built in 1964.
Our Port of Calais project in France was made possible by an innovative contractual framework which prepared the pathway for sustainable, long term growth; our Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Dakar, unprecedented* in Africa, includes the construction, operation and maintenance of a new clean transport network entirely dedicated to 100% electric buses; our waste to renewable energy projects across the globe support innovation and new technology for both small and medium-sized businesses and their local communities as well as large national and cross-border projects. Included among them are the Biokala Mass project in the Ivory Coast and France’s Evergaz biogas project comprising nine strategic regional plants. It’s important to mention our recent NeuConnect project, the first** ever UK-Germany energy link transmission line here as well.
At a time where the efficacy of sustainability investing is being questioned, our experience shows that we don’t have to choose between community impact and returns for investors, they are intertwined.
We encourage others to join us on a mission-driven journey with commitments to both competitive returns and social impact. And there’s no better place to showcase these values- shared with our partners and investors- than pursuing a B Corp certification to memorialize that commitment.
Sources:
** https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/huge-undersea-cables-to-give-uk-germany-first-ever-energy-link.html
