Integrating sustainability as a powerful driver of long-term value creation

ProA Capital is a private equity firm based in Spain which invests in market-leading family-run companies. With more than EUR 2bn assets under management, ProA Capital helps management teams to develop their growth plans through internationalisation and by strengthening or implementing operational improvements.

For ProA Capital, embedding sustainability is at the core of their management practices and they actively empower their portfolio companies to do the same. Each of their portfolio companies must implement a minimum defined set of Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) requirements across a range of elements such as establishing a compliance committee and policies, creating a decarbonisation plan, formalising ESG responsibilities and accountability at board level, achieving selected ISO certifications and putting in place a process for ESG incident reporting. These requirements form a common baseline across ProA Capital’s portfolio companies to ensure effective governance, regulatory readiness and continuous ESG progress.

ProA Capital has established an ESG scoring system which is based on a structured set of quantitative and qualitative indicators and enables year-on-year benchmarking and consistent tracking of progress over time. This framework supports targeted engagement and means that efforts can be focused on areas where ESG maturity is still developing. In addition, ProA Capital’s digital ESG management and reporting platform (Apiday) enables portfolio wide data collection, improves data quality and consistency, and enhances the comparability of ESG performance across companies.

Pantheon has an established relationship with ProA Capital and in 2024, PIN invested alongside ProA Capital in Life Dental Group, which is a dental solutions company based in Spain and operating in over 30 countries. Founded in 2004, and owned by ProA Capital since 2019, Life Dental Group produces and distributes compatible prosthetic abutments for dental implants and related components. As a result, the company operates in a highly regulated healthcare environment where product quality, patient safety and regulatory compliance are critical. With ProA Capital’s help, the company has developed a structured ESG strategy which aims to formalise existing initiatives, strengthen governance and integrate sustainability into its core operations.

Life Dental Group’s 2025-2030 roadmap focuses in particular on resource and waste management; decarbonisation; product excellence and sustainability; regulatory management, and operational efficiency as key levers for long-term value creation. These initiatives are measured through a set of Key Performance Indicators. As a result of the waste reduction measures put in place, 89.92% of the company’s waste has been recovered, reused or recycled. Life Dental Group has implemented a methodology for assessing and measuring its carbon footprint and a baseline has been established to support the assessment and impact of future product lifecycles. In addition, the company has strengthened regulatory oversight and stakeholder management, and their products are covered by certified quality and regulatory management systems specific to medical device regulatory frameworks.

Over the last year, as a result of their commitment to investing responsibly, ProA Capital has achieved a number of significant milestones. They were awarded a 5-star score in the UN PRI Transparency Report, have conducted four strategic ESG sessions, calculated their Scope 3 carbon footprint for the first time, achieved the ISO 27001 information security standard, and completed their second-year ESG verification, which validated the rigour of their sustainability programme.