PEI Group's annual London forum on ESG integration, regulatory compliance, and decarbonisation for private markets practitioners across Europe.
The Responsible Investment Forum: Europe is the leading annual gathering for ESG and sustainability practitioners in European private markets. Organised by PEI Group in partnership with the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), it brings together fund managers, institutional investors, and advisors to examine how sustainability obligations are being translated into investment strategy, portfolio company engagement, and regulatory reporting. The forum sits at the intersection of conviction and compliance: attending firms are those with active ESG programmes under pressure to demonstrate measurable results.
The regulatory stack governing European private market managers has shifted from voluntary to mandatory over a short period. The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) requires fund-level classification and pre-contractual disclosures, with SFDR 2.0 reforms reshaping how Article 8 and Article 9 categorisations are applied. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) extends double-materiality reporting requirements down to portfolio companies above certain size thresholds, creating new data collection obligations for GPs at the portfolio level.
The Private Markets Decarbonisation Roadmap (PMDR), developed by Initiative Climat International (iCI) and now in its second version (released November 2024), has become the de facto methodology for PE firms mapping a net zero trajectory. PMDR 2.0 addresses asset-class-specific considerations for growth equity, venture capital, and real assets. For fund managers, implementation means establishing baseline emissions data, setting interim targets, and engaging portfolio companies on reduction plans, none of which has straightforward operational precedent in private markets.
LP pressure reinforces the regulatory direction. Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and insurance groups allocating to private markets increasingly require GPs to demonstrate ESG integration capacity, with due diligence questionnaires, annual reporting templates, and co-signatory commitments to frameworks such as the ESG Data Convergence Initiative (EDCI) now standard expectations in fundraising conversations.
The forum draws 600-plus senior practitioners from across European private markets, with over 200 institutional investors represented. Attendee profiles include:
Qualifying institutional investors may apply for complimentary passes subject to organiser approval. The 2025 edition represented over $11 trillion in LP and allocator capital.
The two-day agenda is structured around practical implementation rather than policy overview. Recurring themes across recent editions include:
The Private Markets Decarbonisation Roadmap is a methodology developed by Initiative Climat International to help private equity and other private market managers set and track net zero commitments at the portfolio level. It matters for this forum because it addresses a gap that general climate frameworks such as SBTi do not fill: private companies lack the publicly audited emissions data that listed-company frameworks assume. PMDR 2.0 (released November 2024) extended the methodology to cover growth equity, venture capital, and real estate. For attending firms, the forum provides peer benchmarking on where implementation stands across the industry and what LP expectations now look like in practice.
Both, which is what makes the format work. GPs bring implementation questions: how to collect portfolio company data, how to frame internal alignment around ESG, how to respond to LP DDQs. LPs bring evaluation questions: how to assess GP ESG capacity during due diligence, what reporting standards are now realistic to require, and how to interpret PMDR or EDCI adoption as quality signals. The two sides need each other in the room, and the forum programme is structured to give both substantive content.
These are distinct events with overlapping subject matter but different scope. RI Europe (also organised by PEI Group under its Responsible Investor brand) is a broader conference covering responsible investment across all asset classes, including public markets, fixed income, and multi-asset portfolios. The Responsible Investment Forum: Europe is private markets-specific, covering private equity, private debt, infrastructure, and real assets exclusively. Practitioners in private markets attend both, but RIF Europe offers more depth on the operational and regulatory challenges specific to illiquid, private company portfolios.
If your firm has no active ESG programme, no LP pressure on sustainability reporting, and no plans to engage with SFDR, PMDR, or EDCI frameworks, the content will not be actionable. The forum is designed for practitioners managing or building ESG functions, not for firms beginning to evaluate whether ESG is relevant to their strategy. It is also not a deal-sourcing event: the networking is oriented toward peer exchange and LP-GP dialogue on sustainability, not pipeline.
PEI Group is a London-based financial media and events company covering private equity, private debt, real assets, and infrastructure. Its event portfolio includes the PEI Awards, the PERE Forum, and a suite of sector-specific summits across Europe, North America, and Asia. The Responsible Investor brand, part of PEI Group, is dedicated to ESG and sustainable finance coverage across institutional asset management.
The Responsible Investment Forum: Europe is co-hosted with specialist publications in PEI Group's portfolio covering infrastructure, private debt, and private equity. PRI co-organisation gives the event standing within the institutional responsible investment community. Bain and Company, Kirkland and Ellis, and other professional services firms have participated as knowledge partners in recent editions.
The debate that animated early editions of this forum, whether ESG creates value or imposes cost, has been largely set aside. Regulatory compliance is no longer a choice for European fund managers: SFDR disclosures are mandatory, CSRD extends to portfolio companies, and LP due diligence now treats ESG infrastructure as a baseline requirement rather than a differentiator. The result is that RIF Europe has shifted from a conviction-building event to a compliance clinic. That is not a criticism: the operational complexity of ESG reporting in private markets is genuinely high, and peer benchmarking on methodology is valuable when no single standard yet dominates. But attending firms should expect sessions calibrated for practitioners managing existing programmes under LP scrutiny, not for those still deciding whether to commit.
Registration is available via the official event website at peievents.com. Qualifying institutional investors, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, foundations, insurers, and family offices, may apply for complimentary passes subject to organiser review and approval. Commercial rates for fund managers and service providers are not disclosed as of verification; requests should be directed to the PEI events team via the website contact form.
Qualifying institutional investors may apply for complimentary passes. Eligibility is assessed by the organiser and typically covers pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, foundations, insurance companies, and family offices allocating across private markets. Applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis; acceptance is not automatic.
The 2026 edition is held at Convene 155 Bishopsgate in the City of London, a purpose-built conference venue near Liverpool Street station. The venue was also used for the 2025 edition and is accessible by underground (Central, Circle, Metropolitan, Hammersmith and City lines) and national rail.
Yes. PEI Group runs a sister event, the Responsible Investment Forum: New York, typically in March of the same year. The two forums share programme logic but address US-specific regulatory contexts, including California climate reporting requirements and SEC ESG disclosure rules, alongside global frameworks. The European edition focuses on SFDR, CSRD, and EU Taxonomy.
| Official website | https://www.peievents.com/en/event/responsible-investment-forum-europe/ |
| Register | https://www.peievents.com/en/event/responsible-investment-forum-europe/ |
| Programme | not disclosed as of verification |
| IIGCC event listing | https://www.iigcc.org/events/responsible-investment-forum-europe |
| ILPA event listing | https://ilpa.org/industry-event/rif-europe/ |
| 2024 takeaways (Sidley) | https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2024/12/five-key-takeaways-from-the-private-equity-international-responsible-investment-forum-europe-2024 |