Private market investors are getting better at disclosing climate risks, but a gap between assessment and day-to-day portfolio management is limiting how useful those disclosures really are, according to a benchmark from London-based climate risk analyst Unwritten.
Nearly 67% of firms now include climate risk assessment in pre-investment due diligence, but only 13% apply the same discipline throughout the full investment lifecycle, from acquisition to exit.
Unwritten’s 2025 Benchmarking Private Market Investor Climate Disclosures reviewed 70 reports across private equity, private debt and real assets.
The shortfall is a structural “implementation gap”, according to the researchers, with many managers still treating climate risk as a box-ticking exercise at entry rather than something that actively shapes portfolio oversight and value creation.
UK managers are leading on reporting frequency, with 64% publishing new, portfolio-specific climate risk results for 2025 — the highest share of any region. North America and Europe each accounted for 18% of firms producing updated annual disclosures, while the Asia Pacific ( Apac) lagged.
Senior-level backing for climate reporting has strengthened in North America, where the share of reports featuring executive committee commentary or a foreword jumped five-fold year on year to 47%, pointing to stronger top-level accountability. UK and European firms, meanwhile, continued to show consistently high levels of senior endorsement, according to the findings.
Scenario analysis is now the main tool for assessing climate risk, with adoption highest in the UK and the Apac, where more than 80% of managers assess both transition and physical risks. Uptake is lower in Europe (69%) and North America (74%), the report showed.
While Scope 1 ( direct emissions from owned operations), Scope 2 ( emissions from purchased energy) and Scope 3 ( indirect emissions across value chain) emissions disclosure is now close to universal in private markets, nature and biodiversity reporting remains underdeveloped. Although 36% of managers reference biodiversity risk assessment, 14% disclose fund-wide results, with most relying on high-level qualitative commentary.
UK leads private market climate disclosures amid regulatory push
In the UK, FCA climate reporting rules appear to be pushing firms away from standalone climate reports towards more technical climate sections within broader sustainability reports. This contrasted with North America, where standalone climate reporting is becoming more common, shared the researchers.
The report concluded that growing investor demand for comparability and credibility is speeding up adoption of shared net-zero alignment frameworks, particularly the Private Markets Decarbonisation Roadmap. However, it warned that disclosure quality will remain limited unless climate insights are more consistently embedded into portfolio management decisions.
Alex Spencer, MD, Unwritten, said: “Our interrogation of the data vintage being used by GPs in their latest reporting found that only 38% of European funds refreshed their climate risk data with the latest inputs from portfolio companies. This is in direct contrast to UK GPs, where almost two thirds of funds actively refreshed their data and models in 2025 to ensure they provided LPs with the most contemporary view.
Over the next two years, leading European private market managers will appeal to prospective LPs in disclosure by highlighting how their portfolio company initiatives are deepening competitive advantage through greater climate resilience””
