Investing within planetary boundaries

Advancing biodiversity, climate and social equality

When we formalised our impact investing strategy, the need for focus became clear. As Guus explains: ‘To create real impact, we decided to concentrate our capital and capabilities on three connected challenges: biodiversity, climate and social equality.’       

Biodiversity has become equally urgent. Healthy ecosystems underpin food systems, supply chains and human wellbeing. By investing in biodiversity-positive solutions, we aim to safeguard these foundations.

Climate has long been part of VP Capital’s investment approach. Even before impact investing became more widely established, we were investing in climate resilience and decarbonisation – a commitment we continue to build on today.

Social equality is closely connected to these environmental transitions and forms an equally important pillar of our strategy. Rooted in the family’s history, social responsibility has guided us for generations – from HAVEP’s early employee policies to today’s strong Fair Wear performance across VP Textile.

The focus on social equality is strongly embraced by the sixth generation. As one of the next-generation family members reflected: ‘As I grow older, I become increasingly aware of how unequally opportunities are still distributed in our world. That realisation stays with me. It is why I believe it’s so important that VP Capital actively prioritises and contributes to advancing social equality.’

This commitment extends beyond the business itself. In 2025, the Annetje van Puijenbroek Foundation (Stichting Annetje) marked its tenth anniversary, celebrating a decade of support for local initiatives in Goirle and Hilvarenbeek. As Chair Annemiek van Puijenbroek explains: ‘Impact starts close to home. By supporting people and initiatives in our own communities, we can make a real and lasting difference.’

At VP Capital, impact investing means building on our past while making choices that contribute to a fairer, more resilient future.

Turning challenges into scalable solutions

How do we translate complex global challenges into clear investment choices? It starts with recognising that today’s environmental and social issues are deeply interconnected and cannot be addressed in isolation. That’s why we use a Theory of Change to bring focus and coherence to our strategy – linking challenges, interventions and outcomes in a structured way.

We concentrate on three systemic challenges: biodiversity, climate and social equality. To address them, we’ve defined six solutions that guide our investments: regenerative, net zero, bio-based, circular, toxicity-free and inclusive approaches.

To translate our strategy into practice, we focus our impact efforts across three interconnected levels: organisational impact, capital impact and investor impact.

We also deepened our understanding of the systems behind the transitions we invest in: exploring how interdependencies function, where leverage points lie, and what role we can most effectively play. As Guus puts it: ‘This year, we’ve taken time to look at the bigger system. We’re exploring approaches such as system mapping and systemic investing, as well as new structures like poly-capital, to understand how they can strengthen our impact. It’s exploratory, and we’re actively learning from others along the way, but it’s essential to sharpening our long-term strategy.’

Building momentum in our venture strategy

In 2025, we continued to operationalise our focused venture strategy. Entering its second year, our rationale remained clear: many of the innovations needed to address today’s social and environmental challenges still face significant funding gaps. That’s where we can add catalytic value, helping promising ventures move from early innovation to scalable impact.

As a family office, we act as a long-term partner, providing stability and continuity. With capital stewarded across generations, we prioritise lasting value, responsible growth and positive societal impact alongside financial returns.

Over the past year, we have made solid progress on this new strategy. We built a dedicated venture team, expanded our portfolio with new ventures, and further improved our impact screening and measurement approach across our venture investments. These steps have strengthened both our investment decisions and our insight into venture-level impact.

As our strategy continued to evolve, we recognised the need for additional expertise. Alongside team expansion, we strengthened our outside-in perspective by asking Miriam Niessen, an investment professional with international experience, to join the Investment Committee at VP Capital. At DOEN Ventures, she focuses on early-stage ventures that combine strong entrepreneurship with social and environmental impact.

Reflecting on her role, Miriam notes ‘The early years of startups are often the hardest, as they are dealing with circumstances such as negative cash flows or pivots. That is precisely why patient capital, such as VP Capital’s, is so important. Venture and impact creation operate on long time horizons, and neither of them can be rushed without destroying value. Family offices like VP Capital are uniquely positioned to partner with founders for the long term, reinforcing mission integrity and enabling genuine system change.’

‘As a member of the Investment Committee, I can contribute to this mission of durable impact. I am particularly interested in ventures that challenge existing non-impactful economic models.’