SEIVA : from ESG Signal
to Impact on Valuation

When ESG
becomes a concrete
valuation tool for
SMEs and mid-caps

ESG-T (Environment, Social, Governance, Territory) and financial valuation: two worlds that still rarely speak to each other. Convinced that a company’s extra-financial performance directly influences its long-term value, Épopée Gestion developed SEIVA — a tool to objectify this link, raise awareness among executives and drive them to action. Now at the heart of the relationship between investment teams and portfolio company executives, the SEIVA tool was born from a collaboration with HEC Paris.

Three cross-cutting perspectives to understand how it integrates concretely into the life of a portfolio company.

SEIVA: a tool developed with HEC Paris

Like the sap that nourishes a tree and allows it to grow from within, SEIVA is the tool developed by Épopée Gestion to integrate ESG issues at the heart of its portfolio companies’ valuation.

Designed in collaboration with HEC Paris, it identifies the ESG risks and opportunities likely to affect each company’s financial indicators and measures the potential impact on valuation — at the time of entry, throughout the holding period, and at exit.

SEIVA is not a rating tool. It is a tool for driving action: it helps executives concretely visualise the cost of inaction and the benefits of action, in order to build more solid, more resilient companies that create lasting value.

“Helping companies here and now, not in 10 years”

Anne Frisch

Associate Professor at HEC Paris

“I am delighted that the ergonomic and simple tool developed by Zoé with an HEC student is being used by Épopée Gestion’s investment directors to integrate ESG performance into the valuation of their portfolio companies. This is very much in the spirit of the HEC Sustainability Track: we want to help companies and funds put in place methods and tools that integrate sustainability and ESG into their processes. Here and now, not in 10 years.”

ESG: a resilience challenge, not just a compliance one

Zoé Ormières-Selves

ESG Director at Épopée Gestion

It is about helping executives identify risks and opportunities, structure their transformation paths, and translate these changes into their business strategy.

ESG issues are playing an increasingly prominent role in investment processes. In 2024, one third of investors were already integrating them into their valuation analysis. In listed markets, a correlation has even been observed between ESG performance and financial performance. Épopée Gestion did not wait to act: convinced of this link, the asset manager wanted to go further and make it concrete.

Épopée Gestion’s ambition is clear: to directly link extra-financial performance to the economic fundamentals of companies. These impacts can materialise across several financial indicators:

  • Revenue (through access to new, demanding markets and clients, or conversely, loss of commercial competitiveness);
  • Costs, through better management of energy, water, raw materials and waste;
  • Accessible grants and subsidies, or conversely, fines for non-compliance;
  • The ability to attract and retain talent, employee engagement and the employer brand.

Better extra-financial performance also helps reduce operational risks. A company that integrates ESG-T issues (Environment, Social, Governance, Territory) will be more resilient in the face of current challenges — geopolitical tensions, resource dependencies, transition challenges — and better positioned to create lasting value and employment in its territory.

ESG often has little place in valuation discussions. At a time when CSR is facing a backlash, it is more important than ever to move forward pragmatically. Because this is not merely a regulatory matter: it is a genuine resilience challenge. Our role is not limited to analysing these transformations. As an investor, we also have a responsibility to support and drive action.

Eager to objectify the value creation resulting from taking ESG factors into account, Épopée Gestion developed a simple tool designed to identify and evaluate the impact of these issues on a company’s valuation. The methodology had to be applicable to both SMEs and mid-caps, usable at entry and exit, and favour a qualitative rather than quantitative approach, consistent with the ESG indicators defined with each portfolio company and adapted to their business model.

Initiated in 2023 with the establishment of an internal working group, then developed in 2025 as part of a collaboration with the AFM Master’s programme at HEC Paris, the tool was named “SEIVA, from ESG Signal to Impact on VAluation”. It is based on the following steps:

  • Identify the key ESG issues relevant to the company (risks or opportunities) and the financial indicators likely to be affected: revenues, investments, operating costs, access to financing…
  • Assess the probability and intensity of each issue to determine a materiality score from 1 to 4, ranging from a low-probability, minor issue to a determining and imminent one.
  • Evaluate the company’s maturity in addressing each issue, on a scale of 1 to 4: from the company that has not yet become aware of the risk or opportunity, to one that has put in place robust strategies enabling effective and continuous management.
  • Cross-reference materiality and maturity to calculate the potential discount or premium at a given point in time, then estimate the achievable discount or premium against a concrete action plan.

The resulting matrix, shared with executives, serves as an effective mobilisation lever: a well-managed risk can then become neutral, or even turn into an opportunity. Beyond the holding period, typically four to six years, the objective is to assess the company’s capacity to create value over the long term — over the next twenty or thirty years — and to become a champion in its territory.

Initially tested on a few portfolio companies, the tool is now being rolled out more widely, in close collaboration with investment directors.

SEIVA in practice:
identifying and assessing
the impact of ESG on
company valuation

An Investment Director’s Perspective

“Our tool makes ESG strategic and useful for our executives.”

Yoann Malys,

Investment Director at Épopée Gestion

  • From your perspective as an investment director, what is the primary purpose of the SEIVA tool?

    By establishing the link between ESG and valuation, SEIVA makes the subject strategic and tangible for executives. It bridges the gap between standards and business: it objectively demonstrates to them that action can create value, while inaction can destroy it. Most of them sense this intuitively; this tool helps them fully grasp it.

  • Concretely, how do you use it?

    It is the best way to create lasting value for the companies we support. From the very start of the relationship with the portfolio company, the tool provides a snapshot of the ESG situation that can be continuously updated. Ultimately, the goal is to use it at each valuation update — like a sextant: once a year, to alert the executive if needed.

    At the time of a sale, it also allows us to prepare an ESG vendor due diligence (VDD), still rare among SMEs but increasingly expected by buyers.

  • Are companies inclined to follow the recommendations from the analysis?

    These recommendations are part of the support we provide to all our executives. We practise a benevolent governance that encourages them to listen to us, especially since they often lack the resources and time. When we do not ourselves have the necessary expertise, we help them identify the skills available in their territory. As shareholders, the executives’ interest in the valuation of their company is aligned with ours… and with that of our investors. Moreover, working on ESG topics generally generates strong employee buy-in.