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Sustainability Practices of Venture Capitalists: Private and Public Venture Capital

par Orgun Senel, Asli Irem
Président du jury Cincera, Michele
Promoteur Witmeur, Olivier
Co-Promoteur Behrens, Judith
Publication Non publié, 2026-02-09

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

This thesis explores the sustainability practices of venture capital (VC) funds and identifies configurations of VC funding that are associated with the sustainable growth of entrepreneurial companies. The research questions are: (1) What are the sustainability practices of venture capitalists? (2) How does the selective adoption of sustainability practices determine the sustainability orientation of public and private VCs? (3) Which combinations of VC funding lead to sustainable growth or asset growth? The analysis is structured across two conceptual levels: the first focuses on the sustainability practices adopted by public and private VCs, while the second investigates how these practices influence the sustainability performance of entrepreneurial companies. Chapter 1 conducts a systematic literature review using the PRISMA protocol on 80 articles, synthesising the sustainability practices of VCs across three domains: product and service offerings, organisational foundations, and the use of sustainability information. This study identifies gaps in the theoretical framework of sustainable venture capital and establishes a conceptual foundation for subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 employs a multiple-case design based on 40 semi-structured interviews with portfolio and sustainability managers. It develops a sustainable VC typology based on seven sustainability practices, including qualifying, disqualifying, compromising, training, supervising, disclosing, and networking, which are clustered under the pillars of selecting entrepreneurial ventures, stimulating and steering the sustainability efforts of portfolio companies, and signalling these efforts to stakeholders. Findings distinguish between sustainability-neutral, sustainability-promoting, and sustainability-prioritising orientations, highlighting how public and private VCs differ in the adoption of these practices. Chapter 3 applies fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to a longitudinal dataset of 74 Belgian entrepreneurial companies. It demonstrates that sustainable growth emerges from hybrid VC governance configurations, where public VCs contribute patient capital and ESG monitoring, while private VCs exercise board-level control. These hybrid funding configurations enable improvements in the sustainability performance of entrepreneurial companies, whereas asset growth can result from either public governance or private capital-led models. In this chapter, we also offer an assessment method for measuring the sustainability performance of entrepreneurial companies.