ESG roundtable - GCCs enabling pathways to meet ESG goals

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors are crucial for businesses today, shaping their reputation, risk management, and long-term sustainability. In an increasingly competitive landscape, companies embracing ESG not only mitigates risk, but also secure various stakeholders including investors, customers, and employees.

As international awareness of climate change, social inequalities and ethical business practices increase, businesses are recognising that addressing ESG factors are not only a moral obligation, but also a strategic necessity through the value chain.

To this effect, Global Capability Centres (GCCs) can play a huge role in enabling the pathways to meet ESG goals, as they can leverage their capabilities, to standardise and centralise global operations, policies, procedures, and data to streamline ESG reporting and compliance.

KPMG in India recently organised a roundtable in our Bengaluru office and discussed how Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India today, are well positioned to take on the role of enablers and play a pivotal role in the overall ESG journey of a company.

Key takeaways from the discussion:

GCCs in India should aspire to be centres of excellence (CoEs) for global organisations as they are well poised to drive technology initiatives in the ESG evolution and its governance
As custodians of vast operational and financial data, GCCs can also play a vital role in ensuring accuracy and availability of information for ESG reporting, and beyond
From a technology standpoint, GCC capabilities can be utilised to monitor, adapt, and drive business decisions in line with ESG goals using various types of technologies and data practices

Business colleagues discussing over digital tablet at desk in office

The discussion noted that with many global regulatory authorities prescribing ESG regulations, there exists an immediate need for global companies to report on a broader set of ESG metrics with greater accuracy and transparency.

Lastly, GCCs in India today are extremely proactive when it comes to adopting the ESG agenda, both within their own operations and to support their global offices’ net zero goals. This showcases a big cultural shift towards including ESG as a watermark across an organisation.