KPMG reports progress on ESG commitments

Advancements on commitments towards net zero by 2030
The creation and introduction of our new Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (IDE) Collective Action Plan
New commitments to support education and economic empowerment

Wednesday 23 March 2022: KPMG International today published an update of its progress towards a broad set of ESG commitments, first published in 2021. KPMG: Our Impact Plan outlines how the entire global organization is coming together to support improvements across four pillars: Planet, People, Prosperity and Governance. Our Impact Plan catalogues the most recent data from across the global organization and charts the progress made against the World Economic Forum (WEF) International Business Council (IBC) metrics, which KPMG played a fundamental role in shaping.

As the world faces one of the most significant periods of unrest for a generation, more than ever, we are acutely aware of our responsibility to support our people, clients and societies to work together to secure a better, sustainable, more united future. KPMG was among the first in our profession to publicly catalogue our ESG commitments and report against them. As we face ever-increasing challenges in the world, we know we must hold ourselves accountable for the decisions we make which will help shape the future. That is why we are publishing our progress today and will continue to work with stakeholders, colleagues and clients to support the positive changes we need to see in the world.

Bill Thomas

Global Chairman & CEO,

KPMG International

KPMG: Our Impact Plan reaffirms our long-standing adherence to the United Nations (UN) Global Compact Principles, a commitment we will continue to strengthen and report on openly. Some of the highlights of this year’s update include:

Planet: We’re implementing sustainable and equitable practices within our global organization by evaluating our supply chain and creating science-based transition plans so we can move to net zero in a fair and just way. As part of our commitment to be net zero by 2030, we set an Internal Carbon Price (ICP) that will help us measure and account for our carbon impact. We also committed to a 1.5°C Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) with a target of 50 percent emissions reduction by 2030. Our renewable electricity usage across the global organization increased to 74 percent, up from 56 percent in 2020.
People: We created and introduced KPMG’s Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (IDE) Collective Action Plan throughout the global organization. We’re taking important steps toward gender diversity, with females representing 48.4 percent of our people, and it’s our intention for women to fill more than one-third of our leadership roles by 2025. We’ve made a commitment to the health and well-being of our people through initiatives that support their physical and mental health, and invested in our own digital transformation by enhancing learning pathways that upskill our talent in areas such as technology and ESG.
Prosperity: We announced last year a multi-billion-dollar investment to embed ESG into everything we do — enhancing our already robust tools and services to help accelerate our clients’ ESG journeys. Part of this investment will be used to build ESG hubs on multiple continents and create ESG accelerators to spur investment and innovation in emerging markets. We’re also training our more than 236,000 people to become agents of positive change and assisting clients on three pillars of opportunity: ESG transformation, ESG reporting and ESG assurance. We continue to work alongside organizations to make significant contributions toward the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) — including our work with UNESCO to help economically empower 10 million disadvantaged young people between now and 2030.
Governance: Our work with the WEF, to set the IBC metrics for ESG reporting is one example of how we’re using our experience and knowledge to help shape the future of sustainable business. We’ve accepted roles at the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the Taskforce for Nature-related Disclosures (TNFD). This work is part of the wider role we believe we must play to support the development of consistent and credible information on sustainability matters, including supporting the newly formed International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

In advancing Our Impact Plan, we aim to focus on the issues that are most important to our people, central to our business and where we can make the biggest difference. We're responding to events that are reshaping our world and taking actions that are core to the sustainable future of our people, clients and communities. Our Impact Plan not only highlights what we stand for as a global organization, it also provides a clear ESG roadmap for the organization and shows us, and our stakeholders, if we are on track.

Jane Lawrie

Global Head of Corporate Affairs,

KPMG International

It’s incumbent upon business, political and civic leaders to tackle the challenges that impact the future of our planet and threaten our quality of life, now and for future generations. We are wholeheartedly committed to supporting the responsible transformation of organizations — including our own — and encourage one and all to face what seems like an overwhelming challenge with positivity and a sense of collective responsibility.

Richard Threlfall

Global Head of Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare (IGH),

KPMG International

About KPMG International

KPMG is a global organization of independent professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. KPMG is the brand under which the member firms of KPMG International Limited (“KPMG International”) operate and provide professional services. “KPMG” is used to refer to individual member firms within the KPMG organization or to one or more member firms collectively.

KPMG firms operate in 145 countries and territories with more than 236,000 partners and employees working in member firms around the world. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. Each KPMG member firm is responsible for its own obligations and liabilities.

KPMG International Limited is a private English company limited by guarantee. KPMG International Limited and its related entities do not provide services to clients.

For more detail about our structure, please visit kpmg.com/governance.

Our Impact Plan represents the collective environmental, social and governance commitments of independent KPMG firms, affiliated with KPMG International Limited. The data represented in Our Impact Plan is aggregated data from KPMG firms for the 12 months to 30 September 2021 unless stated otherwise.

Throughout this press release, “we”, “KPMG”, “us” and “our” refers to the global organization or to one or more of the member firms of KPMG International Limited (“KPMG International”), each of which is a separate legal entity.