

We believe that ESG makes businesses better. Your company is facing pressures from investors, regulators, shareholders, customers and employees to transform your business with an environmental, social and governance (ESG) lens on all you do. What and how to execute on ESG can be complex and confusing given the number of standards and approaches. ESG is no longer a siloed concept but is something that needs to be embedded in a company’s entire strategy and operations. This is where KPMG IMPACT can help.
KPMG IMPACT helps achieve your ESG imperatives. It is a holistic ESG solution that paves a clear path to purpose-led, sustainable business to build resilience and drive profitable and measurable growth. Our extensive services and capabilities focus on key ESG themes, such as sustainable finance, climate change and reporting, with a wide range of data-driven solutions, technology tools and deep industry experience to navigate and simplify the complexities of every stage of your ESG journey.
Meeting you wherever you are on your ESG journey, our holistic solution provides insights on priority ESG issues, an integrated framework to advance your organization’s ESG progress and data-driven solutions and industry-led experience tailored to your needs.
The first step in an ESG journey is to level set and develop your strategy. Begin by understanding and anticipating stakeholder expectations, identifying issues and assessing gaps, risks and opportunities. Then, integrate ESG into business strategy, develop mitigation/enhancement plans and ESG policies.
To embed ESG into the operating model, it’s necessary to understand requirements for workforce, supply chain, operations, controls, technology, infrastructure, and governance, which play a part in achieving your ESG goals. Then, you’ll execute operational plans and track results.
To measure progress and tell your ESG story, first understand the different standards, metrics and ratings frameworks. Then, develop capabilities to measure the ROI of your ESG initiatives and provide accurate and fit-for-purpose disclosures and reporting.
Transaction events such as mergers, acquisitions, funding, alliances and partnerships all have ESG implications. You’ll need to understand ESG risks and opportunities across the transaction lifecycle and resulting impacts on ESG rating, business strategy, culture, reputation, and stakeholders.
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) | The overall umbrella term for corporate ethical responsibility practices, particularly as it pertains to investor relations and expectations |
Decarbonization | The goal of decoupling an organization’s business model from carbon emissions and carbon-dependent energy |
Renewable Energy | An energy source which can be replenished naturally |
Net Zero | A state of operations achieved when the global warming impact (i.e. net emissions of greenhouse gases) across all scopes of an entity is zero |
Carbon Credit | A purchasable unit that represents the offsetting of 1 metric ton of CO2 equivalent |
Carbon Incentives | Carbon pricing and taxes are major policy instruments which leverage a “polluter pays” principle on emitters to internalize the social cost of carbon emissions |
Disclosure Reporting | In the US, ESG disclosures are voluntary, but have quickly become a baseline expectation of investors. This is primarily driven by institutional push from Blackrock, Bloomberg, Fidelity, Vanguard, and others, as well as the growing momentum of voluntary carbon markets. |
GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) | Internationally recognized and broad framework of standards for reporting on sustainability; contains requirements, recommendations, and guidance on more than 900 sustainability topics |
SASB (Sustainable Accounting Standards Board) | A major sustainability framework used by 50 SASB alliance companies, with greater focus on industry-specific reporting standards and financially material issues |
TCFD (Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) | A set of recommendations to assist companies to better understand their carbon footprint and account for climate-related risks in their financial and mainstream disclosures |
GHGP (Greenhouse Gas Protocol) | An internationally credible methodology for calculating Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions which can be used in mandatory and voluntary reporting frameworks |
CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) | A major sustainability framework and scorecard for reporting emissions from 3 primary categories: climate change, water security, and forests |
SBTI (Science-based Targets Initiative) | An initiative that asks companies to set a "carbon neutrality" goal with a framework around the Paris Agreement, the science supporting 1.5 degree of global warming; there are limitations on of the kind of carbon offsets that can be used |