Your stakeholders – from investors to employees – expect you to create value through a sustainable business model, operations and aligned financial and sustainability performance. Today, your company is expected to factor in your impact on the environment and society in your strategy and business decisions.
That makes your ESG efforts crucial to your company’s long-term value creation and growth. We believe that sustainable business and company growth go hand in hand and this approach is the only way to build a successful and future-proof business with a lasting positive impact not only on corporate financials but also on our environment and society.
ESG – short for Environmental, Social and Governance – is a collective term for business models and sustainability performance aiming to create positive results for business, environment, and society.
We help you integrate sustainability into your value creation and processes
We support you in developing an ESG-driven strategy and business model that supports your business growth objectives, while considering the competitive environment, your stakeholders and society more broadly.
Our services for developing ESG-driven strategy and business model
- ESG maturity assessments. We work with you to understand ESG trends and drivers that impact your business and benchmark your ESG maturity against industry best practice, customer, and capital market expectations, and growing ESG regulations.
- Materiality assessments. We help you to conduct a double-materiality assessment which identifies your material sustainability-related impacts, risks and opportunities to steer your ESG work and prioritizations.
- Setting targets and measuring progress. We work with you to set vision and targets for your actions up to the year 2030 and beyond with interim targets and KPIs for measuring progress towards your vision.
- ESG strategy. We support you with developing a long-term value creating sustainability strategy that builds competitive advantage, while mitigating your ESG risks.
- New products and services. We support with assessing value creation opportunities via new products and services and assess and access sustainable finance through green and sustainability-linked funding options.
- Governance. We work with you to define a robust governance with roles and responsibilities, reporting, and sustainability-driven incentive schemes.
- Other assessments. We help you to conduct cost-benefit assessment of actions and reaching set targets.
A strategy is of no use if you are not able to implement it. KPMG is an ESG implementation advisor that supports you to embed ESG into your business processes across business units and functions. We help you with ESG in transactions, IPOs and capital raising, in developing and upholding a sustainable value chain, in understanding and managing human rights risk, and integration of sustainability risks into enterprise risk management. We also help you to assess climate change and biodiversity related opportunities and risks as well as designing your decarbonization road map.
Our services for implementing ESG-driven strategies and processes
- Governance. We help you to organize your ESG governance and resourcing.
- Policies. We support you with developing a Code of Conduct, Supplier Code of Conduct and other policies.
- Process integration. We help you to integrate ESG in the key business processes like R&D, procurement, production, logistics and sales processes. Integrating ESG into financing, mergers and acquisitions, enterprise risk management and investor relations processes is crucial.
- Action plans. We work with you to analyze your climate-related risks and opportunities and establish a zero-carbon action plan as well as a biodiversity positive action plan and an action plan on circular economy solutions.
- Decarbonization strategy and roadmap. We help companies develop a decarbonization strategy and roadmap, ultimately transforming the organization to capture decarbonization opportunities. Our decarbonization journey support consists of three phases: diagnose, strategize, and transform. These phases cover multiple steps, from greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory and benchmarking to financial impact assessment, roadmap development, and KPIs.
- ESG regulation master plan. We help you to assess business against the EU Taxonomy, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and TCFD-aligned reporting, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Greenwashing regulation, and other regulations, for example in a holistic ESG regulation master plan for your company.
- EU Green Deal and other possibilities. We support you with acting on various requirements and possibilities of the EU Green Deal and the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan.
- Supply chain risks. We help you to measure, monitor and manage the risks across your supply chain. That enables you to prioritize and engage your suppliers to take the necessary action. We will review your procurement activities to support your ambition.
- Human rights due diligence. We support in all steps of human rights due diligence: commitment, policy, risk, and impact assessments, tracking performance, grievance mechanisms, remedy, communications, training & capacity building.
- Diversity programs. We help you to establish diversity programs, set goals and ambition, develop execution strategies, and put in place an effective management framework for monitoring and measurement.
Monitoring progress in achieving your ESG targets is crucial for understanding whether the actions you are implementing are well-timed, effective, and sufficient. Measuring and managing ESG and related financial data, technologies that help you collect, aggregate and report ESG information; controls and internal reporting are all needed for success.
Our services for managing and monitoring ESG data using technology solutions
- Digitalization. We help you to move beyond manual solutions by digitalizing ESG processes and operations from front to back office.
- Maintaining trustworthy sustainability information. We help you to solidify the architecture of the solutions required to maintain trustworthy sustainability information.
- Data integration. We help with integrating financial and non-financial information.
- Interactive ESG dashboards. We help you to build interactive ESG dashboards and other management tools so that you can deliver the information to your board and audit committee that they need.
- Technology agnostic solutions. As a technology agnostic sustainability professionals' firm, we help you choose the best solutions for you. You can implement your system of choice, for example we are Microsoft Leaders, ServiceNow Partners, Workiva Partners, Workday, as well as SailPoint, Coupa and SAP partners, to name a few.
- Internal Audit support. We support your Internal Audit function with ESG related technical, functional, and regulatory considerations.
Stakeholders – from investors and lenders to customers and regulators – are putting your ESG metrics and disclosures under increasing scrutiny. They want access to credible, verifiable, and comparable ESG metrics so that they can make decisions on areas that matter most to them.
Our services for developing ESG reporting
- ESG Reporting. We help your organization to prepare good quality ESG reporting based on regulatory requirements and create value through reporting.
- Sustainability reports. We help you to publish transparent and informative sustainability reports focusing on the most material topics, for example in alignment with the Global Reporting Initiative GRI, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board SASB, International Sustainability Standards Board's ISSB, Dow Jones Sustainability Indices DJSI, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures TCFD, and CDP reporting frameworks and initiatives as well as EU-level regulation on sustainability reporting and materiality assessments such as Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive CSRD, and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation SFDR.
- Fulfilling requirements. We support with understanding CSRD and ESRS, the EU Taxonomy, TCFD and TNFD requirements, analyze gaps in your current disclosures with regards to these and plan and implement actions to fulfil requirements and reach the ambition level that you strive for.
- Managing and modelling ESG data. We help your organization to collect, analyze and manage ESG data by using digitalization and technology solutions that fit your data architecture and overall system needs. We'll support with improving controls, processes, and quality of ESG data, and raising ratings.
- Reporting operating model. We help you to develop a reporting operating model which also considers the reporting services model, people, and financials in addition to data and system aspects.
- Assurance and reporting maturity assessments. We help your organization to check your reporting maturity by providing test assurance on reported indicators and texts and, when you are ready, a limited assurance or reasonable assurance on your disclosures related to annual sustainability reporting, Management Reports, sustainable bond reports, sustainability-linked loan reports, Principles for Responsible Banking, Principles for Responsible Investment, Principles for Sustainable Insurance reports or other.
Our services for sustainability assurance under the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive)
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) drives alignment of financial and ESG reporting in terms of auditability, contents, and timing. Sustainability reporting in accordance with the CSRD and assurance thereof will gradually become mandatory; for main listed and PIE companies with over 500 employees from the financial year 2024, for other large companies in 2025 and for remaining listed companies in 2026.
Sustainability reporting under the CSRD must be prepared and assured in the same time frame as the financial statements, with the assurance report signed by the company's financial auditor. We deliver CSRD related services to our audit clients with a combination of ESG advisory and financial audit expertise. Examples include commenting on your double materiality assessment and CSRD gap analysis and performing (test) assurance.
We can also assist you for example, partly as an element of the financial audit, as follows:
- Going through the Financial Supervisory Authority’s questions on CSRD preparedness together with your contact persons.
- Commenting on your plans and actions for being CSRD ready.
- Planning for assurance and how it will be implemented in practice including preparatory measures, scope, and schedule.
- Performing limited assurance, and later reasonable assurance, on your reporting under the CSRD.
Financial market participants are increasingly integrating ESG factors in their policies, processes, and finance decisions.
Our services for financing transformation with sustainable finance
We offer services across ESG in investment and asset management; ESG in insurance; ESG in banking; ESG in private equity; ESG in public finance; and ESG in corporate finance:
- Factoring in ESG in investment strategy, reporting, assurance, risk and due diligence and tax - we offer services across the ESG journey of institutional investors and asset managers.
- ESG solutions across insurance businesses’ product development, underwriting, reinsurance, asset management, distribution, claims management, climate modelling, data and technology, risk management and people and culture.
- Banks' ESG rules and structures that support them in embedding ESG in their risk frameworks, reach public net zero commitments, help fulfil regulatory expectations and assist in achieving a just transition for their stakeholders.
- ESG based value creation in Private Equity, creating and handling ESG impact in funds and helping transform existing funds to meet the increasing investor and regulatory demand.
- Support for sourcing public finance to 'green' projects including the incorporation of private finance alongside public finance.
- Support corporates to understand the ESG expectations of investors and lenders, achieve and disclose relevant ESG performance, respond to relevant ESG ratings, design sustainable financing frameworks, benefit from sustainable finance products and mechanisms for financing their value creation, and manage their investor and lender relations.
In today's landscape, tax and legal considerations have become key factors in driving the sustainability and ESG agenda. With growing ESG expectations from the public, investors and other stakeholders, there has been a corresponding increase in ESG-focused regulations. As the field of ESG is subject to constantly evolving multi-level regulations, keeping pace with, and navigating in this complex regulatory environment requires a proactive approach.
Our services for managing ESG related tax and legal matters
We deliver many of our ESG services described with a combination of advisory and tax and legal expertise. Examples include good corporate governance and ESG disclosures, sustainable contracting and procurement, sustainable finance and asset/fund management, and circular economy solutions.
We also assist you with services within the following areas:
- ESG tax governance, transparency, and benchmarking
- EU Green Deal advisory on tax and regulatory matters (e.g. Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism)
- EU incentives, subsidies, and grants applications
- Environmental taxes (e.g. plastic taxes)
- International fair tax advisory (e.g. BEPS 2.0 and country-by-country reporting)
- Managing ESG legal risks and litigation
- ESG regulatory monitoring
- Inclusive and sustainable work
- ESG-driven rewarding programs
- Legal due diligence
- Real estate development and environmental compliance
In addition to individual engagements, you may also entrust us to provide Managed services, such that you can outsource tasks which are most effectively taken care of by our professionals on a recurring or continuous basis, while freeing up your own resources for non-outsourceable tasks.
Our dedicated team of ESG experts consists of hundreds of advisory, audit, tax and legal services professionals who help create a strategic approach to ESG that is aligned with your organization's business goals. Thanks to our versatile capabilities, we can support your ESG journey at every step.
Contact us
Anu Muurinen
ESG Lead
Tomas Otterström
ESG Advisory Services Lead
Sanna Laaksonen
ESG Tax