Uganda’s Corporate ESG Outlook

With a rapidly changing ESG regulatory environment in Africa and abroad, companies that are not embedding ESG into their integrated strategies are putting their businesses at risk. Where ESG is however embedded, it mitigates current and future business risks, whilst driving value creation, long term sustainability and positive impact for all stakeholders. 

Achieving compliance with the regulatory requirements is crucial for building trust and creating value for stakeholders. However, to some extent the task has been complex and time-consuming for many companies already juggling many layers of corporate reporting.

Given the rapid changing regulatory landscape and varying stakeholder expectations, it is imperative for companies to keep abreast of new developments in their markets including the global markets.

With this study, KPMG Uganda sought to understand how businesses are improving stakeholder value through adoption of ESG considerations in their business model. The survey report summarizes responses from 56 businesses on a set of 11 questions, all of which focused on the company’s ambitions and potential for integrating ESG in their business. 

In general, the results from the survey indicate that companies are aware of the current ESG regulations at both global and national level and making an effort to not only comply with the regulatory requirements but also to adopt ESG in their business models to unlock stakeholder value. 

However, most of the companies continue to face some challenges regarding the data requirements with majority relying on multiple sources of ESG Data. Companies showed tremendous willingness to continuously conduct ESG Gap assessments to navigate an ever changing ESG landscape.

We believe that by understanding the ESG landscape in Uganda, companies will gain knowledge and insights in addressing sustainability challenges and seizing emerging opportunities. 

This report builds on our vast experience in advising companies on a wide range of ESG topics including ESG strategy, Assurance, impact measurement and reporting and combines learnings from projects across the East African region.

With this study, we further hope to contribute to the expansion of ESG landscape in Uganda.