Creating a positive, sustainable impact in our communities and dedicating time to help those in need have been my core focus since I took on my new position as Head of Corporate Citizenship in January 2022. For several years we have made progress regarding our environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments and we continuously strive to take a proactive approach to driving change.
The world has endured a very turbulent year and even when these occurrences don’t influence us directly, they can affect someone in our community. It’s up to us to understand the circumstance, decide how to tackle it, act to change it, and learn how to make the situation better for the future.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is important to us at KPMG Luxembourg, which is why we aim to make a sustainable impact and empower change by supporting different initiatives throughout the globe. In January 2023, my team and I set out on a trip to Bangladesh and Nepal to see firsthand how the projects we help finance are being implemented and developed but also to meet the communities who are benefiting from the aid.
The first part of our team’s trip took us to Goynar Potol, one of the shifting river islands of the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh. Most of the initiatives on this island have been funded by the KPMG Luxembourg Foundation and Friendship Luxembourg as part of a five-year collaboration project which focuses on five core areas: health, education, climate action, inclusive citizenship, and sustainable economic development.
During our time there, we sat in on lessons about healthy nutrition and family planning, observed how women weave fabrics for sale, learned how volunteers develop flood action plans, watched the theater group perform plays to raise awareness about various topics such as the inclusion of people with disabilities, and saw how farmers have adopted new techniques to harvest in the local climate. We were amazed by the people, their culture, and above all, their happiness. We admire the work that Friendship is doing, and we are happy that we can support this amazing work.
For the second part of our trip, we traveled to Nepal where we spent time with volunteers and participants of the Life Project 4 Youth (LP4Y), a global NGO which helps young, underprivileged women integrate into society and find employment. We also visited the residential program called the ‘Green Village’, which is largely supported by KPMG Luxembourg.
Over the course of just a few days, we got to know amazing and courageous young women who were supported in their next steps toward achieving their dreams, despite their living circumstances. The general idea of these projects is to integrate these women into society and give them the power to become the ‘entrepreneurs of their own life.’
Our efforts didn’t stop once we returned to Luxembourg. Thanks to the continued generosity and involvement of our people, we were able to support a number of other local organizations. For example, by collaborating with the NGOs RYSE and Youth & Work, we help young people and refugees kick-start their professional lives in Luxembourg and become more independent. We believe our children are our future, which is why we also support the Belgian children’s home, Centre Saint-Aubain, and Alupse Bébé – an NGO that supports children up to the age of 21 and their parents by offering financial, medical, and psychological support.
We’re also in tune with what’s happening in our community and what we can do to help. For instance, we are helping the Arlon-based night shelter, L’Abri de nuit “Soleil d’Hiver”, to launch a new website that will allow them to coordinate donation requests and volunteers. KPMG also donated over 200 Christmas Frëschkëscht boxes filled with Luxembourgish delicacies to the Banque Alimentaire, a food donation organization that supports people in need. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, we have also collaborated with LUkraine, an NGO that supports Ukrainian refugees in Luxembourg and sublet offices to this organization for free where they can offer psychological counseling and language courses.
So why is corporate social responsibility important? We all have the power to make a difference in the world through our actions and to help make a positive impact in our communities. We encourage our employees to take advantage of volunteering opportunities to experience how helping others is not only fulfilling but can have a great influence on their own personal and professional development. By engaging in community-based projects that improve education, healthcare, and infrastructure both in our own neighborhood and abroad, we’re capable of bringing about sustainable, meaningful change. At KPMG, we strive to do work that matters and live our values every day through our actions as part of our collective corporate social responsibility.
If you would like to know more about what KPMG Luxembourg is doing in terms of our commitment to ESG, I invite you to read our latest Impact Report 2023.
