Becoming a nature-positive business

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The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.
Sir David Attenborough

Our commitments

Globally, KPMG has made commitment to understanding and improving our impact on nature.

The importance of nature

Nature is critical to life

We rely on Nature to provide food, water and shelter; regulate our climate and disease; maintain nutrient cycles and oxygen production; and provide us with fulfilment and recreation, which can enhance our health and well-being.¹

Nature is critical to our economy

Nature underpins the global economy. More than half of the world’s Economic output (US$44 trillion) is highly or moderately dependent on nature.²

Nature degradation could have systemic impacts

There is growing recognition that climate change and biodiversity loss are two sides of the same coin and that we cannot achieve net zero without becoming nature-positive. The impacts of extreme weather and biodiversity loss are now second and third behind climate change as the most severe risks identified by global executives for the next decade.³

Emerging focus from regulators and stakeholders
Regulators and industry bodies are responding to the risks posed by nature loss, issuing guidance, recommendations and requirements aimed at driving nature positive outcomes. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is creating a framework for organisations to identify, measure and disclose nature-related risks. The TNFD will mirror the expectations of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), providing a standardised and comparable framework for the measurement of nature-related risks.

The TNFD working group has released their Beta framework and full implementation is expected in autumn 2023. This year, 13,000 businesses across the globe are being asked to disclose the action they’re taking on biodiversity as part of the annual CDP disclosure.

Biodiversity helps fight disease

Higher rates of biodiversity have been linked to an increase in human health. Plants are essential for medicines so each time a species becomes extinct, we miss out on a potential new medicine.⁴

Nature benefits mental wellbeing

Spending time in green space or bringing nature into your everyday life can benefit both your mental and physical wellbeing. It can: improve your mood; reduce feelings of stress; help you feel more relaxed; improve your physical health and reduce loneliness.⁵

Nature acts as a natural regulator

Ensuring ecosystems function in sustainable and resilient ways. For example, plants clean and filter water and regulate air quality. Bees pollinate flowers, bacteria help decompose waste, while ladybirds help control pest populations and tree roots prevent erosion as they hold soil in place.⁶

¹⁾ The Economics of Biodiversity The Dasgupta Review: Headline Messages (publishing.service.gov.uk)
²⁾ Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy
³⁾ Global Risks Report 2022
⁴⁾ WEF: 5 reasons biodiversity matters
⁵⁾ Mind: Nature and mental health
⁶⁾ National Environmental Treasure: Why is nature so important for humans?

Engaging our supply chain

While we may not have the largest impact on nature compared to other sectors, from our initial materiality assessment, we know much of our impact is associated with our value chain.

We have sourcing principles for some of the products we purchase:

FSC certified recycled paper for internal printing
MSC certified sustainable fish used in our catering outlets

We’ve started to reduce our impact through our operations, such as introducing chemical free cleaning across our larger offices.

We also work closely with our catering supplier to further reduce our impact. We’ve removed all unsustainable palm oil from our catering outlets, stopped using air freighted products and we’re reducing the amount of meat we consume by encouraging colleagues to choose vegan and vegetarian options.

We’re also working with our suppliers to reduce our impact. This year we asked over 100 suppliers to provide information on what they are doing in relation to biodiversity, as part of their annual CDP Climate Change disclosure. We also brought our suppliers and other businesses together to discuss nature and biodiversity.

Engaging our people

We know that biodiversity is a subject close to many of our colleagues’ hearts, so we have been supporting them to learn more about the topic through our Sustainability Unplugged sessions. In 2021, to mark World Environment Day we focused on biodiversity with a webinar focused on recent developments in this area and tools available to companies to assess their impact. This year we heard from a vegan bodybuilder the benefits of switching to a plant-based diet.

We’ve also held wildlife photography competitions two years in a row in collaboration with our internal conservation network, encouraging colleagues to get out into nature.

Meet the 80,000 residents on our city rooftop

By encouraging bees to thrive, we’re strengthening the growth of plants, food and healthy ecosystems.

Since 2014, our Canary Wharf office roof has been home to two honeybee colonies, with a total of 80,00 bees. Colleagues have the opportunity to swap their work-suits for beekeeper-suits to visit our friends on the roof. Led by our Urban Bee Head Beekeeper, our colleagues learn about the positive impact pollinators have on boosting biodiversity, both across our estate and in our own homes.

To further support the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) National Pollinator Strategy, we help solitary bees by placing bee hotels and planting pollinator flowers across our estate.

Green Skills

The Net Zero economy is going to bring about an unprecedented demand for ‘green skills.’ We’re working with schools to build students’ ‘sustainability mindset’ and help prepare and excite them for the changing world of work.

In the 2021-22 academic year, we worked with the Economist Educational Foundation to support students develop critical thinking, literacy and numeracy skills around the world’s biggest challenge: climate change. Over 16,000 students took part, with a further 1,000 students engaging in online Topical Talk debates, supported by KPMG volunteers.

In collaboration with The Talent Foundry, our ﬂagship employability programme, WorkReady, has educated more than 19,000 students (2013-2022) about the changing world of work through developing their digital literacy and green skills. Using the Skills Builder framework, the programme opens their eyes to the importance of digital ﬂuency, adaptability and transferable skills – such as creativity and problem solving – while developing solutions to environmental issues faced by businesses and their clients today.

To mark COP27 in November 2022, schools across the UK joined our “Inspiring Positive Climate Action” broadcast. The session gave an insight into insights from the COP27 event and advice on the action young people can take to tackle the climate crisis. Students took part in a sustainability challenge where they presented an environmental sustainability project plan, showing the action their school is taking to help tackle climate change. We awarded the winning schools with a cash prize to help them put their plans into action.

Engaging our clients

Exploring nature-related risk with our clients

There are a number of challenges that all organisations are facing when building their nature-related risk frameworks – previous efforts to set international biodiversity targets have not had the desired effect and there’s a lack of universally accepted metrics. However, the TFND recommendations mean organisations can start building their frameworks. We’re advising our clients and helping them develop their nature-related risk.

“My team and I recently helped a large global bank develop their nature-related risk framework and implementation plan. We supported their ambition to achieve a market-leading position and embed nature-related risk across the bank’s global businesses and functions.

We helped them gain a clear understanding of nature-related risk key terms and banking implications. They now have an increased awareness of regulatory expectations from supervisory bodies and they also have an enhanced understanding of the bank’s current position against peers on governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.

The client also gained an initial view of materiality of nature-related risks across the bank’s loan portfolio, identifying key regions and sectors to prioritise for further assessment and we helped them develop a detailed nature-related risk implementation plan.”

Jheryl Cabey / Associate Director, Climate Risk and Strategy, KPMG in the UK

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