Global climate goals

To accelerate our ambitions to create a more sustainable future, inspire confidence among our teams and stakeholders, and empower them to change how we shape our future, KPMG announced its intention to become a net-zero carbon organisation by 2030. This announcement in November 2020 is part of KPMG’s continued focus on delivering growth in a sustainable way and providing climate solutions for member firms, clients and society. To underpin this goal, KPMG has signed up to a series of new climate actions, including:

• A 1.5°C science-based target (SBT) which will focus on achieving a 50 percent reduction of KPMG’s direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030
• 100 percent renewable electricity by 2022 in board member countries, and by 2030 for the wider network
• Offsetting any remaining GHG emissions through externally accredited voluntary carbon offsets to mitigate the remainder that cannot be removed from our operations and supply chain.

Launched in 2008, KPMG’s Global Climate Response (GCR) aims to significantly reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate our environmental impact across all member firms globally. KPMG China has been very responsive in meeting the global target of further reducing net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 10 percent per full-time equivalent (FTE) and increasing the amount of purchased electricity from renewable sources to 60 percent by 2020 against a 2016 baseline.

To support KPMG’s global climate goals as well as SDG 13 Climate Action, KPMG China has been integrating climate change measures into our strategies and planning. We are working towards our science-based targets (SBTs) as we hope to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy and tackle climate change in line with climate science.

In FY2020, we reviewed our emission sources and investigated ways to reduce our emissions by engaging with different internal departments and contractors. We have leveraged the carbon forecasting model developed by KPMG International that enables bottom-up target setting, with the goal of achieving our long-term SBTs for our Scope 1 to 3 emissions by 2030.

Every year, we conduct a carbon audit to measure GHG emissions and assess our environmental impact. In alignment with KPMG’s global reporting period for carbon disclosure, our emission figures as well as other environmental KPIs disclosed in this report cover the 2019 calendar year (i.e. from January to December).

In 2019, our net emissions amounted to 26,768 tonnes CO₂e or 2.16 tonnes CO₂e per FTE, down by 7.3 percent compared to the 2016 baseline.  

Air travel comprises the largest proportion of our GHG emissions. In FY2020, we incorporated key sustainability elements in the Travel Policy. However, in order to further meet our new climate goals and SBTs, we will fully review our Travel Policy and practices to further achieve the necessary emission reductions by 2030.

In 2021, in-depth discussions with key internal stakeholders will be carried out on how these targets can be achieved in different ways, such as limiting air travel for non-essential internal business trips, encouraging more use of virtual meetings and replacing certain domestic air travel with rail travel.

To set our SBTs, we are also establishing our baseline of GHG emissions in 2021, using 2019 as the baseline year. As the SBT criteria require that we add additional categories, this will lead to an increase in sources of emissions, particularly in Scope 3.

To increase the use of renewable energy, we purchased RECs to support wind energy projects in China, accounting for 72.5% of total Scope 2 emissions for CY2019. We aim to achieve 100% renewable energy purchased via RECs in 2021 to show our commitment to tackling climate change. At KPMG China, various energy-saving measures are in place in different offices:

• Replaced fluorescent tubes and floodlights with LED lights in Hong Kong from August 2018 to December 2019
• Turn off lights when the rooms are not in use or during lunch hours in most offices
• Promote environmental messages regularly through internal and external channels.