Sustainability reporting creates value for both stakeholders and companies and ensures compliance, reduces risks, creates trust and enables partnerships and innovation. Strategic sustainability reporting is therefore a business-critical element in both internal and external communication and an important tool for communicating the value of sustainability to stakeholders.
There are however some issues that you may face in conducting ESG Reporting:
- Challenges with producing KPIs due to ambiguities in their definitions and difficulties in retrieving information and metrics from corporate ERP systems; and
- Systems and processes will require adjustments to meet the disclosure requirements.
With ESG and non-financial reporting now at the top of the agenda, audit has an important role to play - helping to drive insight that has an impact. Demand for confidence in ESG disclosures is growing, and ESG risk is demanding the attention of boards and audit committees.
What is ESG Reporting and Auditing and what are our services?
At its core, ESG Reporting is the annual non-financial report issued by a company to document and report out to the market on the company’s progress on achieving ESG-based goals.
We can assist you with your ESG Reporting in a variety of ways and at different points in the reporting journey. We offer functional and operative support by assisting with:
- Effective Reporting, including: training workshops, reporting materiality assessments, benchmarking, content identification and development, reporting structure and data requirements planning, and compliance reviews
- Standards Alignment, including: framework selection guidance, gap assessments, and implementation support, for frameworks including EU-Taxonomy, CSRD, TCFD, SASB, SECR, GRI, <IR>, WEF, CDP, and the UN SDGs.
- Data Quality, including: designing appropriate metrics, preparing effective methodology statements, and improving the rigor or efficiency of the reporting process and relevant controls.
- Climate Accounting, including consideration of the impact of climate risks on recognition and measurement, disclosure expectations of the FRC, and accounting for carbon credits and offsets.
Our Assurance Services
Our portfolio of ESG Assurance Services aims to meet the needs of a variety of organisations, whatever your level of maturity, industry focus or need is.
We delivers functional support for:
We perform workshops to provide an overview of ESG assurance and the current reporting landscape, including common reporting frameworks.
This could include:
- overview of ESG Assurance and the current reporting landscape
- highlight what you need to do to get ready for assurance and to meet external and internal demand.
We perform an initial pre-readiness check on the robustness of ESG reporting processes and internal controls, both overall and on an indicator level. We perform gap analysis and provide benchmark of relevant ESG definitions, reporting scope, applied methodologies (including estimates and assumptions), registration, aggregation and internal review of reported information.
This could include:
- ESG Assurance by performing Gap-Analyses and Readiness Assessments as a first step in the overall ESG Assurance journey
- Quality-assuring Project Support and Operational Advisory Support by using KPMG Sustainability Assurance Manual (KSAM) and KPMG GHG Assurance Manual (KGAM).
We provide external assurance in accordance with International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 - either at a limited or reasonable level of assurance. This includes formal opinions over reported ESG metrics and disclosures and supporting you to align with mandatory or voluntary frameworks.
This could include:
- Audit of non-financial reporting in accordance with ISAE 3000
- Limited or Reasonable Assurance for required non-financial reporting in accordance with the national law
- Voluntary Sustainability reports.
We provide external assurance in accordance with International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3410 . The objective of an engagement under ISAE 3410 is to obtain either limited or reasonable assurance, as applicable, about whether the GHG statement is free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. GHG statements are assured to enhance the reliability of the emissions information being reported on.
This could include:
- Audit of non-financial reporting in accordance with ISAE 3410 (Limited or Reasonable Assurance)
- Review of the entity and its environment, risk identification and risk assessment of material misstatement in the GHG Statement; procedures to address the identified risks.
How we deliver ESG reporting
We use our Powered Enterprise framework to deliver ESG Reporting. The KPMG Target Operating Model (TOM) provides an approach to establishing ESG reporting and addressing challenges, which includes leading practices and structures for service delivery, people and organization, processes, technology, performance insights, data, governance and controls.
Our ESG reporting service may include the following stages:
Establish
Alignment of material ESG topics to standards/metrics for reporting and benchmarking current disclosures to peers and industry-leading practices. Understanding of existing ESG reporting strategy and establishing ESG program governance.
Implement
Execution of the designed ESG reporting target operating model. This phase includes activating training and communications.
Assess
Assessment of current capabilities, including ESG reporting strategy, reporting structure, controls, data management, and governance as measured against industry-leading practices/target operating models to identify gaps.
Sustain
Continuous monitoring of ESG reporting requirements, processes, and assessing operating effectiveness of controls to enhance reporting processes and technology and providing ongoing training.
Design
Development of an ESG reporting program and a target operating model. This includes processes, controls, technology, and organisational structure which are based on the results of the assessment and gap analysis.
Assure
External assurance over ESG reporting and data.
Insights about ESG reporting
Contact our experts and read more insights here
If you or your company are interested in hearing more about how we can help you in reporting and audit, you are welcome to reach out to our ESG experts.
Christian Møllegaard Larsen
Director, ESG Advisory Services
KPMG in Denmark
Katrine Geipel
Manager, Reporting & Accounting Advisory
KPMG in Denmark
