Stakeholder engagement

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We convene and collaborate with stakeholders across industry, not-for-profit and government to shape practical solutions for our clients, our people, our communities and our planet.

Accelerating environmental action

Environmental risks have quickly risen to become a Board-level concern. And for businesses across the globe, managing and addressing these risks is a major challenge. Organisations of all sizes are having to reassess their business models to ensure the impact they make on the world is a positive one – it’s the commitment they make to future generations. But this is not something they can do alone. Collaboration is key to ensuring real change is made. And we’re playing our part.

We’re founding partners of the Sustainable Markets Initiative – a network of global CEOs, led by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, who work together to accelerate progress towards a sustainable future.

In collaboration with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), our Future of Commuting series – which includes Connecting Communities, Commuting beyond the Coronavirus and Greener Miles: Delivering on a net-zero vision for commuting – highlights the need to improve commuter infrastructure across the UK and provides recommendations for how to make commuting greener, more affordable and more reliable for communities across the country.

Environmental behaviour change charity Hubbub took their first step into sustainable home-working in collaboration with KPMG. We piloted Hubbub’s Live Savvy Championship with 260 of our colleagues. The five-week series of challenges saw our colleagues take practical action to live more sustainably. We’ve also collaborated with Hubbub on our HomeHQ research, which gave colleagues the opportunity to share their views on living and working more sustainably, helping to shape the future of our environment strategy.

Find out more about our approach to sustainable procurement

Coming together for better: Simon Virley at COP26

Our vice chair, Simon Virley reflects on COP26 and how we’re acting on it as a firm.

“Business and Finance came to the fore in Glasgow like no other COP held to date. That was evident throughout the many events that we hosted as KPMG, with clients like SSE, Natwest and British Gas.

As a firm, we are committed to reach Net Zero ourselves by 2030. We have launched a range of initiatives to support this, including moving all our operations to renewable power, improving the energy efficiency of our buildings, changing our company car scheme, cutting down waste and launching our sustainability challenge, to give colleagues the tools and ideas they need to reduce their carbon footprint.

We have also been learning from others through our ‘Voices for a Sustainable Future’ series, where we spoke to business leaders. We have also hosted ‘Sustainability Unplugged’ sessions with some incredible guests working in this space.

How you grow matters, and at KPMG we’re committed to sustainable growth with purpose. That is why we’re working with young people across the UK to develop ‘green skills for life’, as well as creating more sustainability-focused volunteering programmes for our people.”

Sustainable Markets Initiative: supporting businesses to create a nature-positive future

KPMG is a founding partner, and integral part of the secretariat, of the Sustainable Markets Initiative – a network of global CEOs, led by His Majesty King Charles III. Working together to accelerate progress towards a sustainable future, our UK Chair Bina Mehta sponsors our strategic relationship that enables growth and scale, and facilitates impact, in support of this vision.

Our Global CEO, Bill Thomas, is a member of His Majesty King Charles III’ Sustainable Markets Council – a global advisory body of public-private-philanthropic leaders, which aims to demonstrate the potential of sustainable market creation.

In support of the Terra Carta – a charter that puts sustainability at the heart of the private sector – we leverage: our market presence, to bring industries together; our tools, such as Dynamic Risk Assessment, to create new ways of thinking; and our deep expertise in reporting and assurance, to provide insight and guidance on how responsible business can be measured. This enables us to support industries and businesses in their transition to: achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions; creating a nature-positive future; and scaling sustainability-focused investment.

Driving social change

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark reminder to businesses of their responsibility to their people and to their communities. It has shone a spotlight on social inequalities, on a global scale. Movements such as Black Lives Matter and Me Too have sent powerful messages to the world of the need for change. Collaboration is key to ensuring real change is made. And we're playing our part.

Inclusion, Diversity and Equity

We've committed to taking collaborative action to drive greater inclusion, diversity and equity in our industry. We've publicly demonstrated this commitment by signing up to, and taking practical actions toward, the following charters and initiatives:

HM Treasury's Women in Finance Charter
Women Corporate Directors
Business in the Community Race at Work Charter
CBI change the race ratio
Charter for Black Talent in Finance and the Professions
Tech Talent Charter
Disability Confident Leader
Valuable 500

Find out more

Social mobility

We're committed to boosting social mobility. In 2006, we became one of the very first businesses to pay the real Living Wage to its employees and contracted staff. We went on to become a founding member of the Living Wage Foundation and have continued to provide financial and strategic support ever since. Our Head of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity currently acts as Chair of the Living Wage Advisory Council. We've also signed up to the Social Mobility Pledge and play a key role in the Access Accountancy Patron Group, City of London socio-economic diversity taskforce, and Patchwork Foundation. We recognise that numeracy, literacy and lifelong learning skills are building blocks for social mobility, and that's why we work with external organisations to tackle these issues too. In 2021, we became one of the first organisations to report our socio-economic background pay gaps, working with social mobility experts, The Bridge Group.

Find out more

Chairing the Living Wage Advisory Council

As a firm, we have a longstanding commitment to improving social mobility, and fair pay is a key component of that. In 2006, we became one of the very first businesses to pay the real Living Wage to its employees and contracted staff. We went on to become a founding member of the Living Wage Foundation and have continued to provide financial and strategic support ever since. Our Head of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, Jenny Baskerville, was appointed Chair of the Living Wage Advisory Council in June 2021, “It was a real honour to be asked to chair this group. There are a whole range of organisations from all different sectors playing their part on this movement” says Jenny.

“Our partnership with the Living Wage Foundation has helped to grow this initiative into a movement of over 9,000 accredited Living Wage employers, 3,500 of which signed up since the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s critically important that we raise the profile of in-work poverty, particularly off the back of the pandemic and the challenges many people are facing.”

Since its inception, the Living Wage campaign has put back more than £1.6bn into the pockets of over 300,000 low-paid workers. “Collaboration is key in driving change, and that's why we're supporting our suppliers and our clients, where they can, to implement the real Living Wage across their businesses too.”

Measuring and tackling the nation's literacy gap

Supported by Pro Bono Economics and in collaboration with the National Literacy Trust and BBC Tiny Happy People, we commissioned research seeking to understand the impact of poor literacy skills on the UK economy. The findings were staggering. 14% of three-year-olds are at risk of starting school with "vulnerable" levels of language skills. This will equate to a £1.2 billion cost to the UK economy, across all pre-school children alive today who are, or may become, "at risk of vulnerable language skills".

"The education and development of children in their early years shapes their prospects in later life and, as our latest research makes clear, cumulatively it has a material impact on our economy. The pandemic has exacerbated the number of children showing poor early language skills, with those from disadvantaged backgrounds likely to have been disproportionately affected. If businesses are serious about improving social mobility and boosting our economy, then supporting early years education and development is a critical place to start. By doing so we can lay the foundation for a more prosperous and fairer economy."

Bina Mehta / Chair, KPMG in the UK

To help tackle the nation's literacy gap, we're a lead business signatory of the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge – a public commitment from 97 businesses to drive change.

Find out more

Shaping ESG Standards

From investors and regulators, to employees, customers and the public – corporate stakeholders are becoming increasingly aligned on their expectation of businesses to provide an accurate picture of their ESG performance – one that demonstrates an organisation’s clear understanding of its risks and opportunities and one that is credible, verifiable and comparable.

One of the ways we are supporting organisations to better understand the strategic implications of their climate-related risks and opportunities specifically, is through our work in co-designing a new online climate scenario analysis training course, hosted on the TCFD Knowledge Hub. Read more in our case study below.

Just as important as having a clear understanding of an organisation’s risks and opportunities, is reporting on their ESG performance against these. We recognise the ESG reporting landscape is complex – the range of metrics and disclosure frameworks used is vast and varies by sector and size of business, as well as global location. With transparency and data being critical to building stakeholder trust, we're committed to helping drive increased consistency and comparability across the corporate reporting landscape.

We've worked in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, the Bank of America and other Big Four accounting firms to identify a set of universal and material ESG reporting requirements, that can be adopted as part of businesses' mainstream annual reporting. Known as the WEF IBC Metrics, the framework helps businesses to demonstrate how sustainable they are, how they create long-term value for society and how they ensure they are future-fit. Read more in our case study below.

We’ve also worked in collaboration with the International Regulatory Strategy Group (ISRG), to publish the report: Accelerating the S in ESG: a roadmap for global progress on social standards. Using insights from International standard setters (including GRI, SASB) and other institutional bodies (including UN PRI, OECD, IMP) the report identifies key market trends and challenges that the financial services sector must tackle in order to achieve better social standards.

Our global colleagues are also supporting the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) on the development of an updated and revised biodiversity Standard for sustainability reporting. The aim of this standard is to support more businesses to address their biodiversity impact, and meet stakeholder expectations for transparency.

Supporting businesses to mitigate risk and unlock opportunities through scenario analysis

Climate scenario analysis supports organisations to become sustainable and resilient. It helps them to mitigate their risks and unlock opportunities in the transition to a lower carbon economy.

Despite its benefits, uptake is currently limited – the 2021 Status Report published by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) – whose aim is to improve and increase reporting of climate-related financial information – found that only 13% of companies disclosed information on the resilience of their strategies under different climate-related scenarios in 2020, making this the least reported recommended disclosure¹.

We want to support organisations to navigate the challenges and complexities of climate scenario analysis. That’s why, in collaboration with the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), we’ve co-designed a new online climate scenario analysis training course. Hosted on the TCFD Knowledge Hub, which received nearly 200,000 unique visitors from over 180 countries and jurisdictions last year¹, the training is available free of charge and references KPMG Climate IQ – our integrated climate scenario analysis tool that enables companies to identify, quantify and manage their physical and transition risks due to climate change. The training has already received widespread interest and according to the CDSB, has been one of the most sought after courses.

With TCFD reporting becoming mandatory in the UK and other countries, we are seeing an increase in demand for climate scenario analysis and TCFD reporting services. With Climate IQ, our team of specialists and strong industry relationships with the CDSB and more, we are ready to support our clients on their TCFD journey.

¹ Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures 2021 Status Report

Our role in co-designing the WEF IBC Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics

Whilst businesses have been reporting on ESG for a number of years, what has been lacking is a consistent approach and the ability to compare across industry sectors and geographies. We've worked in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, the Bank of America and other Big Four accounting firms to tackle this problem.

Together, we've identified a set of universal and material ESG reporting requirements, that can be adopted as part of businesses' mainstream annual reporting. Known as the WEF IBC Metrics, the framework helps businesses to demonstrate how sustainable they are, how they create long-term value for society and how they ensure they are future-fit.

The metrics have received widespread support and have contributed to the considerable movement of standard setters and regulators to work intensively together toward convergence. This convergence, amongst others, now involves the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation which is consulting on broadening its mandate to include sustainability issues. In addition, the five leading voluntary standard-setters have committed to working towards a joint vision with Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).

We're educating and encouraging businesses and clients to incorporate these metrics in their own reporting, to help bring consistency and comparability across industry sectors and geographies. And, we're leading by example by aligning our own reporting to these metrics too.

Read our KPMG UK response to the WEF IBC Metrics

Political and policy engagement

We recognise the importance of engaging with politicians, policy makers and our regulators on issues of relevance to business and society, such as regional growth, Net Zero and the future of work. Whilst at all times maintaining a position of political neutrality, our insights and experience help to strengthen public policy.

Our engagement takes place across a range of forums – from participation in think tank roundtables to holding events at political party conferences – and is focused on areas where we feel that we can make a valuable contribution to the debate. We also help to improve public policy through our involvement in industry-led government forums and trade body committees.

We are committed to ensuring that our political engagement is based on principles of transparency, integrity and accountability and we aim to demonstrate best-practice in conducting political engagement at all levels of government.

As part of this commitment, we have a formal policy in place, which applies to all UK partners and colleagues, to ensure that our engagement is conducted in a manner that demonstrates our firm's commitment to: be a responsible employer; have a positive societal impact; and to support our communities to prosper. This includes guidance on both formal political engagement, as well as voluntary political activity. It’s underpinned by the principles set out in Our Code of Conduct, to act responsibly and in the public interest.

The Future of Towns: tackling a divided vision for the future

We are committed to playing our part in supporting regional growth. To help us do this, we wanted to better understand what the future looks like for our towns. Working alongside the leading cross-party think tank Demos, who conducted extensive public polling and social media analysis on the topic, we facilitated regional business leader focus groups to explore the opportunities and challenges facing towns, as the government looks to ‘Build Back Better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our research found that towns are split down the middle over their vision for the future, with opposing views on: the prospect of newcomers from cities and other countries; issues related to the ageing population; the need for new housing; the creation of new jobs; and the prioritisation of a sense of community.

Our report, The Future of Towns, provides recommendations for how central government, town leaders, businesses and residents could, and should, work together to tackle this divide. From further economic assessments, to participatory conversation and community buy-in, the aim is simple: to unite people in towns behind a single vision for the future, one that enables them to take advantage of the large-scale investment promised as part of the government’s “levelling-up” agenda. As a large UK employer, we recognise we have a role to play in driving action on these recommendations, which is why we’re engaging with cross-party politicians and policy makers to strengthen public policy in this area, in support of the future revival of the towns we operate in.

Read the report

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