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Accounting, Sustainability and Gender Equality

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Accounting, Sustainability and Gender Equality

by Angie Mak, 26 May 2011
topics:
Management Risk Management
tags:
diversity equality gender KPMG sustainability

Accounting firm KPMG has no offices in the South Pole, yet it recently sent to the Antarctic, on various occasions, a manager from the Chinese practice, someone else from India, and two US-based executives.  

 
What’s going on? “The reason for doing that is to create climate ambassadors,” explains Lord Michael Hastings, KPMG International's Global Head of Citizenship and Diversity. “People can see that someone from Beijing is walking in Antarctica, is understanding and experiencing the life of the penguins, but also seeing the rubbish that’s been left behind . . . That becomes a very prominent story for our staff in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in China.”
 
Like many other global multinationals, KPMG is getting serious about being a good corporate citizen, particularly from the perspective of the environment and diversity. But it’s a complicated task because, as a partnership, the firm is comprised of independent practices in 144 countries that do most things their way.
 
CFO Innovation’s Angie Mak spoke to Lord Hastings about KPMG’s environmental and diversity programs, the challenges and successes, and other issues. Excerpts:  
 
Let’s talk about energy usage at KPMG. What have you been doing to save costs?
We’ve been doing the global green programme within KPMG for three years. KPMG's new building in Hong Kong is Platinum quality, which is the highest possible rating you can get for environmental sustainability. A lot of that has to do with the way in which we restrain heat access to buildings and therefore reduce the amount of air conditioning that is necessary and . . . reduces the energy demand that the building sucks out.
 
We also control water flow through the building, and lighting, so that in rooms unoccupied, the lighting goes out automatically. We’ve also noted the necessity to restrain access to server capacity. Therefore we’ve reduced the number of servers, which reduces cooling and air conditioning demand, but also electricity demand. We also have methods of switching off of computers instantly and automatically, as well as controlling other electrical equipment.
 
If we don’t adapt to alternative methods of energy production and usage, our habits of energy usage will not be able to contain the damaging effects of weather patterns, which we cannot predict. And that is the great uncertainty around what we’ve witnessed in the course of the last few years. This uncertainty and unpredictability is immensely complex, and I think that the wisest thing any of us can do in a corporate or individual level is to be prepared to restrict and restrain our over abuse of energy demand, and to lead more cautious lives.
 
KPMG has retrofitted its buildings to become greener. What has been your ROI so far?
We set a target in 2008, that we would reduce our carbon emissions across our top 25 countries. We wanted to reduce carbon emissions by 25% within three years. In fact, we reduced our carbon emissions by 29%, and exceeded our own target.
 
The most important part of the programme, which of course had to have technical applications of how to better use and control energy demand, was building awareness amongst our people. By doing that, it meant giving them an understanding as to why we’re putting in measures in our buildings to restrict lighting, control access to equipment, ensure that we use water responsibly, manage our waste, and why we moved to new facilities.
 
When we have the opportunity to determine our own occupation of a facility or to build our own offices, we build them to the best of our environmental designs possible. If you go back five or six years ago KPMG’s facilities would not have been absolutely in the best possible environmental standard, but they are now.
 
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