KPMG

KPMG Forms Global Center of Excellence for Climate Change KPMG Forms Global Center of Excellence for Climate Change Center to help serve clients with furthering measureable, effective sustainability strategies.

April 18, 2011

AMSTERDAM - As sustainability and climate change advance to the top of private and public sector agendas worldwide, KPMG, the global network of professional firms providing audit, tax, and advisory services, is marshaling its experience, knowledge and core services to form a global center of excellence for climate change and sustainability (CC&S).

"Now is the time to strongly engage with organizations to assist them in understanding the complex and evolving risks and opportunities related to sustainability," said Ted Senko, Global CEO for KPMG's Climate Change and Sustainability (CC&S) practice. "Those organizations that are now taking their sustainability programs from a corporate social responsibility objective to something embedded in strategy and with an integrated approach will gain competitive advantage."

KPMG's CC&S practice provides a range of services, including evaluating specific risks and opportunities, assessing and optimizing regulatory frameworks, benchmarking sustainability programs, and designing critical non-financial information streams. With a growing staff of 700 subject matter experts, CC&S intends to augment the team with additional skills and experience and will further leverage the skills of the 138,000 KPMG professionals in 150 countries around the world.





The new center of excellence will be a key source for CC&S practices globally for thought leadership, knowledge management, business development and leading and/or supporting the delivery of engagements for key clients around the globe.

KPMG has appointed Barend van Bergen, a partner in the Dutch firm, to serve as the head of the center. Mr. van Bergen previously served as practice leader of KPMG CC&S in the Netherlands where he developed and managed a dedicated team of over 30 advisors.

"The good news is that sustainability programs are rapidly becoming a mainstream requirement for well-run businesses," Mr. van Bergen said. "This is not just in response to regulation, reputational or risk reasons, but because business people have seen that these programs can make a significant contribution to the bottom line and are key to long-term success."

KPMG believes that stronger private sector engagement and moreover, wider acceptance of corporate sustainability, lies not only in the establishment of clear regulatory frameworks, but in creating strategies and enabling access to finance that can make sustainability programs viable. These views were shared in the recently published report, Corporate sustainability: A progress report, in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit.*

"Despite the progress that has been made with sustainability programs, more than 30 percent of businesses do not have a sustainability strategy in place and of those that do, only one third is reporting publicly on progress," Mr. Senko said, referring to the survey findings. "We know that companies aren't taking the opportunities because the necessary measures and strategic metrics are not in place to build effective programs."

Yvo de Boer, KPMG's Special Global Advisor for Climate Change and Sustainability and the former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change commented: "The involvement of the private sector must play an increasingly greater role in furthering sustainability, working alongside the public sector to stimulate new technology and financing streams."

Note to editors

Corporate sustainability: A progress report is a KPMG International research paper, conducted in co-operation with the Economist Intelligence Unit. Its initial conclusions were previewed at the climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico at the end of 2010. The full report is being released to mark the establishment of a KPMG global centre of excellence in climate change and sustainability in Amstelveen, the Netherlands.

For the purposes of this news release and the report, corporate sustainability is defined as: "adopting business strategies that meet the needs of the enterprise and its stakeholders today while sustaining the resources, both human and natural that will be needed in the future."
About KPMG
KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. We operate in 150 countries and have 138,000 people working in member firms around the world. The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative ("KPMG International"), a Swiss entity. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such.