Accelerating ESG strategy through technology solutions

If you tried to articulate how sustainability is progressing in your organization today, what would you say? If you are struggling to tell that narrative, you’re not alone.

Eidsiva Energi, a Norwegian energy and infrastructure company, has the ambition to be a sustainability and ESG leader. But first, they need to implement the strategy throughout the whole organization, in a way that is understood by all employees to the extent they can factor it into their daily decision making.

Building a broad-ranging ESG strategy that is embedded into the core of the business, is no easy task. The real test is to explore how well your employees, including leadership, understand and can act on the organization’s sustainability goals.

Bridging the gap between high-level strategy and employee understanding requires a different approach — one that is more innovative, engaging and encourages change in employee behavior.

KPMG in Norway worked with Attensi to develop a gamified simulation app as a way of making the complex topic of sustainability and ESG easy to understand and actionable. The app is designed to make learning and development more exciting and enables organizations to assess its impact.

Through gamification, the KPMG team helped create an app that encourages engagement and enables understanding through repetition and relevance.

The scalable solution engages employees through pre-made modules that are varied, short and fun — covering areas such as EU taxonomy, UN Sustainable Development Goals and other relevant ESG themes. Repetition is key; employees play through a wide range of sustainability topics over-and-over again which embeds the information. The simulations are realistic and relevant, letting employees practice their decision making in real life scenarios; it encourages them to act. Finally, there is a healthy dose of competitiveness — with employees evaluated using dialogues, quizzes, and competitions.

To continue to build competence, new modules need to be developed and implemented. The latest module created is on ethical behavior, and diversity and inclusion. Moving forward, KPMG firms are assessing new ways of learning that support ESG reporting requirements that vary by country and region — for example, the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

With the help of KPMG in Norway, Eidsiva Energi assessed its sustainability work and processes to clarify its role and identify opportunities in the transition toward net zero. Involving the entire organization from its board to its employees — to ensure engagement and ownership through scalable solutions — has made achieving sustainability tangible.

Another gap to be bridged, is between the high-level strategic ambition of a better urban future and the smaller-scale initiatives needed to achieve it. Green finance and technology need to be better connected to the projects enabling more sustainable buildings, transportation and communities.

To address this missing middle, KPMG developed the Net Zero Urban Program (NZUP). It uses technology and innovation to bring together public and private actors, innovators and investors to deliver greener solutions for important city sectors such as buildings, mobility, energy, water, and waste. KPMG’s NZUP ambition is to reach 10,000 cities, scale 100 digital prototypes, and help raise US$25bn in capital by 2030.