The announcement comes as companies worldwide are facing increasing pressure from investors, regulators and other stakeholders to provide disclosures relating to ESG initiatives and sustainability plans and progress.

The creation of the new ESG Assurance role follows the recent initiation by KPMG of a multi-year program aimed at accelerating global solutions for ESG issues, and to support clients in their own sustainability efforts, including plans to invest over $1.5 billion in its initiatives to further embed ESG in the organization and client solutions, and provide ESG training for all of the firm’s 227,000 employees. As part of the KPMG Global ESG plan, the firm said that it aimed to expand its workforce to provide assurance on ESG disclosures, and to develop its proprietary audit workflow technology to enable delivery of ESG assurance with the same quality and rigor applied to financial audit work.

„Across the globe, KPMG firms have skilled professionals who are passionate about ESG and collectively committed to bringing better quality ESG insights to clients and investors. The guidance from the ISSB, and proposed rulemaking from the US SEC, can only help to enhance the quality and consistency of ESG data being gathered and reported and should help investors, stakeholders and the wider public digest that information more easily. ESG Assurance will be a game-changer, and I am very excited to be continuing to serve clients, enhancing public trust and driving a renewed excitement for the profession that has served me so well over the years”, declared Mike Shannon.