KPMG’s Stine Lise Hattestad Bratsberg, who has gained international recognition for her work with the UN sustainability goals as a framework for strategy work, described how her work on sustainability is a topic that generates far more interest around the dinner table today compared to earlier years. She is a firm believer that a business strategy built around sustainability is a prerequisite for companies to be prepared to meet regulatory requirements and to thrive. At a macro level, KPMG has organized its sustainability work around strategy and implementation (core business transformation), reporting and assurance, and sustainable finance, with the latter becoming more integrated in recent years with businesses’ financial reporting. The key question that individuals and businesses must ask themselves as it pertains to sustainability is: “How can we be part of the solution?” and incorporating SDGs into the ESG frameworks are a useful tool. She then presented sustainability drivers as defined by KPMG, including investment trends, client expectations, and supply chain risks.

Sustainability challenges for cities are vast and growing, with two thirds of the world’s population predicted to live in cities by 2050. Hattestad explained that KPMG’s sustainability work is not merely driven by their conscience, but rather relies on facts and data. Through KPMG’s collaboration with Sustainable Cities, a comprehensive partnership is anchored in the UN program United 4 Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC), the goal is to establish contact with 10.000 cities by 2030. Importantly, when assessing cities through defined KPIs, solutions contain a commercial value proposition for the projects to be financially viable.

Hattestad continued by presenting the methodology for a collaborative pilot project conducted on the west coast of Norway. There, municipalities, local private and public businesses and, necessarily, politicians were engaged, aiding a swift adaption of regulatory factors needed to implement changes within water, sanitation, and wage gaps. Hattestad went on to emphasize the importance of daring to think and do differently by working with cross-functions in cross-nation teams in order to solve the great sustainability challenges we are facing.