ESG: a world of opportunities for Tax, Legal and People

What does this mean for you?

Tax, Legal and People as foundational drivers for the business

As interest in ESG issues is accelerating, we are seeing a fundamental shift in the way in which businesses operate and how their corporate agendas are shaped. Once the responsibility of a single department, sustainability now touches every part of a business. PwC analysis has found that 60% of CEOs believe that environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues will be a long-term investment priority over the next three years.

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1:46

Amal Larhlid speaks about ESG and tax

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Tax within the ESG landscape is key to shaping how government can incentivise businesses to meet sustainability goals in the long-term and progress towards net-zero and a greener future. Tax as an ESG metric can bring value to the business and enhance a company’s reputation.

  Challenges 
How we can help
E
  • New environmental taxes (e.g. plastic packaging and carbon taxes)
  • Changing regulatory environment (e.g. extended producer responsibility)
  • Waste and water management
  • Significant weather events
  • Resource scarcity
  • Post COVID-19 sustainable growth
  • Green grants mapping and application support
  • R&D incentives for clean technology innovations
  • Carbon trading and reporting
  • Capital allowances for clean capital expenditures
  • Decommissioning grants
  • Sustainable finance
  • Economic assessment of tax policies
S
  • Human rights
  • Employee health, safety and wellbeing
  • Labour practices and talent management
  • Workplace diversity and inclusion
  • Diversity and inclusion
  • Pensions advice on sustainable investment
  • Sustainable business travel
  • Climate related KPIs and reward setting
G
  • Strategy and risk management
  • Executive pay
  • Bribery and corruption
  • Tax reporting and stakeholder communication
  • Tax strategy and tax transparency 
  • Tax function design and tax control framework implementation
  • Alignment of business model, executive and workforce incentives to ESG goals

How can we help?

ESG initiatives go beyond just doing the right thing. They can improve society’s perceptions of the company, build competitive positioning, and increase market value. A well-executed and well-communicated ESG strategy can create intrinsic value by appropriately managing key risks and cultivating opportunities. If a company is transparent about how it is addressing stakeholder ESG interests, market value can increase over time.

We can support businesses and policymakers by offering solutions and advice on the following key areas:

Developing, improving and unpacking every aspect of fiscal and tax policy to achieve improved economic growth. This includes raising revenues, better public spending and enhancing the business climate.

Ensuring Purpose and ESG strategy is fully embedded across, executive and workforce incentives and recognition, culture and behaviours, the employee offering, recruitment brand, new ways of working, diversity & inclusion, gender and executive pay gap, and pension offerings.

Advice to ensure you are benefiting from the full range of green grants, reliefs and credits available, including Research and development (R&D) tax credit and patent box.

Support with understanding the scope of new and existing taxes, how they affect the business, assist with business development and implementation of systems and controls necessary for compliance and help bridge gaps between sustainability, operational and commercial teams.

Support with a number of reporting frameworks (Global Reporting Initiative 207 - Tax, World Economic Forum’s International Business Council, Total Tax Contribution - TTC, Tax Control Framework and Tax Strategy), tax rate and transparency benchmarking, collection of the TTC data and reasonableness review. Download our recent flyer on TCFD and Tax in the link shown above.

Helping businesses to identify and harness the opportunities arising from changing environmental and sustainability regulation, ensuring that the company is ready to achieve full compliance.

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Our team provides commercial and market-focussed advice to businesses in a range of sectors, including in particular manufacturing businesses, energy and waste companies, oil and gas operators and construction companies.

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