EY Value Realized: Reporting progress on EY’s global impact in 2021. Read the EY Global Chairman and CEO's letter.
At EY, we believe in stakeholder capitalism: that businesses should create value for their clients, employees, suppliers, communities as well as shareholders. We believe that when organizations align their aims with society’s, they will be more valuable and viable in the long-term, and we will all be closer to addressing some of the world’s greatest challenges.
We started this journey in 2018 with the Embankment Project for Inclusive Capitalism (EPIC), a joint initiative with 30 other companies and the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, to redefine and measure how companies create value. In 2019 we created NextWave, our purpose-led strategy and ambition to create long-term value for EY clients, people and society. This strategy has been used to catalyze our own transformation agenda. This year we are advancing how we measure and report on the value we create.
We believe our focus on creating, protecting and measuring long-term value has been critical to purposeful growth, with Building a better working world as our guide. It is through this lens that we conduct audits, provide results, reshape strategy, enable innovation and transformation, and help companies address tax and regulatory requirements. It keeps us focused on developing the services and solutions that help clients deliver better outcomes for their stakeholders; investing in EY people in ways that help them acquire new skills; and giving back to the communities in which we live and work. It keeps us aligned and focused on our stakeholders’ needs during these challenging times, and beyond.
Holding ourselves accountable
As we make long-term commitments – achieving net zero carbon emissions, increasing diversity, equity and inclusiveness in the workforce, and contributing to prosperity in the communities we operate in – measuring improvement and action plan results to achieve these commitments is critical. Only by measuring can we benchmark progress, improve decision-making and accountability, and increase trust.
As a member of the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council (WEF-IBC), EY contributed to the collaborative effort to bring a private-sector voice to the importance of reporting on ESG issues – in a consistent and comparable way – and evolving the way we understand how business creates and protects value today. This initiative has given EY – as well as the many organizations involved in developing and supporting the metrics – the opportunity to show a commitment to a future where business success relies on improved client outcomes, as well as an inclusive, prosperous society, a protected environment, and a healthy, empowered workforce.
Value realized
We are using the WEF-IBC Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics in this year’s report and taking an important step as we seek to integrate ESG performance into EY’s business strategy, along with our seven actions in EY's carbon ambition. It reflects our commitment to continually improve how we operate. It is also a recognition, along with our reporting on the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), of the importance of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). EY continues to be a proud participant in the UNGC, and in this report I reaffirm our commitment toward its Ten Principles.
In the full report, downloadable from this page, you will read about some of the efforts we have made over the last year to support EY people, to make progress on our commitment to a net zero future, to continue our journey toward positively impacting one billion lives through EY Ripples, to continue to foster confidence and trust in the world’s capital markets, and to support EY clients as they transform.
Looking ahead
While this report looks at EY’s efforts over the last year, we are also continually focused on what more we can do. Over the next year organizations will face complex and inter-related challenges – climate; diversity and social equity efforts; improving resilience, trust and transparency in operations; and using technology – data, AI, blockchain – in new, responsible and different ways. These organizations will be reviewing their customer expectations and experiences; acquiring and divesting; and continuing to invest in people and resources. Communities around the world will also look to recover, regroup and adapt.
This is an increasingly dynamic moment and even as we discuss challenges, we see the opportunities ahead. It is a moment that calls for new investment and a determined focus on areas that we believe can catalyze recovery, improve agility and provide purposeful growth. That is why over the next three years we have committed, under NextWave, to an investment of US$10b in the EY organization.
The investment will help further build trust in the capital markets by strengthening audit quality, including technology-driven innovations in risk and audit procedures to detect and prevent fraud. The investment plan includes US$2.5b in technology over the next three years, with a strong focus on AI, data and disruptive technologies. We will also expand EY-Parthenon and sustainability services, and invest to ensure that clients and EY people benefit from leading technology – all backed up by continued strategic acquisitions and the EY ecosystem of world-class alliances.
We know that there is still more we can do, and together we will continue to Build a better working world.
