PwC wins massive carbon emissions contract

Saving the planet may be a cause for social concern, but it doesn’t stop the
firms competing to offer advisory services on it. And PricewaterhouseCoopers may
have taken a lead against its rivals by winning one of the biggest contracts
around for advice on carbon emissions.

The job, advising the Carbon Disclosure Project, means providing counsel to a
group of 385 institutional investors with a combined fund of assets amounting to
$57 trillion (£28 trillion). To put that in perspective, the GDP of the US this
year, according to the International Monetary Fund, is expected to be around $14
trillion.

PwC will be advising on the carbon disclosures of the 3,000 blue chip
companies across the
Global 500, the FTSE350 and the S&P500 that have been asked to measure their
greenhouse output.

The research will also mark the first time the Carbon Disclosure Project is
using common methodology in all three reports covering the three indexes.

‘There will be a commonality and ability to read across one report from the
other which will enable us to compare and bring out trends,’ said Paul Rew,
PwC’s energy partner.

He said PwC would be pulling together a transatlantic in-house team of
experts to work on
the assignment.

‘We set up a team with seven people working on the project in the UK and
eight people in the US,’ said Alan McGill, PwC’s sustainability and climate
partner, who also worked on the Prince of Wales’ sustainability project.

Advice on ethical and corporate responsibility is seen as a growing service
line by the firms. Rew said: ‘We see corporate reporting moving to a different
level as society changes.

‘More investors are taking it more seriously. We will start to see more
voluntary assurance reporting .’

‘There is greater pressure from the investment community to know about this
type of information and, because this issue is becoming more mainstream and
strategic, they want to know what their carbon footprint is,’ added McGill.