2.3 Metrics, targets, and performance on climate change mitigation

This section explains our GHG emission impact and elaborates on our mitigation plan in detail. To understand our current state and our progress in mitigating the negative impact to date, see our gross emissions figures in section 2.3.1.

2.3.1 Gross Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions

Our GHG emissions are reported for the financial year running from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024. They are based on the GHG Protocol, which defines the principles of corporate GHG accounting, and in line with the CSRD guidelines on emissions reporting. Our emissions are accounted based on the operational control method and cover the entire KPMG N.V. organization, including our Assurance, Advisory, and Business Services units.[1]

The following Scope 1 and 2 emission streams are material for our reporting.

Scope 1 and 2 emission streams

Scope	Category	Primary source for KPMG N.V.
Scope 1¹	Stationary combustion	Natural gas used at our rented KPMG N.V. offices in the Netherlands
	Mobile combustion	Fuels used by our leased cars
Scope 2	Location based²	Used energy from rented KPMG N.V. offices in the Netherlands and from our leased cars
	Market based³
	Vehicle related

1 Fugitive emissions: our building cooling systems contribute to a minor amount of fugitive emissions. Due to limited available data, this area is currently under further exploration.

2 Location-based method reflects the average emissions intensity of grids on which energy consumption occurs (using mostly grid-average emission factor data).

3 Market-based method reflects emissions from electricity that companies have purposefully chosen (or their lack of choice). It derives emission factors from contractual instruments, which include any type of contract between two parties for the sale and purchase of energy bundled with attributes about the energy generation, or for unbundled attribute claims. Around 33% of our scope 2 emissions are linked to unbundled energy attributes.

Table 2[2]

For Scope 3 emissions, the following categories are material for reporting.

Scope 3 emission categories

Scope	Category	Primary source for KPMG N.V.	Value chain relevance
Scope 3	Category 1 – Purchased goods and services	Goods and services purchased through the Procurement department	Upstream
	Category 1 – Purchased goods and services	Product carbon footprint analysis for our IT devices; spend data analysis for all other categories
	Category 3 – Fuel and energy-related activities	Upstream emissions (before combustion) of the fuel consumed in Scope 1 and 2	Upstream
	Category 5 – Waste generated in operations	Waste generated by our rented KPMG N.V. offices in the Netherlands	Own operations
	Category 5 – Waste generated in operations	Business-related travel made by KPMG N.V. employees by air, rail, or road	Own operations
	Category 7 – Employee commuting	Travel undertaken by employees between their homes and KPMG N.V. offices	Own operations

Table 3

1 Unless explicitly stated for certain disclosures.

2 Fugitive emissions: our building cooling systems contribute to a minor amount of fugitive emissions. Due to limited available data, this area is currently under further exploration.

In the below table, per emission stream we show our emission-reduction performance, our current state with our previous year and with our 2018/2019 baseline.

Gross Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions (tCO 2 e)

	Retrospective				Milestones and target year
Emission category	Base year 2018/2019	2022/2023	2023/2024	%(2023/2024)/(2022/2023)	Target year 2029/2030
Scope 1 GHG emissions
Gross Scope 1 GHG emissions (tCO₂e)	8,532	3,215	2,110	66	-98.5%
Scope 2 GHG emissions
Gross location-based Scope 2 GHG emissions (tCO₂e)	1,888	2,391	3,071	128	N/A
Gross market-based Scope 2 GHG emissions (tCO₂e)	2,828	1,562	2,884	185	-100%
Scope 3 GHG emissions
Total gross indirect (Scope 3) GHG emissions (tCO₂e)	22,990	28,470	29,431	103	-26%*
Purchased goods and services	14,318	21,459	21,345
End-user IT devices	161	238	1,325	99	N/A
Other commodities and services	14,157	21,221	20,020
Fuel and energy-related activities (not included in Scope 1 or Scope 2)	2,237	1,404	1,688	120	N/A
Waste generated in operations	4	3	3	95
Business travel	6,228	5,364	6,191	115	N/A
Employee commuting	203	239	204	75	N/A
Total GHG emissions (location based) (tCO₂e)	33,410	34,076	34,613	102	N/A
Total GHG emissions (market based) (tCO₂e)	34,351	33,246	34,426	104	-50%

* The disclosed Scope 3 emission reduction target is provisional, aligned with our commitment to achieve a 50% gross emissions reduction. However, internally, we maintain a higher Scope 3 reduction target of 40%. Due to re-baselining and adjustments in our accounting methodology—driven by improved data quality and enhanced accounting practices, our Scope 3 targets have been affected. In 2024/2025, we will conduct a comprehensive review to re-evaluate these targets and develop a more concrete action plan to progress towards our reduction targets.

Table 4

As of this year, we had a 56% decrease in Scope 1 and 2 emissions compared to our 2018/2019 baseline. This progress has been supported by the expansion of our electric fleet, which has grown from 9% in 2018/2019 to approximately 80% in 2023/2024. The increase in our electric lease fleet led to an increase in electricity consumption for electric vehicle charging by around 79% which contributed to an increase in the scope 2 emissions.

Business growth in recent years has led to an increase in our Scope 3 emissions, primarily attributable to purchased goods and services. Over the past few years, we have focused on refining our Scope 3 emissions accounting through enhanced data accuracy. We have made progress in obtaining primary data from suppliers which improved data quality and offers a more comprehensive understanding of our emissions profile. Purchase of other commodities and services is accounted based on spend based methodology and we are working on improving the accuracy of this data.

GHG emission intensity

GHG intensity per net revenue	2022/2023	2023/2024	% (2023/2024)/ (2022/2023)
Total GHG emissions (location-based) per net revenue (tCO₂eq/EUR 1,000t)	0.0479	0.0449	94
Total GHG emissions (market-based) per net revenue (tCO₂eq/EUR 1,000t)	0.0468	0.0447	95

Table 5

Based on net revenue amounting to EUR 771 million, our GHG intensity values show that our measures are paying off: considering our business growth, we saw a decrease in our emission intensity in 2023/2024 compared to the previous year.

2.3.2 Targets and approach to mitigating climate impact

We have a near-term SBT of 50% decarbonization across all scopes by 2029/2030, compared to our 2018/2019 baseline, approved by our COO on behalf of the Board of Management. We use 2018/2019 as the baseline year for target-setting, as it represents the last full financial year before the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring our targets reflect a realistic and stable starting point. These baseline values are reported in table 4.[1]

The SBTi target requires us to achieve 4.2% year-on-year decarbonization between 2018/2019 and 2029/2030 on gross Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. We were unable to meet this target in 2023/2024, showing the challenges of our own decarbonization and the need for concrete actions in the coming years.

Alongside the 2029/2030 SBT, KPMG International is currently assessing the feasibility of setting a long-term 2049/2050 decarbonization target, as part of our net-zero ambition.

For our emission reporting, we are committed to transparency and accountability in our sustainability efforts and therefore report all our emission-reduction targets as absolute values. These targets are expressed as a percentage of the base-year emissions, providing a clear benchmark for tracking progress over time. Targets per emission scope are described table 4. All targets are gross targets, since we do not engage in any GHG removal activities or carbon credit trading, nor do we contribute to avoided emissions.

Our CSRD disclosures have led to the re-baselining of emissions data and adjustments in our accounting methodology for Scope 3 emissions, particularly in the category of purchased goods and services, driven by improved data quality and enhanced accounting practices. These changes also impact our target-setting process. While we remain committed to achieving a minimum 50% reduction in emissions by 2029/2030, we will undertake a comprehensive evaluation of our targets for each emissions category in 2024/2025, accompanied by more concrete action plans.

1 Due to the change in reporting period from calendar year to financial year from 2019/2020, the addition of new Scope 3 emission categories, and the availability of better data and calculation models, our baseline data has been restated this year to ensure clear, consistent, and robust reporting in future. This will not, however, not affect our targets, as the most material categories per scope remain the same.