PwC’s “New Equation” makes sustainable development simple

PwC Greece confirms its leading role in matters of sustainable development, compliance and expansion of ESG criteria, announcing its collaboration with the internationally renowned professor and economist, Phoebe Kountouri.

This is an important collaboration linked to PwC‘s global strategy, “New Equation”, which has as its main pillars the building of trust and the achievement of sustainable results.

In the context of the “New Equation”, PwC’s goal is its practical contribution to solving important social issues with a vehicle – the skills, knowledge and talent of its people. In addition, it has signed the UN Global Compact (UNGC) since 2002 and is taking meaningful action to promote the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

At the same time, through the provision of holistic ESG services, it actively contributes to the ESG transformation of the market both locally and globally, utilizing the collective knowledge and experience of its people, bringing together skills from the entire range of its consulting, auditing and tax services offered. In this light, it offers its customers and partners the ability to access an expanded “pool” of knowledge, best practices and examples that they can apply to their businesses.

The aim of the new partnership is to further strengthen this “pool” of knowledge and to accelerate efforts for the integration of ESG criteria by Greek companies as a factor of reliability and a prerequisite for their sustainability.Together, the two sides, utilizing their global knowledge and experience, will implement a series of actions and initiatives that will have an extremely significant impact on the partners and customers of PwC Greece, helping them to prepare to face the challenges brought by the new reality.

Phoebe Kountouri is a world-renowned professor of environmental economics and a world leader in sustainable development. It is widely recognized as a pioneer in innovative, human-centric, interdisciplinary systems for the sustainable interaction between nature, society and economy. It is included in the 1% of the most cited women economists in the world as well as in the official Stanford University list of the top 2% of world scientists.She is an elected member of the Board of the Trustees of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS), a member of the Academy of Europe (Academia Europaea) and a member of the Nominating Committee for the Prize for Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. She has received multiple distinctions for her research work both in Greece and internationally, including the prestigious grant, Synergy, of the European Research Council (ERC).

At a local level, in recent years PwC, a strategic partner of Greek companies in ESG issues, has invested – and continues to do so – in strengthening and training its teams but also in developing digital tools that facilitate companies in monitoring and recording their performance.

At the same time, it utilizes the experience and know-how of the global network in order to help improve them and strengthen the trust of investors, the market and other stakeholders.

“It is with great pleasure that we announce our collaboration with Phoebe Kountouri. I am sure that with her help we will further accelerate our effort to inform Greek businesses but also to encourage their meaningful response on sustainability and ESG issues. The use of the Sustainable Development and ESG principles is becoming increasingly economic important for the companies themselves, since their performance in ESG ratios is increasingly linked to their ability to raise capital, but also to their financial performance.It is important that organizations perceive these issues as a vehicle to ensure a competitive advantage and take action to adopt a new management standard, where ESG principles are integrated into their strategy and operations. In this direction, we focus our joint actions, aspiring to offer even greater value to our people, our customers, the market and society as a whole.”, said Marios Psaltis, CEO of PwC Greece.

“This collaboration aims to enrich the already existing, significant footprint of PwC Greece in the sustainable transition of Greek businesses. Our main goal is to support companies to integrate ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Criteria) and SDGs (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) into their business plan, with the assumption that the transition to sustainability presupposes the financial viability of the business and at the same time offers a wide range of profitable investment opportunities. Given the dramatic change in the institutional framework provided by the European Green Deal and the unprecedented technological progress in sustainable green and digital solutions, the companies that will be transformed by adopting these solutions more directly, will be the ones that will survive and have the greatest profitability.”, noted Professor Phoebe Kountouri.