Long-time partners PwC and SAP are launching a “co-invention” strategy focused on assisting joint clients with their environmental, social and corporate governance initiatives.

PwC is a member of the Big Four, the industry group that consists of the world’s four largest accounting firms by revenue. Besides the accounting market, the company is also active in other corners of the consulting landscape including the IT consulting space.

SAP is Germany’s largest software company. It develops sophisticated, and expensive, applications that big corporations use to manage their most important business processes.

Companies often call in PwC after they buy an SAP application to sort out the software setup process. PwC and SAP have worked together on client projects in more than 80 countries.

The two firms are now expanding their alliance to place a bigger emphasis on sustainability. As part of the collaboration, PwC will support the green initiatives of companies that use SAP software to run their business.

“New ESG reporting and disclosure requirements are being established, and greater transparency is critical to building trust,” commented PwC Global Chairman Bob Moritz. “This belief is core to our new co-innovation strategy with SAP, expanding our collaboration to create a dedicated focus on ESG solution development.”

SAP offers a software-as-a-service application called the Sustainability Control Tower. The application generates metrics that track a firm’s carbon emissions and the environmental footprint of its suppliers.  

Sustainability Control Tower can track carbon emissions automatically, but only after it’s properly set up, which is a complicated process. Through its expanded alliance with SAP, PwC will assist clients with the chore of installing and configuring Sustainability Control Tower. 

The Big Four firm will also work with clients to ensure that the sustainability metrics they generate using the application are reliable and auditable. 

That latter component of the initiative ties well into PwC’s core focus area in the accounting market. The Big Four firm earns a sizable portion of its fee revenue from doing audits of companies’ financial reports to ensure they’re accurate. 

Another priority of PwC’s partnership with SAP will be a piece of software called SAP Product Footprint Management.

Product Footprint Management is similar to Sustainability Control Tower in that it’s designed to track a company’s carbon footprint, but the software has somewhat narrower functionality. It’s built to monitor the carbon emissions associated with producing a company’s products.

Corporate sustainability programs have emerged as a major focus for PwC over the past decade. The firm not only provides consulting services to assist clients with their green initiatives, but has also developed custom software to support its employees’ work in this area. 

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