Accenture has established a significant investment in pulsESG, Inc., a public benefit corporation devoted to enabling purpose-driven organizations to implement and enhance their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impact, through Accenture Ventures. pulsESG is the latest firm to join Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, a collaboration and early investment programme that connects emerging technology software startups with the Global 2000 to fill strategic innovation gaps. It previously received $10 million in venture capital from other leading impact-driven investors.
This transition builds on Accenture’s broadening sustainability efforts with a wide range of clients, strategic alliance partners, and other international organisations, which include very early-stage investments in key technologies and services that create value for clients and their broader ecosystem partners, as sustainability remains a top priority for all stakeholders.
“We feel that every firm must be sustainable, fundamentally altering how businesses record and present financial data. The next step is to capitalise on this opportunity to maximise the value and effect of measuring and managing for sustainability,” said Peter Lacy, global Sustainability Services lead, global management committee member, and Accenture’s chief responsibility officer. “We look forward to providing the skills from this strategic investment to our customers, alliances, and partners to assist enhance ESG assessment and performance as stakeholders want more openness and confidence.”
pulsESG, co-founded by Silicon Valley enterprise application veterans Murat Sönmez and Inderjeet Singh, offers organisations a flexible and integrated software as a service (SaaS) platform with both internal data sources and external investor-facing systems to define, quantify, and report on organisational ESG performance, as well as address issues related to ESG data quality and timeliness.
“With a shift toward real-time ESG disclosures becoming standard practice for companies worldwide, we designed this platform to be the ultimate system of record for ESG – one that has the versatility and configurability required of today’s rapidly transitioning policy environment,” said Sönmez, CEO and co-founder of pulsESG. Accenture’s investment will enable us to grow our platform to new heights as customers negotiate the fundamental fluidity of ESG analysis.”
While still in its early stages, the network is intended to increase the quality of ESG collection and integration throughout the organisation by integrating the strength of a plethora of support and speciality software companies with panels and services from significant ecosystem and alliance partners. “We offer a new level of information with features such as model-driven architecture and an end-to-end workflow engine that enables updates depending on developments in the ESG legislative landscape and stakeholder demands,” said Singh, president and co-founder of pulsESG.
According to a recent Accenture study, while the majority (78 per cent) of finance leaders want to understand the financial risk that sustainability poses to their firm, just 47 per cent have specified critical KPIs and data sources for their ESG reporting. Accenture and pulsESG will collaborate to develop collaborative product solutions that will allow customers and partners to make more informed decisions while also better navigating and responding to the developing ESG landscape.
“Our acquisition in pulsESG not only demonstrates our dedication to scaling emerging technologies that assist our clients to tackle crucial business issues,” stated Tom Lounibos, managing director of Accenture Ventures. “We are excited to work with pulsESG and raise awareness of its capabilities and value proposition among our clients and ecosystem partners worldwide.”
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