Dive Brief:
- Ernst & Young acquired Austrian-based sustainability consulting firm Denkstatt to enhance its ESG services for clients, the company announced last week. The merger looks to create one of the largest consulting and auditing firms focused on sustainability issues in Central Europe, according to EY.
- The EY Denkstatt brand will focus on providing clients “holistic” emissions reduction strategies and solutions that incorporate climate security goals into global business opportunities, the firms said in a release. EY Denkstatt will also provide clients expertise in ESG-relevant areas such as emissions reporting, circular economy strategies and sustainability assessments.
- The new firm will anchor its services in Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, combining Denkstatt’s team of 170 experts with EY’s expansive global network of almost 400,000 employees.
Dive Insight:
The EY Denkstatt conglomerate will build on EY’s existing roster of ESG services and offerings, ranging from auditing, strategy and transactions, and tax and legal advising, according to the release. Denkstatt brings its own expertise in areas such as compliance under the European Union’s Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive and EU Taxonomy, in addition to decarbonization and climate strategies, sustainable finance investments, supply chain management and ESG software, among others.
EY’s Bulgaria Country Managing Partner Nikolay Garnev said the acquisition of Denkstatt allows EY to grow its consulting portfolio and upgrade its “competence and capacity in the field of sustainability services.”
“Our common goal is to contribute as much as possible to the sustainable development of companies, and thus to the society as a whole,” Garnev said in the release. “In this configuration, we can address the problems of our clients individually and help them in every respect by providing comprehensive and specialized sustainability solutions for each industry.”
The Central Europe-based firm aligns with recent initiatives EY has undertaken to fast-track its pathway to reaching net-zero by 2025 and help clients mitigate their carbon footprint. Last year, EY launched a collaboration with Aspen Technology, an industrial software and performance management platform, to provide clients solutions for optimizing supply chains, monitoring emissions reduction and energy efficiency and supporting utility grid management, alongside increasing operational profitability.
The global accounting and consulting firm said it achieved carbon neutrality in 2020 and became carbon negative in 2021.
