Industry news

Aviva Investors’ chief responsible investment officer was on the advisory committee that helped create the Principles for Responsible Investment in 2006 — the UN-backed network of financial institutions that promotes environmental, social and governance factors. It was the same year he joined the £221bn asset manager.

In March 2022, Aviva published its first climate transition plan, setting its sights on achieving net zero by 2040, a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement’s 2050 target.

Waygood says Aviva Investors will own up if it fails to meet that commitment. “It’s something we want to do and put our best foot forward in trying to achieve. But we’re not saying we’re going to do it at all costs no matter what the circumstances are in the future. And if we don’t deliver it, we’ll be very open and honest about that and say why.”

Teleperformance, a global leader in digital business services, announced today that it was named among the top 10 Best Workplaces in Europe™ 2023 by Great Place to Work®. The company ranked the 7th Best Workplace in Europe among multinational companies in France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey and the U.K.

Teleperformance employees across Europe participated in the annual confidential survey, which rated the digital business services company on trust, company values, leadership and innovation.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are urging the Federal Government to prioritise environmental conservation for Budget 2024.

Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) president Vincent Chow said allocations for environmental projects in previous national budgets had been insufficient.

“We want the government to give its full commitment to protecting the country’s environment,” he said.

Read the full article on The Star here.

Earlier this week, US-headquartered customer services giant Concentrix signed the deal to buy French-headquartered rival Webhelp, in an acquisition first announced back in March (see Concentrix agrees to buy Webhelp for $4.8bn).

The combined business is likely in due to course to get a new name and identity and is expected to have c.$9.8bn in revenue for FY 2023 on a pro forma basis. The new combined operation is to be led by current Concentrix CEO Chris Caldwell.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

KPMG has launched the KPMG ESG Academy in collaboration with Microsoft and some of the world’s leading universities and institutions. The scalable, turnkey academy leverages the KPMG Learning Enablement and Analytics Platform.

The Academy course material is structured around the latest business thought leadership in environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics, with content developed by globally recognized ESG specialists from leading universities and institutions, in collaboration with KPMG subject matter professionals in sustainability.

Read the full article on KPMG here.

Organisations are turning to AI to automate a host of business processes, Computing research finds

Among 120 senior IT leaders polled in Computing's recent research into IT strategy, 47% said they were actively using more AI/ML products and in their businesses more than last year. A further 30% said they were consuming more AI passively, since it is increasingly present in the products and services they use.

Read the full article on Computing here.

Simon Virley CB, Vice Chair and Head of Energy and Natural Resources for KPMG in the UK, said:

“Large-scale business investments in the industries of the future, like electric vehicles and low-carbon heating technologies, and their accompanying supply chains, are only possible if there are stable, long-term policies in place.

The constant uncertainty that comes with changes in target dates and commitments, simply makes it harder to attract the investment we need to boost the UK economy and reach our legally binding Net Zero goals. The risk now is that the UK will continue to fall behind in the global race for green investment, and our homegrown businesses will lose out.”

Read the full article on KPMG here.

Leading UK bank, NatWest Group, is expanding its use of AWS in order to accelerate its utilisation of AI as part of its ongoing transformation. The bank is building on its existing strategic relationship with AWS as it looks to develop a range of new, AI-powered financial products and services.

As a result of NatWest’s latest move, specialists from AWS’ newly launched $100m Generative AI Innovation Center will work with NatWest employees in an effort to develop AI products on top of the foundation models that are made available via APIs through Amazon Bedrock.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

KPMG UK has appointed Hilary Eastman as a partner in its accountancy advisory services wing. She joins the firm to lead the support it provides clients as they look to comply with new ESG reporting requirements.

As environmental, social and governance (ESG) becomes more important to consumers, who are increasingly inclined to shun companies with poor ESG track-records, companies are struggling to adapt while still performing well as a business. This is seeing a growing demand in the $9 billion market of sustainability consultants, who can help proactively improve upon ESG issues without diminishing business outcomes.

Read the full article on Consultancy.uk here.

EY has joined the growing stampede of IT and business services companies making big bets on Artificial Intelligence. The Big Four firm has announced the launch of EY.ai, which it describes as a unifying platform designed to accelerate enterprise adoption of AI. The product of a $1.4bn investment, the platform brings together the firm’s internal capabilities with an extensive AI ecosystem.

The latter includes include Microsoft (which provided EY with early access to Azure OpenAI capabilities), Dell Technologies, IBM, SAP, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters and UiPath.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.