Why Schellman is Getting into ESG – Hear Directly from Our Chief Growth Officer

If you know Schellman, you likely know our standard plug—we’re a leading provider of attestation and compliance services and we’re the only provider in the world that has a CPA firm, a globally licensed PCI Qualified Security Assessor, a comprehensive ISO Certification Body, HITRUST CSF Assessor, a FedRAMP 3PAO, CMMC C3PAO, and APEC Accountability Agent working together to address our client’s complex and interrelated security and privacy compliance requirements.

And that’s not even all of our qualifications, nor does that description capture all the different kinds of services we offer. Within our focus on cybersecurity, we’re very proud to be very versatile—to be able to provide our clients with the opportunity to achieve many of their goals through us as their sole provider.

Now, we’re trying to meet even more of those needs by expanding into brand new territory—Schellman is launching environmental, social, and governance services to help organizations take a comprehensive corporate management approach to sustainability and ESG principles.

That probably sounds like a departure from our usual, which is why—in this article—I’m going to explain why we’re getting into this arena (and perhaps why you should as well).

As our firm-wide Managing Principal, my primary responsibility is to listen to our clients before working with our internal leaders to develop and deliver the services that meet our core purpose—to “help organizations build trust with their customers.”

Let me explain how that led us to ESG. 

ESG’s Growing Appeal

So why is the most cyber-focused CPA firm betting on ESG? You’re actually not the first to ask.

In a recent briefing, a senior executive with the AICPA stated, “We are very familiar with Schellman’s achievements in SOC, IT audit, and cybersecurity. I’m curious what is driving you to invest in ESG?”

It was a great question, and there are three fundamental answers:

 Why is Schellman Expanding into ESG?

For those reasons, we started to research real expansion into this sector, and we committed after realizing there would be three big benefits in doing so. 

1. There’s a Growing Market Demand.

As we mentioned briefly before, the market demand for ESG services is growing rapidly. Clients, boards, and investors are increasingly seeking assurance and transparency in organizations' sustainability practices and their impact on society, and those organizations need the help of independent evaluators to provide it.

By investing in ESG, we are not only meeting the needs of our current clients but also positioning ourselves as a trusted partner in navigating the evolving landscape of responsible business practices.

2. ESG Interconnects with Our Core Services.

Moreover, we recognize the interconnectedness of ESG with other offerings we provide that touch on broader governance, risk management, and compliance frameworks.

By aligning ESG with our existing expertise in enterprise governance and risk management, we can offer comprehensive solutions that address the evolving needs of our clients even more holistically.

3. ESG Enhances Our Value Proposition.

Finally—and perhaps most importantly—our embracing ESG allows us to expand our core competencies and provide a broader range of trust services to our clients.

Just as we validate organizations’ commitments to security programs and controls through SOC reports and ISO 27001 certifications, we can now extend our expertise to evaluate and certify their sustainability efforts through ESG-focused attestation reports and certifications like ISO 14001 for Environmental Management Systems.

The addition of our new services now further strengthens our value proposition and positions us as a trusted advisor in all areas related to building trust with customers and stakeholders.

What We’ve Done and What’s to Come

Admittedly, Schellman has always been strong in (G)overnance and when we first started looking down this road, we realized that there is more overlap than you would expect on the (S)ocial when considering the role people play in both governance and compliance.

But environmental impact and sustainability require more domain expertise, and since we as a firm lacked the level of expertise we pride ourselves on having regarding our other services, we hired Tom Andresen Gosselin, who has over two decades of experience in independently assessing organizations’ ESG capabilities and will oversee our entire ESG practice.

Schellman and ESG: More Developments on the Way

The market has spoken—more and more organizations are investing in ESG, making Schellman’s expansion into this sector not just the right thing to do but what we’re hoping will be a competitive differentiator.

At this time, Schellman is evaluating a wide range of these solutions from adherence to frameworks such as TCFD, SBTi, GRI, and GHG standards, and we will soon be offering ISO 14001 certification as the latest addition to our ISO suite of services.

As we continue to build out our diverse services package, we’re excited about this opportunity and looking forward to doing what we have done for more than twenty years—take what our clients have communicated is something they need, and work with them to develop and deliver the right level of assurance they can convey to their customers, investors, and other stakeholders.

ESG represents our latest endeavor at this—please stay tuned as we plan to publish more information in the coming weeks about ESG in general, as well as more details on our service offerings that will help you meet even more of your organizational goals.

In the meantime, please feel free to contact us as we’d love to hear about your initiative and what your needs are.