Professional Services Company of the Year

Description

This award is for professional services companies – for example, lawyers, accountants, tax advisers, and consultants - which have provided support to financial institutions in driving sustainable finance.  This support could take a range of forms: examples might include the development of frameworks for investment, designing tax or legal structures that enable more finance to flow to sustainable finance, or supporting innovative financial solutions with accounting, legal or tax advice. 

Judges do not expect perfection in all aspects of a professional services company’s activities: embedding sustainability into all operations is a challenging process.

But they will be looking for examples of outstanding performance as a leader in providing services that support sustainable finance and impact, and of efforts to integrate sustainability and impact goals with the professional services company’s core business.

They will expect to see evidence showing how the support of the professional services company has enabled measurable outcomes and impacts, even if these outcomes and impacts are achieved by their clients.

We request a total word count of 2000 words +/-10% (excl. supporting docs). Any confidential data will be treated as such and only shared with the judging panel, all of whom will have signed NDAs.

Criteria

Expert support for innovation (40%): How the professional services company has demonstrated its support for sustainable finance through the services it has provided to the financial sector. The judges will be looking in particular at how the services are themselves innovative and / or how they have enabled innovation in the provision of finance. 

Opportunities for scale and replication (30%): How the support provided by the professional services company presents opportunities for wide application across the financial sector.  

Outcomes and impacts (20%): Evidence of measurable outcomes and impacts that can be linked to the intervention made by the professional services company, even if achieved by the financial sector organisation that is being supported, and not the professional services company itself.

Integration (10%): How the professional services company has integrated its advisory or support work on impact and ESG or on sustainable finance more generally, with its overall approach to client services. To what extent is it demonstrating a commitment to improved social and environmental outcomes through all aspects of its strategy? (10%)

PLEASE NOTE: The criteria above are different to the questions in the application form. You will need to follow the application questions; cross-referencing these with the criteria to ensure you’ve captured them within your application. The criteria are followed by the judges in order to compare all entries in each category like-for-like. Please ensure you register / log in to AwardStage (opens 3 March), select the category and export a PDF copy of the questions. Some category application questions differ. The application questions will be available at least four weeks before entries open, so if you wish to get them ahead of time please email us.