EY Luxembourg Sustainability report

Supporting our clients and profession

Our clients expect EY Luxembourg to provide high-quality audits, relevant advice, and sound technical and sector-specific expertise.

In addition, due to the diversity of its clients and assignments and the auditing work that it performs, EY Luxembourg is an observer of the financial world and of the trends affecting it. With respect to sustainability matters, we are constantly working to develop our ESG services, with the main goal of helping our clients to deal with the main market trends, like investors’ needs, climate change and environmental factors, integration of the main ESG risks and opportunities in their business model and the latest regulatory developments. Furthermore, we have created an impact investing focus group, which is embedded in our Private Equity/Debt practice, with over 300 fully dedicated professionals. 

Our experts have served the Impact Finance Fund since inception and have followed a specific training curriculum including valuation trainings and have developed specialized knowledge and skills. They have long since expressed their passion for impact finance and actively participate in associations and working groups, for example: the International Climate Finance Accelerator (ICFA), the Inclusive Finance Network Luxembourg (InFiNe) and the European Impact Investing Luxembourg (EIIL). 

Our mission is therefore to help our clients to innovate by taking account of the fundamental technological, societal, and environmental changes taking place today, and global commitment towards climate change and human rights.

By meeting these needs, we are contributing to creation of long-term value. The support we give our clients creates the conditions for confidence in the economy.

How can we improve our clients’ journey?

"As a corporation, EY can be a catalyst for change and help our clients to create long-term value-led sustainability".

Renaud Breyer
Partner, Sustainability Leader

EY Luxembourg is a trusted third party with the role of building trust in the financial world. In short, EY aims to provide businesses and organizations with a high level of service that enables them to deal with changes in their environment. 

To sum up, it is vital that every partner and employee:

  • Carries out his or her assignments in accordance with the rules on ethics and independence;
  • Maintains data confidentiality;
  • Delivers services with a focus on client satisfaction.

The procedures for managing quality, ethics and independence can be accessed by all our employees in a space dedicated to risk management.

EY’s reputation and its ability to build trust and confidence in a changing environment is achieved through both management teams that are responsible for embodying our mission statement and the accountability of our employees.

  • The EY management teams are responsible for demonstrating, through their conduct and actions, EY’s desire to remain true to its mission statement of “Building a better working world” by making the world in which we operate fairer and more balanced;
  • While it is essential that the management teams set an example, at EY we are all equally as responsible for the quality of our services. They are guided by a combination of the management in place for them, the training delivered to them and the code of conduct that they sign;
  • Ethics are central to the reputation of EY, its employees and its partners.

Ethical compliance is based on global policies and is enshrined in our values and our code of conduct. As emphasized by general management, ethics are vital for example-setting and should be communicated regularly. Training and awareness-raising serve to remind every one of our employees of the importance of complying with these rules.

  • Focus on Code of Conduct

    EY adheres to professional values set out in a code of conduct signed by all its employees and partners when they join EY and every year thereafter.

    The aim of the procedures for monitoring compliance with the code, enhanced work on example-setting and new communications is to create a climate conducive to responsible conduct on the part of our professionals.

  • Anti-corruption and anti-money laundering

    EY’s global anti-corruption policy supports our obligation to comply with anti-bribery laws by providing guidance to EY personnel on how to respond to unlawful or unethical activity.

    A specific online training is delivered to our employees so they better understand potential bribery and corruption situations, and the steps required to report such matters

    EY is also committed to playing a key role in anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) globally, as well as complying with all relevant laws and regulations related to combatting financial crime.

    Our client and assignment acceptance process incorporates assessments of money laundering risk, in addition to other risks related to corruption, ethics and economic sanctions. Our designated AML Officer helps our professionals assess situations and meet the requirements of our professional regulations. In addition, we are continuously enhancing our AML assessment processes to take into account ever-evolving AML and CTF laws and legislation.

    Our initiatives to raise awareness among our professionals include periodic training on AML regulations and requirements, as well as requiring all new hires to attend a training session on the subject.

  • Management of conflicts of interest

    EY’s global policy on conflicts of interest and the associated guidance documentation are updated regularly to consider the increasing complexity of our assignments.

    This policy also complies with the most recent standards issued by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants and takes into account the code of ethics of the legal profession.

    EY evaluates the risk of a conflict of interest before each new assignment, which involves a rigorous procedure to identify whether the services to be provided and/or existing client relationships may give rise to a conflict. Our conflicts check process provides specific guidance to client engagement teams where necessary on the appropriate safeguards that must be implemented before work can commence.

  • Independence

    Independence is a fundamental concept to the audit profession and to EY’s dealings with our audit and assurance clients. Independence forms the basis for EY providing independent assurance with respect to our clients’ financial reporting. It underscores the need for all our professionals to be free from interests that might be regarded as being incompatible with objectivity, integrity, and impartiality. This in turn strengthens the quality of our audits and the advice we provide to our clients.

    EY Luxembourg incorporates independence considerations in all assessments, whether starting a new relationship with a client or continuing an existing one.  These assessments make sure that we meet the rules and regulations defined by the Code of Ethics of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants, by EY on a global level, as well as any EU and local rules from our regulators.

    Each year, all employees must also confirm that they meet the requirements of EY’s policies on independence at an individual level in relation to their personal and financial relationships.

  • Client Experience

    Client centricity is one of the strategic pillars of our NextWave strategy. Client experience is key in improving our quality services focus on client satisfaction. In order to ensure the quality of its engagements, EY has introduced a new quality control system based on the policies, tools and procedures detailed in our audit transparency report.

    All members of the EY global network carry out client satisfaction surveys.

    Two types of internal controls support the quality of our engagements:

    • Before the start of each engagement
    • After the end of each engagement

    Our goal is to make each engagement an experience. For this reason, before the beginning of each engagement, we meet our clients to truly understand their needs and expectations.

    When an engagement ends, our commitment to exceptional client service continues. Thus, at the end of any project or engagement, the firm supports our client to understand whether EY's service met the client's expectations, and how we can continuously improve our offering.

    To assess our clients’ expectations, we use CX Lens, our user-friendly digital platform. It has been fine-tuned to make it simple, efficient and digitally enabled to collect high-quality feedback via a combination of interviews and supplementary surveys. It gives visibility of potential issues and pain points allowing timely follow-up, ultimately helping to improve client experience.

    CX Lens is the single point repository for our client feedback. It covers the four stages of the client journey from:

    • Pursuits;
    • Engagements;
    • Overall relationship;
    • And all other 'special' encounters.

    Our goal is to collect more valuable feedback from a large number of our accounts (clients). That will give us access to better quality insights and empower our teams to take tangible actions to improve service delivery, build stronger relationships and engineer superior experiences.

    During FY23, we engaged with over 146 clients through interviews and e-surveys.

  • Human Rights

    EY Global Executive (GE) signed a “Human Rights Statement” to demonstrate its commitment to promoting human rights inside and outside EY. EY Global Executive and the Corporate Responsibility Governance Council are committed to regularly updating and monitoring our duty to acknowledge and uphold human rights.

    Our Global Human Rights Statement builds on our Code of Conduct, to reflect our understanding of the fundamental rights of all human beings and our commitment to promote respect for those rights.

    Our EY approach to respecting and upholding human rights is formulated base on the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, which, among other things, state that businesses have a responsibility to:

    • Avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities, and address such impacts when they occur
    • Seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts

    In addition, EY Luxembourg is strongly committed to supporting the Luxembourg Government’s policies for Human Rights, as detailed in the National Action Plan to Implement UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (NAP), adopted on 2 2nd June 2018. Here, the matter “business and human rights” has been addressed by means of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Human Rights are indeed at the core of our sustainability approach.  

    At the most basic level, we operationalize our human rights obligations through the EY Global Code of Conduct, supported by a comprehensive communication and training program. More broadly, our ambition is to expand this training into more specialized programs and initiatives that strive for heightened awareness around human rights. This will integrate human rights considerations into our decision-making and broader engagement with society.

    We seek to proactively support and promote human rights for the wider benefit of the communities in which we operate. Our objective is to enhance the awareness around and consideration of human rights across the EY network in the interests of all EY people and those with whom they interact. As a professional services organization, we recognize the role we play in the communities in which we operate. We consider not only whether we can perform an engagement, but whether we should perform that engagement. While the specific role of EY may be complex and indirect, it can still be consequential, and we have a responsibility to better understand how EY services, and the clients receiving them, interact with human rights and the public interest at an individual and systemic level.

    We are equally as committed to upholding the human rights of EY people. Specifically, we strive to respect the following human rights, in accordance with the EY Global Inclusion and Non-Discrimination policy, in our work environment:

    • Labor rights - the right of all people to just and favorable terms of employment
    • Health and safety — the right of all people to enjoy a physically and psychologically safe work environment
    • Diversity, equity and inclusiveness — the right of all people to be respected and valued for their differences, with equitable opportunities and outcomes, in an inclusive environment where all can thrive

    We are conscious that our responsibility to respect and promote human rights extends beyond the direct operations of EY into their supply chains, where we seek to influence the broad adoption of labor rights and maintain an active view of the human rights performance of our direct and indirect suppliers, in line with the EY Global Code of Conduct.

    Any human rights concerns arising within our business can be raised via the EY Ethics Hotline. The hotline provides EY people, suppliers, clients and others outside of EY with a means to confidentially report such concerns without fear of retaliation.

    We are committed to ensuring that all reports are appropriately heard, investigated and remediated as required.

Back to EY Luxembourg's Sustainability report