ESG solutions

Baker Tilly Imprints | 2023 Impact Report

Staying the course

Ethics and governance

Stewardship

Diversity, equity and inclusion

Our people and purpose

Overview

featured stories

ARTICLE

Jump-start your sustainability road map with an ESG maturity assessment

Aligning ESG risks with existing ERM program key for creating value, attracting talent

Expanding our materiality assessment, in 2023 we surveyed our next set of key stakeholders, our clients, asking what matters to them and what they think is material to Baker Tilly. When combined with our internal stakeholder data from 2022, our matrix stayed consistent. What rose to the top again included ethics, compliance and independence; data privacy and cybersecurity; team member health, safety and well-being; and talent attraction, retention and development.

Environmental sustainability

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

4.5

2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5

Importance/impact for Baker Tilly

Importance to stakeholders

Greenhouse gas emissions

Social issue management

Corporate governance structure

Waste management and recycling

Water management

Crisis management

Overall environmental stewardship

Philanthropy and volunteerism

Community engagement

Innovation and R&D

Diversity, equity and inclusion

Data privacy and cybersecurity

Talent attraction, retention and development

Ethics, compliance and independence

Employee health, safety and well-being

Energy management

Supplier management

Environmental Social Governance

Materiality matrix

Download Baker Tilly Imprints 2023 Impact Report

Building community among caregivers and those with diverse abilities at Baker Tilly

featured stories

At Baker Tilly, we strive to create an environment where every team member feels seen, heard, valued and connected. When we can bring our authentic selves to work each day, our contributions reflect our individual best, and our community is strong. Last year, we wrapped up a robust three-year strategy for enterprise-wide efforts around diversity, inclusion, belonging and societal impact (DIBS). In 2023, we built upon that success with a new, evolved set of goals aimed at embedding our approach more deeply into our day-to-day business practice and at the local level. From communities for young professionals and people of color, to team member networks centered around exercise, LGBTQ+, veterans, CPA attainment and others, our DIBS groups continued to provide meaningful connections with colleagues across our firm. Two new groups emerged in 2023 geared toward a love of the outdoors and people who are neurodiverse or live with physical disabilities, while another group expanded to be even more inclusive (see featured story). Externally, we sponsored a gender-in-the-workplace study, aligning with our strategy to increase the percentage of female leaders at Baker Tilly, which grew from 36.2% in 2022 to 39.1% in 2023. Our two signature mentorship programs, supporting the advancement and success of women and team members of color, grew exponentially this year, with each program doubling its number of mentoring connections. In 2023, 122 rising female leaders and 88 professionals of color were matched with 1-on-1 mentors. In the next year, a key goal is to develop a supplier diversity program, in addition to scaling our DIBS efforts globally in partnership with Baker Tilly International. Through focused initiatives and goal setting, we are strengthening our sense of community, fostering learning and conversation, developing and promoting our team members and effecting change both inside and outside our organization.

Better together

Baker Tilly sponsors global study on gender, generation and care

Innovation Ignite lights a fire for early-career professionals

Health and well-being at Baker Tilly

featured stories

At Baker Tilly, our purpose is to unleash and amplify the talent of our amazing team members. That means creating a workplace that helps them thrive. Our flexible approach to work is centered on the evolving needs of our people, our clients and our profession. In 2023, we launched Baker Tilly Blueprint, which is a framework for how we work across our organization, providing clear workplace expectations and tools to accomplish our goals. Two new programs emerged from this framework. One is Teaming with Intention, which drives meaningful opportunities to engage, learn and collaborate in person and virtually. Another is our Fridays@BT initiative, which was created to protect Fridays from regular meetings, allowing our team members to shape their workdays and workweeks and take the time they need for planning, personal and professional development and deep work. Together with our Disconnect Days — firm days off where we collectively recharge, reset and relax — we continue to provide a workplace culture that prioritizes flexibility and well-being. Sparking new ideas and expanding capabilities, our first Innovation Ignite program brought together 60 early-career team members for an immersive experience in innovation, analysis and design thinking (see featured story). In addition to offering robust health and well-being benefits, we provided easy access to them all in one central location, already driving 65,000 visits to this information (see featured story). Toward our goal to improve the work/life balance of caregivers, we expanded our team member network to provide more connection and support, and, in the next year, we plan to explore more benefits for this group. Our commitment to our people is reflected in the many workplace awards we receive that recognize how we value, care for and uplift our people who are the source of all the good we do for our clients and our communities.

Exploring, designing and thriving

Baker Tilly Foundation – Fiscal year 2023

Transforming lives at an inclusive summer camp

featured stories

Our commitment to stewardship keeps us grounded in what we value most: making positive change for our people, clients, communities and profession. Whether it’s blazing a trail others can follow, joining a group’s journey to build something better or simply walking alongside one another, our people make a difference every day. Our team members are the heart of our core value of Stewardship, inspiring each other to do good every day. The Baker Tilly Foundation amplifies our team members’ efforts, supporting them in giving back through three foundation pillars — education, health and wellness and human services. The foundation’s Baker Tilly Wishes program, in its sixth year, gave $10,000 each to 15 team member-nominated not-for-profit organizations (see featured story). Stewardship Week is a powerful five days of service where team members across our firm come together to serve the communities where we live and work. This annual tradition is one way we live out our core value of Stewardship. In 2023, nearly 3,000 team members came together to make a positive impact on their communities during this week. From planting trees to packaging meals, watch how our team members made a difference this year. Inspired by the dedication of our team members during Stewardship Week, the Baker Tilly Foundation created the Stewardship Week Extra Impact Grant to further support the organizations where our team members volunteered. Ten organizations, nominated by team members who served them, received an Extra Impact Grant of $5,000. A goal in the next year is to increase our team members’ engagement in civic duties — for example, serving on boards or participating in elections as poll workers. We started with fresh awareness of our Time-to-Vote benefit, which gives team members eight hours of time off on Election Day.

Volunteering and giving back

Engaging our future leaders

Board of Partners and Senior Leadership Team

featured stories

Our profession is built on integrity and trust. It’s a big reason why ethics, compliance and independence rose to the top of our materiality assessment and why integrity is one of Baker Tilly’s core values. In 2023, we leveled up our focus on ethics with a new training roadmap designed to help our team members think about the "why" behind decision-making and ethical responsibility. Complementing this increase in transparency, we raised awareness around our Board of Partners through enhancements to our website and increased opportunities for our team members to engage with our board members. Next, we plan to refresh our ethics curriculum by reviewing our team member training and then identifying areas for improvement and opportunities for new ethics-related content. Independence training: Annually, we require all professionals to confirm their independence by completing a questionnaire and training. In 2023, 100% of our team members completed their requirements. Safeguarding data and preventing cyberattacks is a requirement, as cloud technology progresses and bad actors become more sophisticated. Putting the right policies and practices into place, identifying and addressing risks, and maintaining the integrity of the data we collect and store for our clients is paramount to our business. Our team members spent over 6,500 hours in 2023 on required monthly cybersecurity training, showcasing real-life scenarios that keep smart practices front of mind. We also have robust data privacy and security programs that are designed and tested to protect our clients’ data from unauthorized access, use or disclosure, in line with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and HITRUST. View a few of our privacy policies: Baker Tilly Online Privacy Policy, CCPA Consumer Privacy Notice and EU Privacy Notice.

Leading the way with integrity

Harnessing the IRA

Baker Tilly teams up with Sustain.Life and Sumday to transform emissions reporting

featured stories

A fundamental step to advancing environmental sustainability is good reporting. In 2023, we began compiling the data available to us today — from office equipment to travel analyses — to understand any gaps in information. We quickly followed that step by identifying and securing a metrics-reporting platform that will help us establish baselines in the next year and develop KPI targets in the future. In the meantime, we continued to build our organizational knowledge and make smart improvements, including replacing 121 printers across our offices with new, more efficient Energy Star®-rated models that track energy and paper usage, as well as provide us with an ability to invest in reforestation efforts to offset our carbon footprint. Also, in collaboration with our learning professionals, we created an environmental, social and corporate governance course aimed at giving our team members a solid understanding of ESG, how it affects our clients and why it’s important to our firm. Moving forward, our Environmental Sustainability Team Member Network will begin ramping up more internal awareness and engagement efforts with team members. Operationally, our real estate and facility teams will continue assessing office footprint needs and establishing policies that complement our goals, while we also look to make our internal and external events more sustainable. Environmental sustainability cannot be a one-person or one-entity effort: it’s a collective one. In the past year, Baker Tilly has formed multiple collaborations focused on helping other companies drive ESG, specifically environmental efforts. (Right) Read two examples where we’re teaming up with ESG-minded organizations offering emissions-reporting platforms and the first tax credit marketplace, respectively.

working together

Getting ready to report

Baker Tilly forms collaboration with Ever.green to create first marketplace for clean energy tax credits

data privacy and cybersecurity: front of mind

As an advisory CPA firm, we ride the wave of change every day. New regulations, market headwinds, societal shifts and technological advances affect our people, our clients and our communities. Our area of expertise involves understanding the landscape and guiding others through it. "Our impact matters. How we advise our clients. How we provide fulfilling careers for our people. How our work reverberates in the world. It’s all connected and makes a difference inside and outside our organization. We are committed to moving ESG forward.” — Jeff Ferro, Baker Tilly CEO It’s about marching forward, whether on a detour or an entirely new path. In our second year with a focused ESG and sustainability strategy, we did just that — making incremental progress and being open and honest about where we are in our journey.

"Our impact matters. How we advise our clients. How we provide fulfilling careers for our people. How our work reverberates in the world. It’s all connected and makes a difference inside and outside our organization. We are committed to moving ESG forward.” — Jeff Ferro, Baker Tilly CEO