Corporate Social Responsibility

"We are honest, do the right thing, conduct business
with the highest ethical standards and enable our
colleagues to raise concerns."

CSR/Sustainability Efforts at Company Level

Diversity and inclusion is embedded in PNC's workforce and work culture. Employee Business Resource Groups (ERBGS) are provided to employees. These are discussion groups where employees can discuss about their identities, such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, etc. PNC supports all of their employees whether they are women, people of color, or apart of the LGBTQ+ community or the military.

Sustainability is important to PNC as they recognize climate change is an environmental issue. To address environmental issues, they have already met their 2020 energy and carbon goals. They plan to meet more goals by 2035 that highly focus on protecting the environment. PNC is dedicated to reducing their carbon footprint. They set targets for reducing consumption levels of emissions, energy, and water.

PNC has series of points in their code of business conduct and ethics. Unethical or inappropriate behavior is not tolerated. Employees must be sure that they will be held accountable for ethical and risk implications of their work. Respect is taken seriously; employees are expected to treat each other with respect. If there are any issues, employees can report incidents through an anonymous hotline where privacy is ensured.

According to Yahoo! Finance, PNC's Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) score is 63. Their environment performance is 68.3, their social score is 63.7, and their governance score is 58.9. As seen, PNC places high importance on their corporate social responsibility. Their efforts are strategic because it is clear that they want an inclusive company environment and they are dedicated to giving back to their communities and reducing their carbon footprint by practicing sustainability efforts.

CSR/Sustainability Efforts at Product/Service Level

Providing excellent customer service is critical to PNC's values. They have enhanced their hiring process, where they can assess whether a future employee will be dedicated to their customers. With training employees, PNC has their employees learn behaviors and skills. One of the most vital points learned in training is empathy. Employees are also educated about security to avoid invasion of customer privacy. These trainings are conducted to ensure that employees will provide the best customer service as possible.

PNC gives back to their communities. In 2012, the company earned an "outstanding" status for exceeding Community Reinvestment Act standards. They focus on communities that they conduct business in through job creation, local infrastructure, small business loans, financial education, and sponsorships. With these priorities, PNC believes that there will be benefits that strengthen communities as a whole.

Risks are managed based on two categories: environmental and social risk and supplier risk. To manage environmental and social risk, PNC has frameworks that include regular portfolio analyses. The frameworks are reviewed by senior management and overseen by the Board of Directors to ensure sustainability commitment. In terms of supplier risk, PNC has a third-party management system. This system allows the company to oversee any risks that may occur and implement regulations to reduce risks.

Clearly, PNC's roles in value creation include providing customer service, giving back to their communities, and managing risks. PNC wants customers to feel valued when they are interacting with employees. They also believe that communities can benefit from the activities that they are conducting, such as providing loans and creating jobs. The company ensures that customers feel safe that their privacy is ensured and has frameworks to implement regulations.

News Media Discussion About Company

On PR Newswire, an article from early 2017 discusses about how PNC met 30% of their carbon reduction goals for 2020 in 2016. They have now reached those 2020 reduction goals, but this article provides some of their progress before they completed their goals. The article mentions that PNC has been working since 2009 to reduce their energy consumption and a 2016 corporate social responsibility report was released. In the report, it is mentioned that PNC has invested in projects that are energy efficient and renewable. They also made the decision to prohibit lending to coal producers since sustainability plays a big part in their corporate social responsibility. Similarly to this article, there are parallels with Dr. Macagno's lecture on corporate social responsibility. He talked about how sustainability was important for companies to maintain, especially since they have stakeholders. Stakeholders are people that are affected by a company's objectives. In PNC's case, their employees, customers, and the environment would be their stakeholders. Dr. Macagno presented several arguments about why corporate social responsibility is important and talked about companies that have good sustainability practices. If PNC continued to lend to coal producers, it would put their stakeholders at risk. Overall, Dr. Macagno's lecture was insightful and emphasized the importance of corporate social responsibility.


For more information on PNC's Corporate Social Responsibility you can visit their website.