For us, upholding corporate responsibility in our community means that the people
of PwC are committed to playing a leading role in achieving a sustainable future:
we hold ourselves accountable for our actions and promote responsible business
practices; support the growth and development of our people and communities;
and seek to minimise our impact on the environment.
We approach corporate responsibility from four perspectives, which we call the Four Quadrants : Community, Environment, People and Marketplace. By considering the wider impacts of our decisions in these areas, we are able to develop a comprehensive strategy that embeds corporate responsibility into all our business planning and processes.
Throughout this review you will have seen our corporate responsibility commitment in practice.
Our progress to date reflects the engagement and commitment of our leaders. Our Corporate Responsibility Advisory Council is chaired by our CEO and has oversight across all of our corporate responsibility quadrants. The principles of corporate responsibility are embedded
within the firm’s strategy, policies, risk management framework, supply chain management,
and recruitment and development practices.
Some highlights across our quadrants in 2009 included:
Capacity building
We are best equipped to serve our communities by using our professional expertise to support participants in the not-for-profit sector – we call this capacity building. This work is undertaken either pro bono or at heavily discounted rates, and for the first time in FY09 the total value of such work reached $15 million.
Our transparency agenda
We became the first professional services firm to participate in the Corporate Responsibility Index and benchmark our practices against 125 high-performing organisations in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The findings have given us a starting point for measuring and focusing our efforts in years to come.
We are also the only professional services firm to publicly release independently verified greenhouse gas accounts, which include targets for future emission reductions. The accounts disclose key learnings from the process that we hope will encourage and assist other organisations to adopt similar practices.
For the second year, we ran our flagship initiative, the Transparency Awards, with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the Centre for Social Impact. These awards recognise and encourage improvement in the quality and transparency of reporting within the not-for-profit sector.
This Annual Review contains more of the firm's non-financial information than ever before.
Reducing our carbon footprint
We reduced our carbon emissions before offsets by 23 per cent in FY09, substantially exceeding our public target of a 10 per cent reduction. This was primarily achieved through a switch from air travel to video conferencing and a move to 33 per cent renewable energy. We also achieved strong reductions in paper usage and, with the help of our building managers, reduced our waste to landfill.
| PwC Corporate Responsibility Partner Rick Millen discusses our changing world with Peter Shergold, CEO of the Centre for Social Impact; Peter Hunt, Executive Chairman of Caliburn Partnership and Toby Hall, CEO of Mission Australia. |
Rick Millen
How do you think recent economic developments impact
the corporate responsibility agenda in Australia?
Peter Shergold |
It will sort out the companies that are genuinely committed from those who have only picked up the term. What I think we will see, within the next five years, are companies that are genuinely committed to corporate responsibility and incorporate it into their internal and external strategy, taking it to a new level. The private sector needs to get back to the heart of corporate responsibility to restore its image in our civil societies. PwC, a leader here, is symptomatic of a company that understands that. |
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Peter Hunt |
In a recessionary environment, many people become a lot more thoughtful because problems are more visible and there’s hope thoughtfulness will actually translate into better corporate thinking about social issues going forward. |
| So the current environment might actually encourage more engagement? |
Peter Hunt |
Hopefully chief executives and boards will understand staff loyalty is something that is incredibly prized. You can destroy a corporate culture quite easily by making quick decisions in down times. |
| Toby, what is the perspective from the not-for-profit sector? |
Toby Hall |
At the coalface we are seeing some organisations that have professed to be corporately responsible pulling those budgets completely. You’ve got organisations where this is embedded and part of their strategy, and some organisations that are basically saying this has been a marketing tool.
My personal perspective on corporate responsibility is that it actually spans every behaviour of an organisation and, therefore, must be embedded to succeed. |
How do you all feel corporate responsibility contributes to
sustainable business success? |
Peter Hunt |
Your business, like my business, is a people business. When clients are interfacing with PwC people, at whatever level, I think it shines through.
Corporate responsibility develops a culture within a company of enormous loyalty. Every consumer that interfaces with a company can see that internal culture directly through the people. If people actually believe in a company, it is so much more compelling. But this is intangible and I think a lot of companies struggle to put a dollar value against it. |
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Toby Hall |
I think, like Peter has said, the value of employees who like the fact their organisation has got a social heart is phenomenal. When you get an executive who’s working in the private sector to visit a homeless service, it gives them a perspective that things are bigger than just their organisation. This makes people think differently about one another. That value is significant and is something more than just financial returns. |
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Peter Shergold |
There is no doubt in my mind that at the heart of the value to companies of corporate responsibility is long-term sustainability and reputational advantage. It undoubtedly makes it easier to recruit the best, and more importantly, it makes it easier to retain the best. |
Toby, what do you think really makes a relationship between a
corporate and a not-for-profit organisation successful? |
Toby Hall |
One of the things business has to remember is that it is part of the community, and therefore when it does good in the wider community, it’s actually doing good for itself. It’s a virtuous cycle that needs to continue to build.
I think the days of getting financial donations are gone, to be honest. If you can’t maintain a strategic relationship with a corporation and actually have them add value to you and you add value to them, then you’re not doing what you should be. |
| From the corporate side of the fence, would you both agree with that? |
Peter Hunt |
If you take the capacity of leading corporates to constantly adapt to better meet competition, and you combine that with the dynamism and social understanding of the not-for-profit sector, you’ve got something which is potentially incredibly stimulating.
It is not only fascinating, but capable of leading to thought change, and thought change can lead to paradigm shift, and paradigm shift can lead to a huge reduction in social issues. |
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Peter Shergold |
Social innovation will come out when you have an honest, transparent and equitable relationship between not-for-profit organisations, private sector companies and governments. And that’s what we’ve got to work towards. That’s where I see corporate responsibility moving. |
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Toby Hall |
Peter raises an amazing point there, and I think the heart of this is actually having respect across the government, not-for-profit and private sector for one another’s skills. It’s about getting the relationships right, and those relationships start with trust. |
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Peter Hunt |
For corporate responsibility to really work it’s got to be in the board room; it’s got to be in the CEO’s psyche. Too often we see it passed down to the head of HR or the head of CSR. It is heartening to see that with PwC, there is a desire to have it permeate the whole organisation. This puts PwC at the forefront of Australia’s development of corporate responsibility. |
I am interested to hear what you think of PwC’s
execution of corporate responsibility? |
Peter Shergold |
From my point of view, we have a very good relationship with PwC; it hasn’t always been easy but my view is that it shouldn’t always be easy. The relationship is about transparency and accountability and being open about your expectations. In this way, you’re able to build a really strong, sound relationship over the medium- to long-term. The relationship between the Centre for Social Impact and PwC over the last few years demonstrates this. |
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Toby Hall |
I’ve always said quite openly that PwC is one of the leaders in this field. The thing I’ve enjoyed most over the last two years is the broader relationship with PwC’s people. Whenever they come to us, they go beyond the consultancy work. Even those from the corporate finance teams – who may not necessarily spend much time working within an organisation like Mission – appear to enjoy their involvement with us. |
Peter, you’re in the marketplace working with our people on both
sides of the fence. Do you see this reflected in the way our people
behave or the relationships they establish? |
Peter Hunt |
When you think about it, in a business, first and foremost, you have to deal with people who are competent. Once you’ve established competency, you basically want to deal with people you trust and have confidence in. Call it intangible, but this is crucial in choosing a business adviser.
Certainly in my interactions with PwC people, I’ve never had doubts about their ethics, their competency or their capacity to follow through with their word. When you combine these three attributes you end up with an incredibly powerful brand; a sustainable brand that continues to grow. |
How do you view corporate responsibility and its relationship
to the global financial crisis? |
Peter Shergold |
Corporate responsibility is essential to all companies right now. If you look at the foundations of the global financial crisis, there was inadequate risk management. If the basis of the global financial crisis was reputational risk, short sightedness and opaqueness, these three characteristics are the exact opposite of what you would expect from those who uphold corporate responsibility.
Reputational advantage is the very purpose of corporate responsibility; long-term rather than short-term sustainability is key. So in my view, the private sector really needs to get back into the heart of corporate responsibility, to restore its image in our civil societies. |
| One of the main challenges in this area is that the corporate sector works together to advance in corporate responsibility. Toby, in a way, you are at that cutting edge of where the not-for-profit sector meets the business sector. What is your perspective? |
Toby Hall |
What has struck me most about PwC is that when PwC people come to us, they build a rapport and relationship very quickly with our people. This gives PwC a competitive advantage and differentiation. The people bring more value, and that’s what it’s about for us.
I was talking to one of your staff the other day who was encouraged to take 15 days of annual leave because of the economy. Their response was: ‘Well you know; we’re all in this together’. The maturity of that response and the maturity of that thinking within the organisation is a reflection of good social responsibility right across the firm. |
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Peter Shergold |
PwC understands that value for clients is about providing top-class information in decision-making. Working with PwC on payroll giving for example – we need this basic research to drive improvement. This also goes for the way PwC is now undertaking research (that we desperately need) to examine the impact of the economic recession on the financial situation of not-for-profit organisations in Australia. This directly links the strengths of PwC with its commitment on the corporate responsibility front. |
One of our main initiatives is the PwC Transparency Awards,
what are your views on that? |
Peter Hunt |
The benefit of transparency is that you not only gain greater confidence from others, but you are also forced to look at your own weaknesses. The awards are a great example of a private sector organisation identifying where it can gain maximum leverage to improve the not-for-profit sector.
The more transparent the sector becomes, the greater the confidence of investors and social investors becomes and the greater the improvement we’ll see across the sector.
Provided PwC perseveres with these awards, it will be an extraordinarily powerful association between PwC and, potentially, one of the greatest initiatives in the sector. |
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Peter Shergold |
The awards process we went through this year was particularly inspiring from my point of view. It was great to meet people who had entered more than once and, as a result, had progressively improved in their performance. The fact that they’re not just doing this as a one-off is valuable.
Such governance is remarkably important. Apart from running the Centre for Social Impact, I also chair a not-for-profit organisation, the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, which is dependant on sponsors.
This year, we organised an event where they could explain to their sponsors exactly how the scheme works. We tried to be as transparent as possible on how we measured value. The aim was to establish a longer term relationship, and let sponsors see that we are trying to run a not-for-profit where every dollar is counted. This is why the PwC Transparency Awards are so powerful. |
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Toby Hall |
Mission Australia has come in the top 10 for two years in a row, which is great from our point of view. For me, it’s not just about winning an award; it’s about highlighting the importance of transparency in our sector.
What is really valuable about these awards is that they show us which areas we need to improve. Although we ranked highly in three of the five areas, there were two areas in which we are fundamentally not doing well. I’ve told my team, we’ve got to do this better because the fact is we want to be transparent. We want people to understand how we’re using the funds they invest with us, and we want them to know we’re responsible for what we do.
I would like a Transparency Award sticker so that people can show they were ranked as one of the top 10. This says, as a not-for-profit organisation, we’re doing the right thing with our funds and we’re proving it by reporting on it.
Aside from the awards, the research PwC is doing with payroll giving and into the impact of the global financial crisis on the sector is invaluable—particularly because we cannot afford to undertake research on our own. |
For a list of PwC’s FY09 corporate responsibility metrics please see the Facts and Figures section. | |
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Case study
The impact of payroll giving
Payroll giving is perhaps the best kept secret in Australian fundraising and philanthropy. It is an easy, effective and meaningful way for business to support the not-for-profit sector. PwC listened to concerns from the not-for-profit sector on the limited breadth of organisations engaged in payroll giving and the amount of uptake within each business. We joined together with the Australian Charities Fund, Charities Aid Foundation, United Way and Centre for Social Impact to further investigate the issue.
The Giving Business report investigates why the take-up of payroll giving has not been stronger, both in relation to the number of businesses that offer the facility and the number of employees who participate when it is offered.
The results were launched in our Sydney office on the evening of Tuesday, 4 March. The Business Council of Australia highlighted the research with its members, and PwC shared the findings with more than 100 clients to increase awareness about the benefits of this channel of giving. Following the success of the payroll giving research, the Foundation will continue to partner with not-for-profit organisations to undertake further research projects.
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