Corporate Sustainability: A year in review
At PwC, building trust in society and solving important problems is at the heart of everything we do. We have a voice on the issues that matter to our people, our clients and the nation.
Over the past year, PwC has embarked on a new approach to Corporate Sustainability. Instead of spreading our efforts across many causes, we are focusing on a few big issues and to help do this we’ve unlocked our greatest asset - our people and their time.
To create social change we believe collaboration is fundamental. By combining our skills, knowledge and expertise we stand a better chance of tackling complex problems.
But collaboration on its own is not enough. Together we need to focus on the long term outcomes and be accountable along the way.
Our ‘Year in Review’ is the beginning of a journey, one we’d like to share with you. Each year we will document our process, progress, and what we’ve learned along the way.
We will continue to help create positive social change and in doing so, reimagine the role of business in society.
Rosalie Wilkie on PwC’s new approach to Corporate Sustainability
Homelessness
As a firm, we believe that every Australian deserves the right to a safe, secure and affordable home. After consultation with our people and the not for profit sector PwC has committed the next three to five years to finding practical solutions to end homelessness.
Take a look at what we have done over the past year
Reconciliation
This year our Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) has achieved Elevate endorsement from
Reconciliation Australia. This acknowledges our proven track record of embedding RAP
initiatives and taking a leadership position to advance Indigenous business. Our Elevate RAP is a joint effort between PwC and the Indigenious consulting firm PIC. In a way, this is a manifestation of reconciliation itself.
PwC is also a proud supporter of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Take a look at what we have done over the past year
SOCIAL IMPACT TIME - Activating our people
At PwC we encourage all of our people to think about how they will personally apply the firm's values to their work. As we transformed our approach to social impact over the past year we uncovered an appetite among our people to make a positive difference to society through their work, in a way that suits them best.
Every person at PwC can activate social impact time through community volunteering, skilled volunteering, pro- or low bono work.
The Impact Assembly works with non-profit organisations, philanthropists, corporate foundations, and other organisations across sectors to tackle big social challenges. By bringing these diverse groups together we can drive systemic change around the big challenges and big opportunities in our society.
The Impact Assembly is the backbone operation for The Constellation Project and has developed a number of other projects including;
Stop and Reverse MS
Stop and Reverse MS
The Obesity Collective
The Obesity Collective
The Constellation Project
The Constellation Project Lab Wrap
The Constellation Project
PwC OnBoard
PwC partners and staff in Australia hold over 500 board and advisory roles with not-for-profits, using their skills at a leadership level to build capacity in the sector.
PwC OnBoard is the only program of its kind in corporate Australia, providing support to our people across the firm to secure a board or advisory role with a not-for-profit organisation (NFPs). This is a very practical way of bringing our firm’s purpose to life, to build trust in society and solve important problems.
Giving at PwC
PwC's workplace giving program helps our people support the causes they're passionate about.
The firm encourages giving and matches donations of it’s employees.
In FY18-19, our people and PwC gave a total of..
$986,380
450 charities
PwC’s Foundation Trust
In line with our purpose, we remain committed to using our resources to solve important problems. PwC's Foundation Trust is focused on distributing funds towards issues facing our society. This year funds have been directed toward homelessness via the new Innovation Grant program. The initiative offered three investments of $80,000, to support innovative solutions towards ending homelessness in Australia.
Our global ambitions are focused on reducing our unavoidable carbon emissions, switching to renewables and offsetting our air travel.
Over the past year, even as PwC continues to grow globally, its emissions were down by 4% (to 592,293 tCO2e), and emissions per employee were reduced by 7% (to 3.19tCO2e). Over the last three years, emissions per employee have fallen by 14% (from 3.69 to 3.19 tCO2e).
Sixty percent of electricity used by PwC’s largest operations (representing 88% of revenues) came from renewable sources, the highest ever level reported for the network.
In 2008 PwC Australia was the first professional services firm to become carbon neutral and we are proud to continue this commitment through the NCOS carbon neutral program. We achieve carbon neutrality through a focus on reducing our impact and then purchasing accredited NCOS certified carbon offsets for any residual emissions.
PwC is a member of the United Nations Global Compact and sponsored the recent film ‘Our Planet, Our Business’ and the firm is actively driving conversations around what business can do.
Recently, PwC Australia redesigned all of our 9 offices to reduce office energy usage. Our Sydney Barangaroo office has received a 6 star rating from Green Star initiative.
We’ve actively worked to change behaviours of our people and transition to a paperless office. We've also invested in upgrading our video conferencing facilities to reduce the need for business travel and allow our people to work flexibly.
Learn more about our focus on the environment
PwC Global Environment
There is a lot of work that goes on outside of Australia, take a look at what we are doing across the world. >
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