Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility

Overview

PPG has earned an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Score of 65, which tends to be average when compared to their competitors.  Their overall social rating is listed at 71.36, which is slightly above average throughout the industry. 

The four most significant missions of their CSR initiatives are listed below. 

1. To develop others.
2. To promote teamwork and establish long-term sustainable commitment. 
3. To educate because education can build influential global citizens. 
4. To take responsibility and be aware of their carbon footprint and work to conserve the environment. 

Community

Colorful Communities is a company-wide effort that volunteers employees to paint underprivileged neighborhoods and communities with vibrant colors.  The purpose is to restore empowerment and pride that is reflective of residents’ perspectives of their surrounding built environment. 

In 2017 alone, they spent over $10.5 million and helped 100’s of organizations in 29 countries.  Throughout the duration of the project; from 2015-current, they have contributed to 125 projects and helped over 4 million people. 

Corporate Social Responsibility: Environment

Many of PPG’s products are zero or low VOC. VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compounds, and these compounds negatively affect indoor air quality. PPG recently had re-engineered many of its manufacturing process at their facilities to minimize energy consumption, improve air and water quality, and to reduce waste.

PPG has several goals they want to achieve by 2025: they want 40% of their sales to come from products and processes that have improved sustainability over products that are being replaced, a

20% reduction in water consumption intensity, a 25% reduction in total waste disposal intensity (from their 2017 baseline, which was 4%), and a 65% improvement in spills and releases rate (from their 2017 baseline). 

PPG relies on third party certifications like LEED, who are the Leaders in Energy and Environmental Design that were created by U.S. Green Building Council. They encourage resource efficient building design, construction, and operation of buildings and regulate them. There was a new version of LEED, called LEED v4, that was released in Nov. 2013. The new version focuses more on a performance-based approach to quality. There are 4 levels to LEED: Certified (40-49 points), Silver (50-59 points), Gold (60-79 points), and Platinum being the highest level (80+ points). 

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, many of PPG’s buildings and products are LEED Certified, including their PPG Arena, which was infamously used to house the Pittsburgh Penguins. Their buildings are also Energy Star Certified, which just means that they meet strict performance standards set in place by EPA.