We focus on what matters most to our business and stakeholders.
Our Priority Issues
Our formal prioritization assessment identifies the ESG risks, opportunities and impacts that are essential considerations for developing PPG's strategy and reporting.
We updated our assessment in 2022 and identified the priority issues below. We also started work on a new ESG roadmap and strategy, which has been informed by the priority topics identified by this assessment. This work also informed our new 2030 ESG targets.
Our updated assessment prioritized issues based on their capacity to impact people, the economy, the environment (stakeholder impact) or their capacity to create or erode enterprise value (financial impact). Some ESG issues have been prioritized based solely on their stakeholder or financial impacts, while other issues are included because of their impact on both stakeholders and PPG.
ESG issues (in no particular order)
- Addressing chemical-related social and environmental impacts, real and perceived
- Upholding human rights in PPG's supply chain
- Fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce
- Managing interactions with water as a shared resource
- Ensuring safe work environments and promoting employee well-being
- Maintaining positive community relationships
- Decarbonizing PPG operations, supply chain and customer emissions
- Using circular economy principles to reduce impacts from materials and waste
- Providing ESG training and career progression pathways for our people
- Effectively prioritizing and deploying technological improvements
- Attracting and retaining talent in a post-COVID world
- Building resilience in physical assets
- Understanding and communicating the financial importance of ESG to PPG and how PPG contributes to economic, social, and environmental outcomes
Our Prioritization Assessment process
Identifying PPG impacts
We identified our impacts based on a range of sources, including:
- Analysis of global megatrends impacting PPG
- Interviews with PPG executives and external stakeholders, including industry representatives
- Formal and informal feedback received from customers and employees
- Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analyses of PPG’s current position
- Review of internal strategy papers, policies and public disclosures
- ESG reporting frameworks and standards, including surveys shared by external ratings organizations
- Media coverage of PPG and the broader paints and coatings industry
See our Stakeholder Engagement section for more information on the variety of ways that we engage with PPG stakeholders outside of this process.
Evaluating and prioritizing impacts
We assessed PPG's sustainability-related risks, opportunities and impacts using the dual lenses of impacts on stakeholders and risks and opportunities for the company’s financial position. This approach ensures our strategy and reporting meets the expectations of investors interested in the long-term success of our business, as well as the expectations of stakeholders interested in our contribution to sustainable development objectives. Our prioritization assessment reflects guidance from global ESG standard setting organizations, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
Based on our research and a series of internal and external interviews, we developed a shortlist of issues that are most likely to be impactful for PPG and its stakeholders. The list of issues was refined at a workshop with PPG's senior leadership, where each issue’s relative impact was considered. Issues were deemed to be a priority based on a combination of desk research, perceptions of key stakeholders, peer review, and discussion with PPG's senior leadership. The results of this assessment were then disseminated to everyone that had participated in the process, including the Board of Directors, PPG's sustainability committee and interview participants, including functional and business leaders.
In addition to focusing on the priority topics identified by this exercise, PPG works to continuously improve our corporate governance and compliance program. This includes covering important issues, including corporate governance and ethics, data privacy, regulatory compliance and maintaining a productive relationship with our workforce and labor unions. Learn more in the Governance section.