Sustainable Finance

We believe in not only managing our own operations in an environmentally sustainable manner, but in doing our part to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy.

In 2018, we formalized our approach to sustainable finance, forming a cross-functional Sustainable Finance Working Group, codifying our definition of sustainable finance, and beginning the work to more fully automate how we capture sustainable finance data. In 2019, PNC was the third U.S.-headquartered bank to issue a green bond.

Sustainable Finance Working Group

PNC's Sustainable Finance Working Group includes employees from business segments that are key to the success of PNC’s sustainable finance, green lending and environmental sustainability programs. The working group is responsible for defining PNC’s sustainable financing commitments and influencing strategies to ensure that we meet our sustainable finance goals.

The Sustainable Finance Working Group's first task was to address PNC's definition of sustainable finance. Our commitment to enabling our clients’ sustainable operations takes the form of providing financing and underwriting debt with an environmentally sustainable use of proceeds. Areas of focus include:

• Renewable energy
• Energy efficiency
• Green building
• Brownfield remediation
• Sustainable transportation
• Waste management and pollution control
• Water quality and conservation
• Air quality

Sustainable Financing Bonds

Underwriting bonds that finance environmentally and socially beneficial projects is an important part of our sustainable finance program. This includes both traditional, green and social bonds, which are underwritten and issued under the best practice guidelines of the International Capital Markets Association's Green Bond Principles and Social Bond Principles. PNC is a registered member of the Green and Social Bond Principles.

Responsible Investing

As technology and science create new business and investment opportunities, they also create new responsibilities, which include considering our collective impact on future generations. By changing the dynamic between investors, businesses and the public, responsible investing can help ensure that today’s innovation is sustainable and our current decisions and actions position future generations for success.

We define responsible investing (RI) as an investment strategy that:

• Proactively supports certain values or causes
  
• Excludes or restricts portfolio exposures that may conflict with those values
  
• Defines a specific, targeted impact and allocates capital toward that objective
  

At PNC, we view RI as an implementation strategy, rather than an investment philosophy or a separate asset class. It is a lens we can use to implement a portfolio that aligns with an investor’s unique goals, intentions, values or mission.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Integration

ESG is a set of standards that investors can use to evaluate investments and determine whether a company’s operations are "responsible." Environmental criteria look at how a company performs as a steward of the natural environment. Social criteria examine how a company manages relationships with its employees, suppliers, customers and the communities where it operates. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, executive pay, audit and internal controls, and shareholder rights. We have developed several proprietary investment strategies that take ESG factors into consideration.

Our approach to responsible investing is:

• Focused on goals: Our process begins by understanding each client’s unique values and intentions.
• Flexible: We build portfolios tailored to each client’s particular investment needs, restrictions and values. We do not believe a one-size-fits-all approach is always necessary or appropriate in implementing an RI portfolio.
• Dependent on deep analysis: Robust quantitative analyses combined with strong qualitative research can generate meaningful insight that is not attainable by either method on its own, so we employ both to help derive optimal RI portfolio solutions for our clients.
• Dynamic: Markets evolve, and portfolios need to adjust accordingly to generate attractive returns.
• Long-term: While markets are ever-changing, we believe patient investors can capitalize on proven, long-term trends. Many of the thematic strategies we employ within portfolios may require taking a more secular view of the world, as demographic shifts and environmental trends can take considerable time to unfold.
• Value-oriented: We seek to identify investment opportunities that are undervalued and/or mispriced by the market. We use our rigorous, disciplined and repeatable investment process as a guide to help determine what relative value ultimately looks like.

PNC has invested over

$9B

in environmental finance in 2021

$3.9B

in Responsible investing assets under management