"For us, sustainability is a strategic business issue." |
What is sustainable development?
Our view of sustainability is built on
our core values, our industry-focused
services and our investment in our
people and in the country of which
we are a corporate citizen. For us,
sustainability is a strategic business
issue. And to maintain it takes more
than a strong bottom line. It means
meeting society’s expectations of
added social, environmental and
economic value from our operations,
products and services.
For PricewaterhouseCoopers,
sustainability means ensuring that
we remain a viable business in the
foreseeable future.
The spate of corporate governance
scandals, locally and abroad, has
focused attention on the sustainability
of business, and its accountability.
The sustainability issues these
corporate governance scandals
touched are related to the behaviour
of board directors and their patent
lack of respect for their employees,
shareholders and wider stakeholders.
One can see the effects that such
behaviour has: bankruptcy, job loss – in other words the economic and
social pillars of sustainability are
shaken, upsetting the balance.
A fundamental aspect of sustainable development is that of the close links between society and the environment that sustains it. The notion of sustainable development has generally been limited to the environmental domain, until the trend of linking people, planet and prosperity culminated in a different agenda for global development being set for the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, largely that of poverty eradication. Our involvement in and contribution to this Summit showed our commitment to working together with other organisations in addressing the social challenges that South Africa faces.
"Our sustainability is built on our core values, our industry-focused services and our investment in our people." |
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The professional challenges
Professional services organisations have had to align their business strategies with the increased demands placed on business for improved corporate governance, transparency and the integration of the principles of sustainable development into their core function.
The challenges that we face, along with the rest of the accounting profession, are:
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Rebuilding public trust; |
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Continuing to embed the principles of corporate social responsibility in all our business practices; and |
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Promoting accountability, integrity and transparency. |
Our corporate sustainability strategy
We have formalised a corporate
sustainability strategy in terms of
which we commit to:
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Being a truly South African organisation reflecting the
demographics of our country; |
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Developing services relevant to our markets, that assist clients in
integrating sustainability into their
core business functions; and |
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Enhancing our public profile as a firm that really makes a difference. “Our sustainability is built on our core values, our industry-focused services and our investment in our people.” In these endeavours we are guided
by our core values of Teamwork,
Leadership and Excellence, which
support and infuse our actions
and interactions with our external
stakeholders and, internally, with each other. |
Government alone cannot solve all
the challenges that South Africa faces
today. PricewaterhouseCoopers is
committed to addressing these issues
through our involvement with initiatives
such as the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (Nepad) and the
King Report on Corporate Governance
for South Africa 2002. Our nationwide
community upliftment initiatives have
left a mark.
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