PwC Canada unveils its Trust Roadmap

TORONTO, January 20, 2022 - Today PwC Canada unveiled its Trust Roadmap which helps address the growing trust deficit that individuals and organizations are experiencing today. Individuals are living through an era like never before, dealing with fundamental economic, environmental, societal and technological changes in the world, along with extended uncertainty due to the continued effects of a global pandemic. Organizations are grappling with growing competition for capital, emerging geopolitical risks, an intensifying war for talent and rising expectations to deliver a sustainable impact to all of their stakeholders. Against this backdrop, trust has emerged as a critical business imperative, and a key lever of value creation.

Data from PwC Canada's 2021 CEO survey shows that almost half of Canadian CEOs identified a lack of trust in business as a concern. In addition, Canada is facing a growing leadership crisis, validated most recently by Edelman's Trust Barometer, where almost half of the respondents say they are worried leaders are purposely trying to mislead them.

"Trust is at the centre of PwC's purpose and global strategy, The New Equation. Earning and building trust has never been more important, nor more difficult. Organizations need to earn trust and deliver sustained outcomes in an environment where competition and the risk of disruption are more intense than ever and societal expectations have never been greater. We need to do our part in addressing some of the most urgent issues facing the world today, and we are proud to share the launch of PwC Canada's Trust Roadmap," said Nicolas Marcoux, CEO PwC Canada. "The Trust Roadmap is PwC Canada's north star for living our purpose and making sure our actions and behaviours match our intentions and commitments in every interaction and relationship. We are on a journey ourselves as we take action to be accountable for living up to our commitments and to be transparent about where we fall short. We're disclosing our trust roadmap because we are driven to inspire other organizations to take the journey themselves."

PwC Canada's Trust Roadmap was developed from deep stakeholder sentiment. We went beyond the materiality of current environmental, social and governance elements that we report against every year. Detailed sentiment analysis on more than 3,000 stakeholders across our clients, our people and the public at large helped us understand why people put their trust in us and how our actions are either helping or hindering our ability to be resilient, accountable and sustainable in the long term.

Our analysis revealed the urgency to go beyond the traditional understanding of building trust through financial reporting and compliance work. We focus on a broader range of stakeholders and issues that will help us build trust, through diversity and inclusion, equity, quality, economic contribution and our impact on the planet. PwC's approach to building trust is designed to meet rising expectations of transparency and stakeholder engagement. Our framework includes a behavioural based KPI chart that shows how we're doing on our trust drivers and where we want to be in the future, based on five-year targets. We will focus on continuous improvement by providing transparent, outcome focused disclosures to evidence progress and learning.

"PwC Canada is committed to furthering its reputation as a trusted, transparent and accountable organization in today's new era of business and societal expectations. We recognize that we need to be willing to not only talk about our successes, but also about what needs improvement and what we're doing to address those gaps. Being vulnerable is critical to building trust," said Nicolas Marcoux, CEO PwC Canada. "We also recognize that this is a multi-year journey and that our trust road map and our goals will evolve. Our KPIs will continue to be updated as required, and as we continue to learn more about how we can build trust with our stakeholders. We recognize that we don't have all of the answers. However, by sharing our experience through a trust roadmap, we are confident that it will not only increase trust in PwC Canada but also serve as a challenge to others to apply this process to their own organizations."

In conjunction with the release of PwC Canada's Trust Roadmap, today PwC Canada also released a new podcast series, Talking Trust. The inaugural episode can be accessed here and features Nicolas Marcoux, CEO of PwC Canada. The podcast series is hosted by James Temple, PwC Canada's Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer.