Sustainability in action at PPS

When business is built to share value, sustainability becomes a natural outcome

In 2025, Trialogue supported PPS to assess the level of embedment of sustainability in the business, the adoption of reporting codes and standards and also conducted a double materiality assessment. We worked with the PPS team to compile and produce their first Sustainability Report, reflecting a deep commitment to transparent and open disclosure on critical sustainability matters.

In the financial sector driven mainly by shareholder returns, PPS offers a powerful alternative; one where value is created and shared among members. It operates on a mutuality-based business model, redirecting returns to members rather than external investors. This structure enables PPS to embed sustainability not as a corporate responsibility initiative, but as a way of doing business.

Instead of shareholders, PPS has graduate professional members who receive both financial protection and a share in the organisation’s success through notional PPS Profit-Share Accounts™*. In 2024, more than R5.5 billion was allocated to these accounts and a further R5.9 billion was paid in claims and benefits. This model extends financial value over decades rather than quarters and supports long-term thinking, responsible risk management and investment in society.

Members provide capital and place their trust in the products and services PPS provides. These include insurance, investments, professional development, social upliftment and responsible business practices. The outputs are measurable: thousands of claims paid, investment growth, funding channelled into impact investment opportunities, bursaries awarded to future graduate professionals and investments in lowering environmental impacts. The outcome is a community of graduate professionals who are more financially resilient, better educated and able to serve society – now and into the future. PPS’s impact is systemic, resulting in strengthened graduate professions, intergenerational value and a philosophy that reinforces societal progress.

Sustainability is now a formal strategic pillar at PPS, but it has long been present in practice. Guided by its ethos of mutuality and purpose to help members live the lives they want to live, in a world worth living in, the group has a history of investing in education, healthcare and social resilience.

Through the PPS Foundation, PPS supports high school learners, university students and young graduate professionals with bursaries, mentorship and work-readiness programmes. In parallel, it invests in members’ lifelong development, offering digital tools that strengthen financial literacy, business capability and ongoing growth and development.

Responsible investing practices extend this impact. PPS aims to direct capital into assets that deliver financial returns while supporting positive social and environmental outcomes. In 2024, more than R150 million was committed to education-focused funds, such as EduFund and R300 million to the IDEAS Fund, which supports infrastructure, renewable energy and development projects.

In 2025, the UN International Year of Cooperatives and Mutuals, PPS stands as an example of how financial services can be structured to serve people and the world they live in, rather than extract from them. It shows that when success is shared, sustainability is not an add-on … it is the inevitable result.

* Members holding qualifying life-risk products share in the profit and loss of PPS through the notional PPS Profit-Share Account™, which vests on retirement from age 60 or death. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance.