Kristi Eberhardt - The Data and Dollars inside PNC's Climate Strategy

[00:00:10] Adam: Hello and welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:12] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people sharing sustainability success stories.

[00:00:16] Adam: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Adam.

[00:00:23] Dominique: And I'm Dominique, and this episode is part of a mini-series in partnership with the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit, which celebrates collaborative climate solutions in the Midwest region of the United States.

[00:00:33] Adam: In this mini-series, you'll join us in a virtually attending this annual summit and meeting a few of the hundred speakers and key storytellers from this year's event. Today we're joined by Kristi Eberhardt, head of Sustainable Finance at PNC Bank.

She leads the integration of sustainability into capital markets across PNCs, commercial and corporate client base. So today we're talking about how financial institutions, particularly here in the Midwest, can help thread change in the sustainable industry. Thanks for joining us, Kristi.

[00:00:58] Kristi: Thanks for having me.

[00:00:58] Dominique: Okay, Kristi, so for listeners who might be new to the concept, can you define for us what sustainable finance means?

[00:01:04] Kristi: Yes, so sustainable finance like can mean several different things to different folks. How we define it at PNC is how we take different products and capabilities that we have at the bank and tweak them in ways that can serve as a carrot for change, a carrot for change that might have some climate friendly initiatives, environmental friendly initiatives and things like that.

So it's really purposeful and that it helps to support clients' initiatives wherever they might be on their decarbonization journey and in whatever sector they might be in.

[00:01:38] Adam: Like partially, what does that look like? Do you have an example?

[00:01:41] Kristi: So where we started with the sustainable finance practices around that 2016 timeframe, when we started to see a lot of our large corporate clients issue what we call green bonds. And, what a green bond is it is a bond issuance or a debt issuance where the proceeds are being used for dedicated green activities.

So the idea of ring-fencing those specific green activities was that we could help take supply side of the debt issuance, so like our borrowers and the demand side investors, and we could kind of help bridge the gap for investors that might want to have some type of investments that might have some environmentally friendly initiatives. And then we could provide that as a way for some of our clients to ring fence or separate some of their green CapEx activities and put it in a dedicated finance vehicle so that way these investors could get what they were interested in on the investment side.

So for example, you might have had a large utility company that was doing a green bond issuance for a large solar field. Or you might have had a REIT, a 'Real Estate Investment Trust' type company that might be issuing a green bond for a lot of their LEED certified properties in their portfolio. So that's really where sustainable finance kind of got its origin.

How did you get into this area? Like what sparked your personal interest in sustainability and how did that lead to where you are today at PNC?

 In my super early days of banking, I was focused on economic development finance.

But as my career evolved and I found myself focused on different forms of that debt raising and for a lot of our large corporate companies, specifically focused on Food and Bev clients. Around that 2016 timeframe, we started to see a lot of our clients in other sectors issuing these things called green bonds.

And I was curious because it felt a lot like some of this old economic development activity that I did many, many years ago and it was kind of like surreal to me, like, "Wow, I really enjoyed that time in my career many years ago, and now here I'm seeing something that looks very similar to that."

So in addition to my day job, I said, "Hey, I'd love to be able to talk to these sectors that are issuing green bonds and learn what drives them, what structures they look like, how do you even go to market? How do you find investors?"

So it was really exciting to me because, like I said, I got to marry some of my passions that I had in my banking career early on. But also there was a lot of neat ways that it kind of tied to some of my personal interests as well. Long ago, my youngest son who is a senior now in high school, when he was a freshman, he had a kindergarten teacher that was very passionate about sustainability. And I remember Ben come back home and was talking, all about like recycling and sustainability and, composting. And he was just full of different ideas and there's a lot of concepts that I hadn't heard about before,

 And so it felt to me kind of like, wow, a lot of these things that are happening in my life that I have really interest in and like a sponge in learning more about. I was able to apply to this concept in banking and I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is kind of surreal." I had to almost pinch myself that I was able to kind of combine what I was good at professionally with some of my personal interests. So that's really how it started way back, unofficially in 2016 when we didn't have a dedicated practice for sustainable finance.

[00:05:02] Dominique: 

PNC is a major player when it comes to the Midwest. Can you kind of talk through just what the role PNC is playing in this particular way in the Midwest?

[00:05:11] Kristi: We are one of the top five banks in the United States, over or close to 60,000 employees and completely kind of coast to coast. But we're really focused on kind of going to the market in each of our markets very specifically. So something that folks might not kind of appreciate is that as a financial institution, the majority of our emissions are in our Scope 3 and specifically in our loan book.

So said a little bit differently. If you have a car loan or a commercial loan or a mortgage loan with PNC, you are part of our Scope 3 emissions.  It is incredibly important for us as an organization to be understanding what our clients are doing, how they're thinking about their emissions, how they're thinking about sustainability, and is there a way that we can be supportive of their initiatives by acting as a carrot versus a stick.

What does that mean in practice? So we've developed and we continue to develop incentives for change. And we know that sustainability goals and reporting and regulations may have started with our large corporate clients, but we have quickly seen their influence and expectations bleed into the supply chain. And it's having an impact on a lot of our smaller and medium sized borrowers as well.

It has evolved into a lot of different sectors, not just sectors that have a lot of green spend, but also more smaller companies as well, maybe family owned companies or private companies. So we need to be adapting as well our products and capabilities and how we go to market.

So a couple years ago, we added to our focus our commercial client base, which at PNC we define commercial as five to 50 million in sales. And so we piloted a green loan product just for that segment. And so what that green loan product does is it offers a small pricing discount for a company that's looking at a low or no emissions type of capital spend. And some examples of what that has looked like since we've launched that green loan product are rooftop solar for an advertising company, new recycling equipment, a new manufacturing line for a company that makes equipment that removes PFAS from the water systems.

And we are constantly talking to a lot of clients, especially here in the Midwest about solar and how we could think about helping them with their power bills and different ways to either become a little bit more energy efficient or when they do need to use power, like how that can be more in a renewable source. So that's really important for us to understand and my team, not just the products that PNC has, but also how can that partner with some incentives that may be localized as well.

[00:08:00] Dominique: That's amazing.

[00:08:01] Adam: do you work with particular industries like that you specialize in?

[00:08:04] Kristi: That is a very good question. And the answer's no. We are very agnostic as to the client that we want to talk to. we really wanna try to service our clients wherever they may be in an industry and wherever they may be in their decarbonization journey.

So one of the things that we do when we talk to a client or get invited to a meeting is we really try to understand if they have committed to any type of sustainability initiatives or have any goals around initiatives. So we Google the heck out of 'em. A lot of companies, both large and small, have sustainability reports. So we understand kind of what they may have committed to or what they are doing.

We also really look at the peers and the industries that they might be in. We also really understand the segment, the material conversations for their segment.

Where sustainability sits within an organization is vastly different. It's very common for there not to be an exact group called sustainability. So you might have sustainability expertise in the manufacturing and the procurement side. You might have it with the legal team, it could be in a variety of different places.

So banks oftentimes are talking with treasurers or CFOs or maybe the owners of a company. So it's fun for us to go in and talk to a finance person and say, "Hey, did you know that you're doing this, this or this" that we've maybe read about or initiatives that we've seen, because it's been talked about or there's been a press release about, and "Hey, did you know that we can take some of this effort that you're doing and incorporate it into some of your bank facilities and have that serve more as a carrot for some, maybe some pricing reductions?" And so that's been really fun to see some of these treasures perhaps, that aren't as familiar with sustainability initiatives be able to see that other parts of their organization can help out with what they're solely focused on.

So you're kind of training their own companies about expertise that they might not be in contact with Yes. And that kind of brings into the discussion that sustainability shouldn't sit at just one part of an organization and reaching across the aisle and talking to all your different parts of your organization is incredibly important.

Especially now for our sustainability folks, because we really need to be understanding what drives our finance people, what drives our marketing people, what drives our community relations people and try to figure out if there's a way to stitch together some of what your focus is on in ways that can be mutual beneficial to some of these areas as well. So it's fun and challenging all at the same time, as I'm sure you guys can appreciate.

But an example internally of something that I've been very proud of, and it's not something that I, myself, have done, but some colleagues of mine that are climate experts. Earlier this year, they launched Climate Solutions Partner Program that's available for all of PNC employees. It's this really great learning that's available through our learning platform. And it includes a couple different modules. It includes a sustainable finance module so that people can learn about what we're doing to help clients. But it also has a technical learning as well. So we're developing the certificate program to help educate folks about PNCs own climate action strategy, but also to develop a community internally so that way there can be conversations. 

[00:11:17] Adam: Is there anything that you're most excited about just on the horizon in terms of industry you'd love to get into and address or something that you know, is in the horizon right now and you're excited to see how it pans out? Do you have any like personal curiosities that you're excited to see?

[00:11:30] Kristi: I think the biggest excitement that I have at the moment is our Data Analytics Team. So internally, our data analytics team is fantastic and they had to do a lot of modeling related to different climate scenario analysis.

And along the way, someone in that group's like, "Hey, I wonder if all this great research that we're doing might be beneficial to the sales side of the house or the revenue generation kind of side of the house." 

Through our data analytics team, we're able to kind of help isolate clients that have decarbonization initiatives as well as our clients that might be in the supply chain of those clients. this has really been helpful for us to help flag different clients that we have, or prospects that we think might be most ripe for a conversation.

So it's really insightful and exciting for us to be able to go and talk to a client to say, "Hey, we know that approximately 30% of your revenue might be derived from a company that has a science-based decarbonization goal as well as a supply chain decarbonization goal." A, did you know that? Have you been seeing any emissions related questions showing up in your RFPs or term sheets with that client?

Many times they say that they weren't aware, which is fine and okay for us, but that's great because then we can kind of educate them about why. Why might that company have these decarbonization goals? Where is it coming from and how does it impact them? It's a lot of education and understanding that I'm excited about. So I get excited about the large transactions I do, and I also get excited about just that small everyday conversations about helping people connect the puzzle pieces.

It sounds like data is a really key ingredient in all of this which I think is true in a lot of other competitions as well. But I'm curious, do you have any, like other kind of key ingredients for businesses from that mindset from manufacturers to retailers, to make them more financially successful when it comes to making these changes, but also accomplish their sustainability goals and comply with other people in their ecosystem. I would say develop a working team internally and across different functions because I have often asked a question to maybe like someone who I'm talking to on the treasury team, again, because that's generally who bankers talk to first in an organization. " Hey, have you been receiving any kind of emissions related questions in from some of your suppliers?" And they aren't necessarily aware.

So sometimes we have to dig a little bit to find out where the conversation is and if it applies within an organization. I would say if I'm at a company, no matter what size you are, try to develop like a task force or even if you don't wanna do something quite as official, as like a task force or a working group, maybe at least have coffee, right? Or quarterly conversations with some different folks so that way you can understand what their headwinds or their tailwinds might be.

[00:14:17] Adam: And also, if you are a sustainability person or have some sustainability responsibilities, don't necessarily think that banking or finance isn't in your world of understanding as well. Maybe be interested, be curious about if you see a presentation from a bank or from some of the different economic development agencies or from Bloomberg Just be curious and then don't feel bashful about reporting that information back to the people that you know you might be working with it or your peers be and they might very much appreciate that information. They might not realize that there are things called green loans or sustainability link loans and things like that. Shifting directions a little bit. A

t the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit, you are talking a little bit about the work that you're doing through the Greater Cleveland Partnership. Can you share just a little bit about what that work looks like, as well as your unique role as coming in from PNC?

[00:15:09] Kristi: Sure. So the Greater Cleveland Partnership is essentially the Cleveland's Chamber of Commerce. the Chamber is a group of business professionals and business leaders. And several years ago, those business leaders in the community decided that they wanted to have an additional pillar of focus within the Greater Cleveland Partnership, and within their organization. They wanted to add sustainability as another pillar. And it started very, very grassroots. I think I wasn't around for some of those early meetings, but I think it started extremely grassroots It grew and grew and grew. 

They put together for this first year here in 2025, an advisory committee to which I'm very happy to be serving on that committee. And I think that I have a little bit of a different perspective. So while there might be other people in the leaders group as well as the advisory group that are more of true sustainability practitioners within an organization, I come from the perspective a little bit more of like, " how can we be supportive of those industry that those efforts that you may be doing and how can we work together to help advance initiatives and make light of them frankly?"

But these are great organizations, not only what's being done at the Midwest Summit, but with GCP to help people get together and kind of stitch together ideas and best practices and share knowledge because, I think that's the best way for all of us to learn. Nobody has it all figured out with sustainability. So we all have to be very curious creatures.

[00:16:33] Dominique: I like that. I I think that also speaks to the way you've approached a lot of your projects too. It just kinda like being humble in the sense of having to do research and having to see where things connect. Which I think is why you've been successful is 'cause you've been like thorough and willing to learn things that you didn't see coming.

Do you feel like you have to teach that a little bit? Has that been a company culture around sustainability at all?

[00:16:53] Kristi: I don't know if it's necessarily a company culture, but it absolutely is something that I'm trying to drive in the group that I work in and run. It's not a one size fits all. We have to be curious. Some days I act like I'm the head of the group. Some days I'm putting slides together. And I think that's true of all the different people on our team. We kind of all over the board, as I would say, if you will. It's all hands on deck when we're thinking about alternatives for clients, ideas, peer analysis, how we can be bringing different insights, what insights can we create.

So I not only am talking to my external clients, we have a large group of client facing colleagues that sometimes are the group that helps us get introduced to clients. And so we need to help educate them as well. And so that client solutions partnership training is one of the tools, but we have to be constantly dripping on our own internal folks about insights, trends, opportunities.

And absolutely we have seen how sustainability is now undeniably part of business strategy. It's not just a feel good thing. It can be feel good and business strategy, but it absolutely is business strategy. So that's one of the things that we need to make sure comes across is why this is important for our clients to be considering or thinking about. And again, what incentives are out there to help them increase their ROI and decrease costs when they're thinking about some of the different projects. What other incentives can we kinda layer on and stack on to make a project come to life. 

[00:18:22] Adam: So it sounds like you're dealing with people at very different levels. What advice would you give to a founder trying to make their supply chain more green?

[00:18:29] Kristi: So no one has everything all figured out and don't let perfection get in the way of progress. I went to Otterbein for college and got a degree in finance. But that doesn't mean that sustainability can't be part of my job. That doesn't mean if you're in marketing that sustainability isn't part of your job or legal or what have you. What we've done with the claim and solutions partner training, you can find these folks around an organization that wanna be leaders that are interested in being champions about the conversation or idea creation. So finding those people and keeping them excited, keeping them in tune with what the organization might be doing and efforts of how they can kind of get involved. So developing that network, even if it's like unofficial, doesn't have to be official. But I think one of the other things that I found extremely important over my years is the concept of code switching, it's the practice of alternating between different languages. So if I'm talking to a treasury person or a person in finance, maybe I'm talking about interest rates or basis points or collateral or covenants, maybe that's kind of how I'm talking about sustainability.

But if I'm talking to a sustainability person or someone that's in legal, I'm using a set of language that might be more attuned to what they're typically used to seeing. And that kind of helps, I think, bring down the barriers for folks. The other thing that I would say that I think is important for anybody that's looking at initiatives understanding kind of who you might be talking to, not just from the language that they speak, but maybe try to understand if you can, why they're at the table with you? What's driving them? The way I think about it, is it because their head is here and their head is interested in sustainability?So head meaning, are you thinking about adopting sustainability strategies? Do you see it as an imperative to business growth or client acquisition or talent acquisition or reducing costs? Or is it more of your heart where you are concerned about leaving the planet in a little bit of a better place?

One isn't better than the other, but maybe understanding where a person's kind of coming from can help with your language that you use and how you're talking about initiatives related to decarbonization.

[00:20:35] Adam: I love this whole theme of communication and kind of meeting people where they're at, talking to them in terms of what their priorities are so that they can better understand it. That seems like a lot of magic work.

[00:20:47] Dominique: Well, I was gonna echo the same thing. I think that's a very common through line through our conversation today, and I think for why you've been so successful in being impactful in your role, is this like seeking to understand mindset. You are doing it with your clients and their industries. You're doing it with people across from you in the room that you wanna be on the same team as. Our podcast is all about Green Champions and how people who've done amazing work as people in this ecosystem to make a change and I think you are doing a bunch of wonderful things, but that's a really great lesson thing for all of us to apply in any space.

Thank you, and I think it's available to anyone, talking about sustainability, having an impact no matter, again, what role that you might be in, where you sit, what your title might be. I think that there's a chance to kind of get connected regionally. Be a sponge, absolutely be a sponge. And think about what you might be able to do within your own individual scope one, scope two and scope three. I think for me my scope three is kind of, " I like it. It's great. It's exciting. It's what my career is." But I also sometimes am reminded of the different things I can do here in my scope one and two as well at home.

[00:21:54] Adam: What keeps you motivated 

[00:21:55] Kristi: Going to clients and talking to 'em about things that they maybe hadn't thought about, creative ways to get projects done, how they can work with other partners in their organization. I think we're creatures that really enjoy working together and working across business lines at the end of the day. That can all help us learn new tricks. And I think, as you have diverse perspectives across different problems, I think you kind of have a really good opportunity to think about better solutions. So that's great for me when I can kind of help stitch together these different ideas to help things get initiated.

[00:22:25] Dominique: Do you have any thoughts on just like your philosophy overall of like this ripple effect you're creating from the position that you sit in?

[00:22:32] Kristi: Well, quantifying impact is tough, right? So that's something that we are constantly, kind of struggling with and trying to do better at.

 So I think we quantify what we're doing in terms of conversations, deal execution, and we're constantly getting smarter about how we're quantifying the impact. Impact could be emissions avoided, it could be jobs created. So there's a constantly something, different ways that we're trying to keep our eye on the ball of the impact because that's really where the rubber meets the road.

[00:23:02] Adam: Wow. I am so glad we could have you on today. my key takeaway from this is that communicating the things that we can do is a really powerful mechanism for creating that change and meeting people where they're at. How can people find out about the sustainability programs at PNC?

[00:23:15] Kristi: We have a corporate responsibility report that we publish each year. It's gonna be coming out in the next month or so. And so there's gonna be definitely a section in there that gives a little vignette of some of the types of transactions that we've worked on and what we've accomplished last year, and what we plan to be looking forward to in the next year. So I think that's a great resource. We also have different insights that we're coming out with that's something that we're gonna be starting very soon.

One of the ones that I'm super focused on is " why do we need to incorporate sustainability in business objectives?" And that would be available to anyone through PNCs website.

And we also have a $30 billion environmental finance pledge that we came up with a few years ago that we're doing a lot of great progress around that. So we hope to continue to re be reporting against how we're doing against that $30 billion environmental pledge.

So there's a lot of different ways that you can kind of connect with the work that PNC is doing. And me personally would love to reach out and talk to folks. 

[00:24:09] Dominique: I really appreciate getting to learn from you and to share some of what you've been doing. So thanks, Kristi.

[00:24:15] Kristi: Thanks Adam. Thanks Dominique. Really appreciate the time today.

[00:24:17] Dominique: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:24:28] Adam: You can find our episodes and reach us at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

[00:24:35] Dominique: another Special thanks to the Green Umbrella host of the annual Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit. Thanks for listening to Green Champions, we'll be digging into our sustainability success story in our next episode. 

​