Doing the Right Thing: A Business Built on Trust

It’s a well-known story from P&G’s history, dating back to 1887, when a retailer in Chicago, Illinois, would carry nothing but P&G products due to the demand for trusted products. “Highest grade, honest weight” was stamped on all P&G crates.

P&G had quickly gained a reputation for selling a quality product and being a company built on ethics, at a time when consistency and credibility were anomalies.

“When you cannot make pure goods and full weight,” said James Gamble, “go to something else that is honest, even if it is breaking stone.”

While the story about the Chicago retailer dates back more than 130 years, living out the Company’s Purpose, Values and Principles (PVPs) is something P&G employees continue to do every day around the globe. Each December marks our Annual Do the Right Thing Celebration, where Employees celebrate our heritage and aspiration to do the right thing, as embodied by our PVPs.

During the week, employees engage with leaders in conversations about the importance and impact of our PVPs, how to apply them in guiding our day-to-day decisions, host site-wide celebrations and refresh on policy requirements via ethics and compliance training.

Our PVPs provide the foundation for P&G’s unique culture. Throughout our history of more than 180 years, our business has grown and changed while these elements have endured — and will continue to be passed down to generations of P&G people to come.