Carbon dioxide utilization is necessary to reduce carbon footprint and also to synthesize value-added chemicals. The transition metal pincer complexes are attractive catalysts for the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to formic acid. There is a need to understand the factors affecting the catalytic performance of these pincer complexes through a structure–activity relationship study using computational methods. It is a well-established fact that aromatic functionalities offer stability and selectivity to transition metal catalysts. However, their impact on the performance of the catalysts is lesser known in the case of metal pincer complexes. Hence, it is necessary to investigate the catalytic performance of Mn(I)NNN pincer complexes with variably activated aromatic functionalities. In this context, 15 catalysts are designed by placing different types of aromatic rings at the pincer carbons and two terminal nitrogen of Mn(I)NNN pincer complexes. A benzene moiety, placed at C2–C3 carbons of Mn(I)NNN pincer complex with identical aromatic groups at the terminal nitrogen, is found to be most efficient toward CO2 hydrogenation than the rest of the catalysts. On the other hand, when N,N-dimethyl aniline is placed at C2–C3 carbons of Mn(I)NNN pincer complexes, then the catalytic performance is significantly decreased. Thus, the present study unravels the impact of aromatic groups in Mn(I)NNN pincer complexes toward the catalytic hydrogenation of carbon dioxide. Copyright © 2021 Parmar, Avasare and Pal.