Aviva 2002 Annual Report Download - page 34

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Corporate social responsibility
20 Aviva plc
Annual report + accounts 2002
People
This year, for the first time, our CSR report covers performance
in the areas of workforce, human rights and health and safety
according to the parameters of the Gyllenhammar report.
These guidelines were the outcome of a group convened by
the European Commission under our own chairman,
Pehr Gyllenhammar.
Initiatives designed to benefit our employees include the
involvement of hundreds of call centre staff in the UK in a
work-life balance project sponsored by the Department of Trade
and Industry to test a range of flexible working arrangements.
Our Dutch business, Delta Lloyd, won the diversity award from the
Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW)
for encouraging female staff to take up senior positions.
Communities
We recognise our responsibility to work in partnership with the
communities in which we operate. In 2002, Aviva invested over
£5.9 million in community initiatives worldwide.
Examples include our sponsorship of crime prevention activities,
including a national community scheme with Crime Concern in the
UK and Neighbourhood Watch in Canada. Commercial Union
Poland celebrated its 10th anniversary by encouraging staff, agents
and clients to become involved in voluntary work, in addition to
continuing support for healthcare and education initiatives. In the
Czech Republic we responded to the widespread floods in August
2002 by launching an appeal among our staff and insurance
advisers. The money we raised helped to rebuild a kindergarten
and repair a local health centre.
Charities
The bulk of our charitable support in the UK is concentrated
on three organisations: Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Cruse
Bereavement Care, and The Princess Royal Trust for Carers.
In addition, we raised £220,580 for the Alzheimer’s Society,
voted as our 2002 UK staff charity of the year.
In France we direct our charity support through the Aviva
Foundation, which works mainly with children and the elderly.
We raised £128,800 for the United Way in Canada, a charity
dedicated to building caring communities, and took part in
fundraising for the Canadian Paraplegic Association. In Australia
we launched a Guiding Star Workplace Giving programme to
support six major charities.
Customer service
Our businesses strive to provide our customers with a service
hallmarked by integrity, quality and care. In the UK, innovative
products such as Pay As You Drive™ insurance and a revolutionary
digital flood map to help calculate fairer premiums are examples of
how our core businesses help to meet our CSR goals.
Overview
As a company with 59,000 employees serving nearly one million
shareholders and 25 million customers around the world, we
recognise our responsibility to help sustain and build the
communities in which we live and work.
Substantial progress has been made in Aviva’s corporate social
responsibility (CSR) programme over the past year. We issued our
first CSR report in April 2002, having produced an environment
report in each of the previous three years. In 2002, our programme
covered 93% of the group.
CSR embraces performance in environmental management,
community, employees, human rights, health and safety,
suppliers, customers and standards of business conduct.
Environment
Our environmental programme continues to move ahead strongly.
For example, in the UK approximately 30% of our electricity is now
derived from renewable resources (2001: 19%). We also ask
would-be suppliers in the UK for details of their environmental and
human rights performance.
Our businesses in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America have
environmental initiatives in place to reduce waste, increase
recycling and manage their use of energy resources. In Canada,
like the UK, we include environmental performance questions in
our tendering process.
We also chaired a working group under the United Nations
Environment Programme which, in January 2003, produced
international guidelines on environmental management and
reporting practice for financial services organisations.