Aviva 2007 Annual Report Download - page 73
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Please find page 73 of the 2007 Aviva annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.During 2007 we donated £6.8 million to charitable and
community activities worldwide, an 8% increase over
2006 (2006: £6.3 million).
Aviva was one of the first companies to sign up to
the Oxfam 365 Alliance in 2006. Our funding ensures
that Oxfam can maintain a state of constant preparedness,
enabling them to respond immediately to emergencies
wherever they occur in the world. This includes keeping
the UK’s biggest emergencies warehouse full of supplies.
During 2007, Oxfam responded to more than 30
emergencies worldwide, including hurricanes in Mexico,
Central America and the Caribbean and severe flooding in
India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Oxfam continues to provide
emergency supplies of clean, safe water and sanitation
facilities to hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur and
Chad, as well as to communities in Angola and Ethiopia.
In the UK we supported Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s
largest fund-raising event, the Aviva Walk London, for a
second consecutive year. In Canada, we launched a two
year partnership with Think First Canada, a national
non-profit charity dedicated to injury prevention. In India,
our Global Services business has established a significant
partnership with the Akanksha Foundation which works
with underprivileged children in providing them with
education and training to earn a livelihood.
As well as corporate support, we continue to
promote employee volunteering as a means for our
people to become engaged with their local communities.
Aviva plc
Annual Report and
Accounts 2007
69
Business
review
Environment
Our focus on environment intensified in 2007 with
progress being made on three strategic areas to combat
climate change: carbon reduction, carbon offsetting
and enhanced employee education and engagement.
Businesses continued to work on reduction targets
for CO2emissions, electricity, water and waste. Aviva was
the first insurer to offset emissions on a global basis and
become carbon-neutral. The projects chosen for offsetting
are in countries where we operate and in Africa.
They are a good balance of commercial and social projects,
allowing some “signature” Aviva projects – wholly funded
and branded by the group and include “green cement”
production in the Netherlands and Ireland; a biogas
project in Sri Lanka; providing more efficient wood-
burning stoves in Africa; pumps for irrigation in rural
India; and wind turbines in both India and China.
Employee awareness was enhanced by engaging
staff in the environmental agenda and explaining the
many aspects of environmental management, including
an online carbon calculator, an “energy saving” week and
internal communications. Our efforts have resulted in
an improved response in the 2007 global climate survey
on questions covering environmental responsibility,
up six points from last year.
Externally, we had great opportunities this year to
progress work on battling climate change with like-minded
companies, non-governmental organisations, academics
and governments. Andrew Moss joined fellow group chief
executives and chairmen to work on the cross-sectoral
CBI Climate Change Taskforce which called on government,
business and consumers to factor climate change into day-
to-day life now to avoid larger economic costs going forward.
We co-authored, and were a founder signatory
to, the ClimateWise principles – the first climate change
principles created to address the role that multi-line
insurers can have in respect of risk analysis, business lines
and operations. By signing up to the principles we have
agreed that we will report annually on the progress we
have made against them.
Further, Aviva believes that institutional investors,
like Morley, have an interest in promoting and supporting
a strategic response by companies to the issue of climate
change. The best measure is via corporate disclosure.
In response to this belief, earlier this year, Morley engaged
with 29 persistently non-responding companies in 2007
to request carbon disclosure project adherence. Over half
of the companies engaged with provided a full response
for the first time.
Aviva wins Community
Impact award
Aviva gained a Community
Impact award from BITC for our
“Better Together Day”, which was
held at our London, St Helen’s
office. The event saw the office
opened up to local schools,
enabling children to see what
a real city establishment is like –
from the basement archives to
the boardroom. The leadership
team was highly supportive of
the day, offering some of its time
to meet the participants and
engage in a Q&A session.