August / September edition of Corporate Citizenship Briefing, Issue 107.
In the context of the economic crisis, many companies have had to find a method to invest in the community in a way that makes sense to institutional shareholders. Some have chosen to focus their community investment (CI) programmes on issues like debt relief, homelessness and unemployment. As well as addressing a key social issue, this move meets business priorities in two ways. Firstly, it ties the CI programmes more closely with the priorities of the business (for example, reaching vulnerable or less financially secure groups that may include customers struggling with repayments). Secondly, it provides the opportunity for employees to develop their skills through volunteering experience, which can cut training costs and raise the profile of the company.
However, some companies have observed that despite efforts to maintain policies that give employees time off to volunteer, there has actually been no significant change, or perhaps even decreases in volunteering levels. This could be due to employees wanting to focus on their jobs given the recent waves of redundancies and pay-cuts. On the other hand, it could be that employees cannot relate as closely with new causes if a CI programme has been redesigned without their input. Ideally, CI programmes therefore need to be carefully balanced, to not only address social need and meet business priorities, but also to maintain the engagement and support of employees by focusing on causes which are also important to them.
Cargill’s engagement with FareShare in the UK, and npower’s ‘Climate Cops’ initiative demonstrate the importance of investing in causes with relevance to the business, the community, and employees. These projects are linked to the businesses’ priorities of effective resource use (food and energy, respectively) and raising awareness on the issues of waste. The programmes also have relevance to the customer and the wider community in raising awareness and helping ‘improve our world’, as well as being accessible and relevant causes for employees and their families to support. A recent CAF paper also encourages the practice of stakeholder involvement for CI strategy. The research shows that when extended to employees, customers and community partners, stakeholder engagement can lead to innovation and stronger ties as a community investment programme develops.
npower asks kids to switch off power for an hour every day
Over the summer holidays, npower’s ‘Climate Cops’ programme latest initiative No Power Hour aimed to motivate 7-12 year olds to try something new by spending an hour each day without using electricity. The campaign which began on August 15 and ran for two weeks, encouraged children to unplug computer games, turn off the TV and iPod speakers and join in No Power Hour by discovering things to do using nothing but their own energy and imagination. npower has teamed up with children’s TV presenters Sam and Mark to help children be creative and think of interesting things to do which are more environmentally friendly. Contact: npower www.npower.com
RBC Blue Water Project donates £2.3 million
RBC announced its latest round of RBC Blue Water Project Leadership Grant recipients on September 3. There are 31 organisations, selected out of 159 applicants from around the world, which will share more than $4.1 million (£2.3 million) in grants for programmes that help protect watersheds and improve access to clean drinking water in 2009. Recipients will deliver programs in Canada, the United States and the British Isles. In the British Isles, a grant of £55,000 was made to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) on 28th August. The funds were donated to help WWT create a sustainable garden at the London Wetland Centre, that will demonstrate practical low-water gardening ideas, and encourage visitors to minimise their own environmental footprint. Contact: RBC www.rbc.com
Cargill announces support to FareShare
Cargill is to support the expansion of the Fareshare network in the UK, it announced on August 5. The two-year £90,000 commitment will focus on helping the national food charity to establish a new food depot in Liverpool, which will be the 13th operating in the UK. FareShare’s mission is to relieve food poverty and find a solution to environmental problems of surplus but still edible food, promoting the message that “no good food should be wasted”. Cargill employees will also be providing volunteer support to the project including sharing their expertise in logistics, health and safety, food safety and procurement. Contact: Cargill www.cargill.com
Toyota launches eco-driving programme with ADAC in Germany
Toyota Deutschland has taken a step to promote eco-driving throughout Germany by donating 50 Toyota Avensis cars to the national motoring organisation ADAC. The vehicles will be stationed at 20 of ADAC’s safety driving centres throughout Germany and will be used by the organisation to train people in eco-driving techniques. ADAC hopes to train at least 7,500 people a year. Eco-driving training helps motorists to develop skills that reduce the fuel consumption of their vehicle, and therefore the emissions from that vehicle. Any driver in Germany can register for the eco-driving training via the ADAC hotline. ADAC plans to actively target companies with large vehicle fleets and Toyota dealers can also contact their local ADAC training centre to arrange an eco-driving session for their customers. Contact: Toyota Deutschland www.toyotafund.eu
Walmart to host free financial literacy workshops
Wal-Mart announced on 25 August that it will be hosting financial literacy workshops across the US aimed at equipping participants with immediate, tangible solutions for personal financial management. The programme, held in eight US cities, will reach an estimated 3,000 participants. Partner organizations, which include the National Disability Institute, the League of Latin American Citizens, the Cuban American National Council and the National Council on Independent Living, will be working with Walmart to identify local community participants. In addition to receiving credit, spending, saving and budgeting tips from Walmart financial services and partner resources, participants will interact with their classmates through hands-on activities aimed at engraining long-term positive financial habits. Contact: Walmart walmartstores.com
National expansion of ‘Partners in Sustainable Building’
US organizations, Habitat for Humanity International and The Home Depot Foundation, announced the national expansion of the Partners in Sustainable Building programme on August 4. The $30 million green building initiative will provide funds and resources over a five year period to help Habitat affiliates build 5,000 homes that meet Energy Star guidelines or a US recognised green building standard. These include the use of energy efficient equipment and water conservation fixtures. More than 120 Habitat affiliates were selected to participate in the first year of the national rollout that began at the end of August. These affiliates will be granted $3,000 for each home built to Energy Star standards and up to $5,000 for each home built to a higher green standard.
Contact: The Home Depot Foundation www.homedepotfoundation.org
Intel puts wasted PC power to work on climate and fight disease
Progress Thru Processors, a new volunteer computing application built on the Facebook platform that allows people to donate their PCs’ unused processor power to research projects on health and climate change was announced by Intel on August 10. The research projects include Rosetta@home, which uses the additional computing power to help find cures for cancer and other diseases such as HIV and Alzheimer’s; Climateprediction.net, which is dedicated to climate change research; and Africa@home, which is currently focused on finding optimal strategies to combat malaria by studying simulation models of disease transmission and the potential impact of new anti-malarial drugs and vaccines. Contact: Intel www.intel.com
Larissa Carter is a Senior Researcher at Corporate Citizenship
Email Larissa to discuss community investment strategy and research, the London Benchmarking Group and the Knowledge Series Larissa.carter@corporate-citizenship.com
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