Corporate social responsibility – make a positive change

If, as John Donne wrote, no man is an island, then neither is a company. All firms have an impact that goes beyond their immediate vicinity and the fact that they employee people.

Some companies like to make sure that they have a true impact on the community around them. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) covers a wide range of topics, with companies investing in multiple areas in and around their offices.

These topics vary from firm to firm and country to country, depending on what companies want to achieve and, in some cases, on what employees want to do but a common theme is that they want to make a positive difference.

Sarah Davies, citizenship and events manager at AIG, says her company has been instrumental in helping to support change for decades.

“For nearly 100 years AIG has been committed to making a difference in the communities where we work, live and serve our customers,” she says.

“We make financial contributions to organisations across the globe, working with many charitable partnerships to support programmes that help create a more secure and safer future. We are making progress toward ensuring that sustainability is a fundamental part of the way we conduct business.”

Davies adds that AIG puts great focus on employee engagement, encouraging participation with memorable volunteer opportunities and communicating to employees the value of making a difference in their community, developing new skills and opportunities to expand networks.

AIG supports its people’s interests by providing volunteer time off, allowing employees to provide hands-on support to the causes they care about most. This past April (AIG’s Global Volunteer Month), hundreds of employees across the UK made a strong impact within their local communities and demonstrated their willingness to help others by volunteering almost 1,000 hours for non-profit organisations.

There is one emerging area of its CSR programme that AIG thinks is especially relevant to the insurance industry: where it crosses over with the war for talent.

Davies says that one of the biggest investments for any company is its people. The total cost of losing an employee can range from tens of thousands of pounds to one-and-a-half to two times that person’s salary. Studies show that companies can not only achieve greater social impact they can drive additional business value through increased employee retention.

“CSR and similar concepts are very important for the modern jobseeker,” Davies says. “More than two-thirds of young people cite company culture and values as the two most important things they look for in an employer, and around the same number of millennials would be willing to take a pay cut to work for a responsible company.

“Our participation in programmes including Greenlight for Girls, which inspires young women to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects; Career Ready, which works to connect disadvantaged young people with the world of work; and Enactus, which instils social enterprise and entrepreneurship, is a win-win situation,” she explains.

“The young people we interact with learn from the programmes they are involved with, we help promote our own organisation to the future workforce, and we help raise awareness of the insurance industry and the diverse career opportunities that it provides.”

Direct action

Markel is another company that stresses its CSR policies. The company says it has a very strong commitment to charities, the local community and the environment. Its policy is to support local community projects through the direct involvement of employees, and to encourage employees to seek new ways to support charitable and environmental causes, both individually and collectively.

In addition, Markel says, it wants to respond to national/global catastrophes and deprivation by assisting with staff fundraising where requested and arranging for matching of donations or sponsorship in line with the Markel Match Programme, as well as providing corporate donations of cash or time to selected welfare organisations and charitable bodies. It also organises specific fundraising activities to supplement corporate donations.

Markel grants every employee up to three days of paid leave a year to volunteer on community projects, and is a member of the Lloyd’s Community Programme, which promotes involvement in the Lloyd’s community and helps improve the opportunities and living conditions of people in Tower Hamlets and neighbouring London boroughs.

The company’s environmental statement says: “Our goal is to minimise our environmental impact while adhering to our corporate philosophy, expressed in the Markel style.”

The company says that it will use only necessary consumables, and it will recycle wherever possible, adding that it reviews its environmental performance continuously. To help achieve these goals, the company stays fully informed about the latest environmental developments and practices.

Partnerships

Marsh and its parent company Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) say they share a proud history of services and support to the communities in which they operate and where employees live and work.

According to Marsh it commits at all times to conducting business in a responsible way and demonstrates its CSR through a range of programmes and activities. The core elements of its CSR programme are philanthropy and employee volunteerism and sustainability.

The Marsh/MMC programme includes the British Red Cross Charity Partnership. MMC has announced that it is committed to building more resilient communities by offering colleagues the opportunity to train in first aid and volunteer their time and skills through selected projects.

Under the theme of ‘People and Communities at Risk’, Marsh has established a multi-year partnership with six UK charities, which have been carefully selected to help it make a positive difference to the people, communities and business areas in which it works.

The company establishes a multi-year partnership with those charities, agreeing with each at the outset of its association a particular project or activity which its donation will fund, and then working with the charity to ensure its achievement.

In addition, MMC publishes a biannual Corporate Citizenship Report. From volunteering to client work to diversity initiatives, the report features stories about what its staff are doing around the world.

Marsh makes donations to a wide range of charitable and not-for-profit organisations. General policies and guidelines for such giving are established centrally, with country management applying them as appropriate locally.

Marsh staff are encouraged to engage with, and contribute to, the wellbeing of their local communities. This support varies from country to country and is demonstrated in a variety of ways, including the provision of a day’s paid leave to assist on a community project and having a portion of an employee’s charitable fundraising matched by the company.

Swiss Re also makes clear that it has a corporate responsibility policy. In its 2016 Corporate Responsibility Report, it said it wants to lead by example and work to minimise the environmental impact of its operations. Tackling its CO2 emissions and reducing energy consumption are key targets across the group.

In the report Swiss Re said: “As a knowledge company in the financial services sector, we do not cause large environmental impacts through our own operations. Nonetheless, we firmly believe it is important for a responsible company to minimise its environmental footprint, thus leading by example.

“For our core re/insurance business, climate change represents a key topic. Reflecting this, we have been focusing on our own CO2 emissions and energy consumption for many years. Our pioneering initiatives include the Greenhouse Neutral Programme and the COyou2 Programme. Both are now into their second cycles, running from 2013 to 2020.”

The reinsurer added that it applies sustainability guidelines to its sourcing and construction activities. Extending its efforts beyond the company, Swiss Re continues to take a leading role in the Swiss Climate Foundation.

Ahead of the curve—and behind it

Some companies take an even greener approach to CSR. Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) offers what it describes as attractive environmental products, such as its environmental and climate bonuses, to Austrian customers with low-emission and alternative drive vehicles. It has been a partner of the “klima:aktiv” mobility programme since 2006 and supports environmentally-friendly mobility technologies, such as vehicles that run on natural gas, hybrid vehicles and other alternative drive concepts.

VIG claims that around 400,000 electric bicycles are in use in Austria, and that these are the most common electric vehicle and the trend is rising. VIG offers an insurance package for them that combines third party liability and own damage coverage and can be expanded with modules such as driver accident, legal expenses and special class handling after accidents.

The Barbican Foundation, which is run by the Barbican Insurance Group, helps smaller, local charities through financial contributions and voluntary support.

According to Barbican, the charities currently helped by the foundation are: ShelterBox, The Cardinal Hulme Centre, The Frost Charitable Foundation, and the UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association. Each of these charities was nominated by staff members with personal links to that particular cause and voted for by the wider Barbican staff group.

Fundraising for the Barbican Foundation is largely centred on corporate donations and activities organised by Barbican’s CSR Staff Group. Recent initiatives have included the Around the World in 80 Days Challenge which raised £20,000 and the Three Peak Challenge, undertaken by 14 Barbican staff members which raised more than £13,000. The Foundation’s donation-matching scheme means every pound raised is matched by Barbican.

Barbican actively participates in industry-wide charity initiatives such as the Crisis Square Mile Run and it has signed up to the Lloyd’s Community Foundation to participate in volunteering opportunities aimed at helping school children in deprived areas.

Lloyd’s of London, however, is a little behind the curve on its own CSR policy. According to Lloyd’s it is developing a responsible business strategy which will provide a framework that allows it to monitor, measure and report on its performance.

The strategy will be based on the United Nations Global Compact and Sustainable Development Goals and will be published in 2019. It applies only to the Corporation of Lloyd’s activities, and will not apply to any Lloyd’s market activities or any market oversight activities the Corporation carries out with the market.

A reminder of the bigger picture

Capsicum Re decided to focus its approach to CSR by forming a foundation. Rupert Swallow, CEO of Capsicum Re, explains what this has achieved and how it helps remind the staff of the bigger picture.

Capsicum Re is on a journey that goes beyond profit and loss. In 2016, we launched a Foundation to provide balance to our sales-led business and ensure we have a positive impact on wider social issues, rather than focusing solely on revenue and profit.

The Capsicum Re Foundation was established with an initial donation from the founders and partners to provide our team with the opportunity to give something back and participate in activities that are not central to our business objective.

The cornerstone of the Foundation is to move the dial; we focus on smaller charities for whom our involvement can make a profound difference. We encourage our employees to nominate charities they feel passionate about, ensuring our team are engaged with the Foundation and a wide variety of causes are supported.

Our first donation in 2016 of £20,000 to Stacey’s Smiles, a charity established to create special memories for families of children with neuroblastoma, demonstrated the magnitude of what the Capsicum Re Foundation could achieve.

Our latest venture, the Capsicum Re Foundation Speed Project, aims to raise £85,000 by running, walking, cycling or rowing 8,500km as a business in just one month.

In less than three years, the Foundation has raised more than £500,000 through donations and sponsorship, helping to support over 12 charities, and the positive impact doesn’t end there.

Our employees have the chance to connect with causes close to their heart and this has fundamentally altered their experience within the firm, harnessing the power of the Foundation to deliver change, while simultaneously creating tangible relationships across our teams. It has been a talking point among our clients and partners and is something that employees are proud to be associated with.

The Foundation has benefited Capsicum Re in ways we couldn’t have anticipated and has become a cornerstone of our culture. It is a fundamental part of our business; it helps remind us of the bigger picture and the responsibility businesses have to help those less fortunate, whether through financial donations or volunteering their time.

Resilience — in all its senses

For Allianz Insurance in the UK corporate social responsibility means many things, but it has adopted an overall theme of resilience, as Carolyn Rich, brand marketing manager, Allianz Insurance, explains.

As one of the largest insurers in the UK, we believe it is very important to be a socially responsible business and a trusted partner for our employees, partners and customers.

Whether providing insurance or investing our customers’ insurance premiums, we consider the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks associated with such transactions and the impact that these will have. At Allianz UK corporate social responsibility (CSR) means thinking about long-term outcomes, the impact of our business and how we can make the world a more resilient place.

CSR also gives our people the opportunity to engage with each other for a cause, through fundraising or volunteering. We support this by offering every employee 10 hours of volunteering time every year. We track engagement through an annual employee survey which includes questions about our CSR activity and how employees rate what we do and the opportunities available.

Last year we looked at our CSR strategy in the UK and decided that our focus would be on resilience. We feel this theme is key to what we do as an insurance company, because not only do we get people back on their feet after something bad happens but we also believe that the world would be a better place if people were more resilient.

Our corporate charity is the mental health charity Mind and its sister charity in Scotland, SAMH. Our employees run, walk, cycle, bake and do a variety of activities to help raise valuable funds for our charity partner, and then Allianz matches the donation.

We’re aiming to raise £1 million for Mind’s work across England and Wales to develop greater mental health support services to help children and young people to build resilience.

Our strategy at Allianz has evolved in a very positive way as we now take a far more coordinated approach to all our CSR activity and use the theme of resilience as our framework to ensure that everything we do makes sense to us as a business and has a greater impact.