Worldwide
Aviva businesses around the world support their local markets and communities with sponsorship and CSR programmes. Many of our businesses profile their sponsorships and community-based activities on their own websites which can be accessed in the Aviva World section of this site. Examples of our activity around the world are shown here and in our CSR report.
Commercial sponsorship
Aviva Ballkids
In Australia, Aviva proudly sponsors the Aviva Ballkids during the Australian Open, the Grand Slam of Asia/Pacific. 2009 marks the fifth year of the sponsorship with more than 330 Aviva Ballkids playing a critical part at this year's tournament. It is a demanding role, but it is also the opportunity of a lifetime for the chosen few who will get to watch the worlds best players in action, while learning new skills and making new friends.
Aviva is proud to give young people this valuable experience. Our sponsorship of the Aviva Ballkids allows us to publicly associate our brand with shared values such as performance and teamwork. The professional approach and efficiency of the Aviva Ballkids mirrors the way we at Aviva support our customers – not always from centre stage but going about our business quickly and efficiently in the background, helping people take care of the things that are important to them.
Our Dutch business, Delta Lloyd, sponsored a Solar Boat team of students from the Technical University in Delft to take part in the Frisian Solar Challenge race. The race is over a distance of 200 kilometres starting from Elfstedentocht. The Delta Lloyd teamed sailed through a total of 11 towns in the new record time of 12 hours, five minutes and 47 seconds to win the race convincingly. Their time was almost five hours faster than when they competed two years ago.
In Singapore and China, badminton continues to be one of the group’s most successful sponsorships. Aviva has extended its sponsorship of the Aviva Open Singapore until 2009. Aviva is also title sponsor of the 2008 Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore triathlon competition.
Community investment
The Group measures its community involvement by using a standard template from Business in the Community which captures giving and support not only in terms of cash, but also time commitments, benefits in kind, and employee volunteering. Using this method it is estimated that the Aviva Group invested over £6.3m in charitable and community based activities.
Aviva is one of the founding partners of the Oxfam 365 Alliance, which enables corporate donors to fund Oxfam's initial response operations to deal with disaster immediately, wherever they occur around the world. This includes a global rapid response team of aid workers and the UK's biggest warehouse with a stockpile of emergency supplies.
Aviva France supports its charitable foundation whilst Aviva Canada and Aviva USA focus on the United Way campaign. Aviva India continues to work with the Arpana Trust to provide education to underprivileged children aged 3-5 years.
Staff volunteering
We continue to promote employee volunteering as a way our people can become engaged with their local communities and help good causes.
Our commitment has resulted in formal policies in many of our businesses, and from 2008, employees will be able to take up to three paid days for volunteer work.
In Ireland, for instance, Hibernian Aviva has committed to providing 10,000 hours of staff volunteering annually. Hibernian Aviva also joined forces with Aviva India to give seven of its employees the opportunity to volunteer with the Arpana Trust, a Delhi-based NGO that supports disadvantaged youth and older people.
In the UK, over 2,800 Aviva UK employees donated more than 32,500 hours of volunteering in the UK across many different projects in 2007. These included two new nationwide education projects – Climate Change Champions and Paying for It – designed to utilise the expertise of employees.
There are many more stories and activities from around the world featured in our CR report.