Securing our future
Working together to provide prosperity and peace of mind for the future.
“Only got a minute?”
We are proud of the deep impact we have had across the CR agenda, even during a challenging year for us all. Find out more about just some of the highlights of 2011.
1 Our approach
Being a leader is all about turning challenges into opportunities. That’s why, even during a downturn, we have maintained momentum and delivered real impact to the business through our corporate responsibility (CR) strategy.
2011 has been a year of opportunity and change for Aviva amid continued global economic uncertainty. We are building customer confidence by offering sustainable products and services people can trust. We’re supporting the growth of the low-carbon economy while leading our sector in managing climate change risk. And two of the things we are most proud of – our people and our community development projects – continue to thrive at the heart of our corporate responsibility programme.
Our strategy and governance
Being a responsible business is all about thinking long term. That’s why our CR strategy is aligned to our overall business strategy, it helps our people worldwide to feel pride and our customers place trust in us. In 2011, we worked together to review our CR strategy, to create a framework and tools that embed our strategy further across the business, and we have started to think about the value sustainability can bring to Aviva.
Our internal governance of corporate responsibility is a key factor of our success – the board-level CR Committee set up in 2006 ensures that our commitments to responsible business practice are given full prominence at the most senior level.
Collaboration
In 2011, we were once again a prominent player on the global stage, campaigning on a huge range of issues from sustainable capital markets and pension reform to the plight of street children and tackling climate change. We achieve so much more by working with others:
- UN Global Compact LEAD
- ClimateWise
- Carbon Disclosure Project
- Consortium for Street Children
Transparency
Embedding a culture of integrity and transparency will enable us to do business a long way into the future. This is part of the promise we make to our customers and to our employees. For example, on climate change we have continued to call for businesses not only to disclose their risks and opportunities associated with climate change but to report actions to mitigate these risks.
2012 will be an exciting year for us as we make further inroads into our responsibilities to provide future prosperity for our customers; to harness the low carbon economy; to embed CR into business processes while reinforcing the business case for doing so; and to bring others along this journey.
2 Performance highlights
In 2011, we saw some impressive achievements in our journey towards sustainability. Find out below what these are:
Trust
We have continued to engage customers and young people around long-term savings; we have rolled out our Business Ethics Code across the entire business; and, at Aviva Investors, we have used our influence to push for responsibility in capital markets. When consumer trust in the financial services sector is at its lowest, we’ve seen that more customers than ever would recommend us to others.
Business Ethics Code employee sign-off
Employees believe our commitment to CR is genuine
Climate change and environment
Over the last year, we have seen impressive results in reducing our direct environmental impact. We are seizing opportunities in lucrative low carbon markets, supporting innovation that will help our customers manage the future risks of climate change. We have engaged our investors and suppliers, for example through our unique ‘repair over replace’ approach. As part of our commitment to transparency and collaboration we are leading the industry in international policy debate on climate change.
Go to Climate change and environment performance data
Water consumption, m 3
Waste, tonnes
Sustainable products
We have enabled more and more people to save for the future for the first time in their lives, including some of the poorest on our planet, through our micro-finance products in Asia. We’ve reached young people who will be most acutely affected in retirement and developed new products that encourage long-term protection and promote sustainable behaviour.
UK General Insurance home, motor and broker commercial transactional policy packs e-enabled
‘Repair over replace’ for motor insurance
in carbon footprint of a typical repair
Talent
We saw unprecedented levels of employee trust in our approach to corporate responsibility and diversity; we have spearheaded gender-balanced leadership at a global level; and around the world we have applied innovative solutions to attracting and retaining talent.
Employee engagement
Employees proud to work at Aviva
Developing communities
We have continued to apply our 300 years of expertise in risk management strategically to projects around the world in education, financial capability and life trauma. Street to School has reached even more vulnerable children worldwide and has been supported by our campaign, ‘You are the Big Picture’, alongside research into the state of the world’s street children.
Go to Developing communities performance data
Volunteering hours
Community investment, £m
3 Material issues
Material issues are the issues that are of most importance to Aviva, to our stakeholders and to society. They form the basis of our strategy and provide the structure of our reporting.
Our material issues
We have identified our material issues as attracting and retaining talent, developing communities, trust and transparency, sustainable products and service, and environment and climate change.
Identifying our material issues
The people involved in identifying our material issues include members of our CR committee, CR Leadership team, directors, regional experts, external sustainability specialists, our assurance providers and our reporting consultants.
Monitoring our material issues
We monitor our progress on each of these material issues very closely while also continually horizon scanning for emerging issues that will affect us in the future.
Trust
“Aviva reports here how it is actively engaged on its journey through its business ethics programme including holding itself to account for its
performance.”
Philippa Foster Back,
OBE,
director – Institute of
Business Ethics
Climate change and environment
“The insurance sector lies at the heart of understanding and managing climate risks at local and global scales, via public and private mechanisms.”
Rowan Douglas,
CEO Global
Analytics, Willis Group and
chairman, Willis Research
Network
Sustainable products
“What would growth that is green look like? ...it’s about insurers like Aviva producing insurance tailored to the
specific risks of low
carbon infrastructure.”
John Cridland,
CBE,
director general – CBI
Attracting and retaining talent
“I am hugely impressed by the work that Aviva does, across different communities. This
is a large business with a respect
for the individual.”
Pinky Lilani,
OBE, chair,
Women of the future awards
Developing communities
“We are grateful for the support Aviva has provided for our work and believe that, together,
we can be a forceful advocate for the rights
of children working and/or
living on the streets
everywhere.”
Navanethem Pillay, UN high commissioner for human rights
4 Our regions
Our corporate responsibility strategy spans the whole Aviva Group. All five regions are fully committed to addressing our material issues, although each will have its own particular emphasis depending on the regional context and market.
- UK
- Europe
- North America
- Asia Pacific
- Aviva Investors
UK
In the UK, we are reflecting changing attitudes to wealth, debt and expenditure in our family finance products. These range from making retirement and life insurance choices clearer and engaging young people around saving for the future.
Operating profit: £1,451m
Customers: 14m
Employees: 18,226
Where we operate: Nine locations in the UK
Europe
In Europe we’ve made fundamental changes to our business model to enhance the long-term success of our business. In 2011, our priority was to drive down our carbon footprint through addressing business travel, technological innovation and our building infrastructure.
Operating profit: £937m
Customers: 18m
Employees: 9,644
Where we operate: Nine locations across Europe
North America
Aviva North America focuses its commitment on community involvement, diversity and employee volunteerism – areas in which it has proven experience and established partnerships.
Operating profit: £433m
Customers: 4m
Employees: 5,449
Where we operate: USA and Canada
Asia Pacific
In our Asia Pacific region we have a strong focus on sustainable product development as Asia is a rapidly growing financial market with a burgeoning middle class and ageing population.
Operating profit: £70m
Customers: 7m
Employees: 1,935
Where we operate: 10 locations across Asia
Aviva Investors
For Aviva Investors, a key component of trust is to include environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) considerations in our investment process. We work hard to maintain our reputation for ethics, risk management and innovation.
Operating profit: £91m
Assets under
management:
£263bn
Employees: 1,308
Where we operate: 13 global locations
How we measure up
We know we can improve but at the same time we are enormously proud to be recognised for our initiatives:
- Top 10% of companies in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI).
- ‘Pioneer’ status in Ethibel’s Sustainability Index.
- ‘Gold’ in the UK Business in the Community CR Index.
- Top of Europe’s biggest companies in the Europe 300 Carbon Ranking.
- Seventh in the UK FTSE100 for the proportion of women on our board of directors (Cranfield University).
- Top insurer in the global FTSE4Good Environmental Social Governance Index.
- Listed among the top 10 European companies in the STOXX index for governance of environmental and social issues.
“There have been many initiatives to celebrate over the years of my Chairmanship, and I have seen at first hand the difference these initiatives can make to individual lives.”
Lord Sharman of Redlynch, OBE, chairman
Welcome to the 2011 corporate responsibility report
During 2011, we made great progress across all areas of CR as part of our journey towards sustainability. Even in a challenging year for us all, we have demonstrated that it is not only possible but good for our business to build public trust in financial services and to do so in a way that is responsible and sustainable.
Material issues
The issues most important to Aviva, our stakeholders and society. Find out what these are.
Performance highlights
Employees believe our commitment to CR is genuine
Business Ethics Code employee sign-off
Carbon emissions (relative),
tonnes
Employees rate Aviva favourably on the customer index
Community investment
