We aim to make a positive contribution to the communities we operate in.
All of our sites have a charity/community committee of employees who focus attention on the needs of their local community for both volunteering and fundraising activities. The committees are supported by a central function which provides logistical and financial support as well as undertaking data collection and coordination of nationwide events.
The aims of our community activity are to:
Support local and national charities and other community organisations
Encourage volunteering by our staff
Communicate community activities both internally and externally
By engaging staff in fundraising, volunteering or other community activities we reflect the issues that matter to our people and their local communities. Encouraging staff to get involved means they can build on existing strengths, talents, confidence and areas of expertise and develop new ones. It’s about doing the right thing for our staff and the communities
At MORE TH>N we take our responsibility to manage our business impacts on the environment, people and communities seriously. Fundamentally, that means behaving responsibly and ethically as individuals and as a company.
Our approach to corporate responsibility (sometimes called corporate social responsibility or CSR) is based on our Business Principles, which underpin everything we do.
Our business principles direct our business behaviour. They apply throughout MORE TH>n and the whole RSA group and comprise a commitment to integrity underpinned by commitments to specific relationship groups - employees, shareholders, regulators, business partners, customers, and the environment and community. The commitments are linked directly to our business policies.
The commitments to environment and the community demonstrate our belief in continuous improvement of our environmental performance and in taking action around emerging environmental issues. It also says that wherever we operate we will seek positive engagement with local communities.
We are therefore committed to:
• Managing our impacts on the environment through our use of resources such as energy, paper and water and the investment of our assets
• Taking proactive action on environmental issues that are likely to affect our business and the community at large
Our latest group wide corporate responsibility report provides more information on our targets and reporting.
Some of our links to community organisations
• Trees for Cities
We work with the environmental charity, Trees for cities to raise awareness of appropriate tree planting to help reduce subsidence incidents and replacing trees removed as part of a claim. We also are a long term sponsor of the Tree-Athlon.
Trees for Cities is an independent charity that plants trees and re-landscapes public spaces in urban areas of greatest need. The charity’s vision is to stimulate a greening renaissance in cities around the world that will impact on global warming and beautify the urban landscape, as well as encouraging greater social cohesion through the active participation of local people. For further information, visit: www.treesforcities.org
The Tree-Athlon is a race promoting urban tree planting. Last summer, at Battersea Park, we had the largest corporate team of runners with 36 employees taking part.
• Career Academy
We support the UK Career Academy Foundation (CAF) mentoring scheme which works to raise the aspirations of 16-19 year olds considering a career in business, focusing on teenagers who are from a fragmented, disappointing or non-traditional educational experience.
The structured scheme lasts for 18 months (around 10 meetings), where employees can help students to develop life skills or work through coursework. Employees can also provide six-week paid work placments. In 2007, we offered sixteen internships throughout the country.
• Charities Aid Foundation
Our Give As You Earn scheme is operated by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) on our behalf with the company paying all administration costs. It is an excellent scheme that makes giving simple and cost effective. Last year we donated over £200k to match giving by our employees.
The Charities Aid Foundation not only helps organisations manage their own donations and funds but also undertakes important research on the charity sector.
Give As You Earn is a tax efficient method of making donations to charitable organisations of employees’ choice. In essence, the scheme enables our employees to donate a proportion of their gross earnings (i.e. before tax) on a regular basis, usually monthly, through deduction from gross pay or pension. As a result of the tax benefits, the charity receives more, at a reduced cost to the individual
• Keep on running
As part of our commitment to employee engagement, every year we support our employees who participate in the London Marathon, Race for Life and other local and national races by providing them with funding and other forms of support.
For example, in 2007, over 250 RSA/MORE TH>N employees participated in at least 40 Race for Life races across the country raising over £50,000 with match funding. We got in touch with Cancer research to tell them off our efforts and they kindly joined us for a photo session with our UK Chief Executive Bridget McIntyre. They sent us a thank you letter which included a letter to tell us that Cancer research were now insuring with us as we had shown among other things a commitment to supporting the charity.
• National Volunteering Week
In 2007, we hosted our first National Volunteering Week, which proved to be a huge success.
Over 800 employees volunteered across the group giving 4,500 hours to community actvities, and raised over £15,000 for local charities.
. Projects included:
• Helping vulnerable residents to improve the exteriors of their homes to reduce fire risk and burglaries.
• Renovating play areas and helping with general maintenance at eight schools across the UK
• Accompanying disadvantaged children on days out
• Spending time with and helping the elderly, terminally ill children and victims of brain injuries
• Business in The Community
We are a member of Business In the Community (BiTC), which is a movement of over 800 UK companies committed to improving their positive impact on society.
We engage directly with BITC on a range of issues which measures companies against globally recognised CR standards and we are recognized as a ‘Top 100 Company’ .
• London Benchmark Group
We are a member of The London Benchmarking Group (LBG), which is a group of over 100 companies working together to measure Corporate Community Investment (CCI). The LBG model provides a comprehensive and consistent set of measures for corporate community involvement professionals to determine their company’s contribution to the community.
We use the LBG template to report on our community activities - recognizing
• The Financial Inclusion Taskforce
The Financial Inclusion Taskforce, a UK government initiative to improve access to financial services for those living on low incomes and deprived areas.
Bridget McIntyre, our UK CEO, is a member of the Government Taskforce on Financial Inclusion.
www.financialinclusion-taskforce.org.uk
We work with housing associations and other social housing landlords to prevent cost effective insurance with rent to help meet the needs of low income
• Beyond the UK
Through our parent group RSA, we are also involved with initiatives that go beyond the UK including the UN Global Compact. Detailed information on our community activities around the world is given on the Group website and in particular our annual corporate responsibility report
www.rsagroup.com/rsa/pages/responsibility
• UN Global Compact
In 2007 we became a signatory of the UN Global Impact, a voluntary initiative committing us to comply with ten principles on human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption.
www.unglobalcompact.org
