Corporate Responsibility Report 2010
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Glossary Downloads Site map Corporate responsibility report 2010 Home Overview Trust Climate change and environment Financial capability Attracting and retaining talent Developing communities Our regions For our corporate responsibility report 2010, we’ve focused attention on issues that matter most Material issues in our regions: Aviva Investors UK Europe North America Asia Pacific Welcome Our focus on global issues Corporate responsibility report What are we focussing on? Highlights 2010 By focusing on issues that are Trust and integrity Our full online corporate responsibility important to our business and 1st UK company Climate change and environment (CR) report describes Aviva Group CR stakeholders, we will deliver to put its CR report within its Annual performance in our worldwide operations prosperity and peace of mind to our Financial capability Report to an advisory shareholder vote for the year ended 31 December 2010. customers, maximise value over the Attracting and retaining talent long term and strengthen Aviva’s Download report standing as a sustainable business. Developing communities 74% of employees surveyed agree that our Read more about our CR strategy. Our Annual Report and Accounts contains commitment to CR is genuine a summary report of CR progress and performance. We submit this report to an New products advisory shareholder vote and were the Assurance and From our group chief first UK company to do so at our 2010 standards executive launched to support the low-carbon AGM. economy We are committed to the transparent Read Andrew disclosure and robust reporting of Moss's statement our sustainability performance. Street to School our global community programme: Accounting for Sustainability Integrated financial and non- greater recognition of our efforts and financial disclosure results Indexes and benchmarks Balanced Independent assurance statement leadership focusing on gender equality © Aviva plc 2011 Search Site map Help Accessibility Contact us www.aviva.com Glossary Downloads Site map Corporate responsibility report 2010 Home Overview Trust Climate change and environment Financial capability Attracting and retaining talent Developing communities Our regions Home page › Overview Overview Chairman’s statement Chief executive officer’s statement Our focus on corporate responsibility Corporate responsibility strategy “This year we’ve revised our strategy to sharpen our focus on About Aviva embedding sustainability in everything we do. We’re proud of how far we’ve come over the past 10 years – but we know Performance summary that there is more to do.” Governance and risk Marie Sigsworth, group corporate responsibility director, Aviva Assurance Our corporate responsibility (CR) strategy is aligned with our core purpose, to provide prosperity and peace of mind for our customers. It is helping us to innovate and meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Strategy What are we doing? Performance For more than a decade, strong We have set ourselves high Revised our CR strategy to take partnerships and collaborations have ambitions. Our stretching targets on account of material risks and issues, been an important part of our CR climate change have led to new, more and our impact on society approach. This year, we worked with efficient ways of doing business. The our stakeholders to help us take the many benefits to our customers Working with our auditors Ernst & next steps on our journey – focusing include paperless processes and a Young to provide increased scrutiny on core issues and further integrating range of more sustainable products of CR reporting the CR programme within our and services. Extended the scope of our reporting business strategy. to include additional subsidiary Read more companies and expanded Read more measurement of community investment © Aviva plc 2011 Search Site map Help Accessibility Contact us www.aviva.com Glossary Downloads Site map Corporate responsibility report 2010 Home Overview Trust Climate change and environment Financial capability Attracting and retaining talent Developing communities Our regions Home page › Overview › Chairman’s statement Overview Chairman’s statement Chief executive officer’s statement Chairman’s statement Corporate responsibility strategy Report tools About Aviva Delivering prosperity and peace Glossary Performance summary of mind remains at the heart of everything we do. Downloads Governance and risk Lord Sharman of Redlynch OBE, chairman Assurance I believe strongly that companies have an obligation to report on how their business affects climate change and what mitigating actions they are undertaking to address these impacts. At the London launch of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) in 2009, I called for greater disclosure of climate change mitigation. I am keen to see the CDP go beyond simply promoting disclosure by also providing analysis on how well individual companies are actually reducing their emissions. I would expect this to encourage improved emissions management and have been developing a reporting format with the CDP. At Aviva, we continued to make progress against our climate change agenda this year, reducing like–for–like carbon emissions by 4% and reducing water consumption by 8% (double our target of 4%). In addition to managing our own impact on the environment, we are also able to positively influence the behaviour of other organisations. The active voting and engagement work that Aviva Investors carries out has produced great results during the past year with responsible actions by some companies preventing further environmental damage. You can read more about this engagement work within the Aviva Investors section of this report. As a Board member, I think it increasingly important that we have a balance within our leadership teams both at Board and executive level. With this in mind, I am really pleased that Lord Davies invited our chief marketing officer, Amanda Mackenzie, to be part of his review of women on boards. Our balanced leadership programme encourages an equilibrium within the leadership team between men and women. We currently have three female non–executive directors on our Board but the percentage of senior women on our management team still needs improvement. Another initiative close to my heart is our Street to School programme and we have made great strides with this during the last year. We have now helped 128,000 children through the programme and are well on track to achieving our target of reaching 500,000 children throughout our five–year commitment. Throughout this report, you can read more about the children we have helped in the 17 markets in which the Street to School programme is live. I‘m proud to be a member of the Aviva Corporate Responsibility Committee. Our remit has expanded during the year: we now have more oversight of business ethics and the work that the Company is doing to prepare for the UK Bribery Act 2010 which will affect the whole of the Group. These are obviously important issues for the business but equally for the peace of mind of our shareholders, which remains at the heart of everything we do. Lord Sharman of Redlynch OBE Chairman © Aviva plc 2011 Search Site map Help Accessibility Contact us www.aviva.com Glossary Downloads Site map Corporate responsibility report 2010 Home Overview Trust Climate change and environment Financial capability Attracting and retaining talent Developing communities Our regions Home page › Overview › Chief executive officer’s statement Overview Chairman’s statement Chief executive officer’s statement Chief executive officer’s Corporate responsibility strategy statement About Aviva Performance summary Report tools I’m immensely proud of what we’ve Governance and risk achieved as a company in 2010. Glossary Assurance Andrew Moss, group chief executive Downloads We improved performance right across our business: operating profit up 26%, 70% increase in net operating capital generated (£1.7bn), dividend up by 6% and positive underlying indicators in General Insurance, Life and Asset Management. The executive team and I are also heartened by the positive reaction both to the actions we‘ve taken and the strategy we‘ve set out for the future. Equally important to us, however, is our performance in a much more rounded sense, bearing in mind that our financial stakeholders, important as they are, are only one area of a much wider canvas of responsibility. We pride ourselves on having been the first company in the UK – and the first Financial Services company in the world – to put our corporate responsibility agenda to a separate shareholder vote. Please believe me, this is not a question of corporate back- slapping – exploring new territory of this type is an exercise that continually reinforces what you’re not doing and what you don‘t understand. But we remain determined because we believe that positive and sustainable commercial outcomes only come from a properly joined–up understanding of our commitments to our people, our customers, our environment and the communities in which we work. For me, the highlights in this year’s report are: We’ve increased our community investment to £11.4 million (2009: £8 million) Our people are more involved in raising money for our causes, with 29% now included in payroll giving We are one of only 54 companies across the world to be recognised for our commitment to sustainability (UN Global Compact LEAD membership, one of only 54 companies recognised) We have developed our work to promote sustainability to stock markets around the world Our flagship global community development programme ‘Street to School’, a five– year commitment to help 500,000 children fulfil their potential, is gaining momentum with pilots in 17 different countries and support from our global marketing campaign to raise awareness. You can read more about the progress we’ve made here. We know our CR agenda really resonates with people inside Aviva: in a recent survey 74% of them praised the genuineness of our commitment. And while we know that there is always more to do, I hope you will also be impressed by the content of this report and by the continued focus that we’re putting on this area.