Community Investment
Supporting local communities
We believe that ABN AMRO can play a clear and constructive role in society. With our global network, we affect thousands of communities around the world. In line with our commitment to sustainability, we have made a choice to actively contribute to the communities in which we operate and in which our employees live and work.
Community investment complements our business activities and helps communities to achieve higher levels of sustainability. As such, they play an important role in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Global Compact. They also stimulate closer cooperation with governments, NGOs and clients, and higher engagement among staff. Our commitment to supporting local communities is demonstrated through community investment programmes around the globe.
Our community investment strategy
ABN AMRO has a structure and framework for community investment efforts, allowing our BUs independence to develop their own strategies, set budgets and manage programmes. The bank's community investment focus is on 'sustainable livelihoods', aiming to provide people with the means and opportunity to sustain their lives and build their futures. This focus reflects our aim to contribute to the MDGs, especially the first goal of eradicating poverty. This translates into projects that help to strengthen a community's ability to develop economically in areas including:
- Education: capacity building, providing knowledge and skills to communities, organisations and professionals
- Income generation: providing structure, skills, material, tools and/or financial capital to enable communities, organisations and institutions to earn a sustainable living
- Environmental protection: supporting among others reforestation, clean technologies and conservation projects.
Group Community Investment Policy
This policy governs and aligns our Group-wide activities and provides a common framework, defining shared areas of focus around sustainable livelihoods. It also sets out how Group-wide and local BU community investment activities can complement one another. At every level, community investment requires thorough and transparent assessment and decision-making processes which ensure fairness and apply the highest selection standards. Our policy provides for a project assessment process that includes:
- Compliance and reputation check
- Project requirement criteria
- Project exclusion criteria
- Decision-making process and authorities
- Monitoring and verification guidance.
A Community of Practice helps the BUs and the Foundation share knowledge and best practices aimed at creating a more structured approach and better alignment of community investment across the bank.
Employee volunteering
Our aim is to address issues and causes that are closely aligned with our particular role in society and with the strengths, capabilities and infrastructure of ABN AMRO being a financial institution. That's why our contribution to community investment is not limited to financial support. Where appropriate, we seek to deploy ABN AMRO's greatest assets – people, knowledge and infrastructure – in ways that help to deliver our community investment objectives.
Kids in Bizz project in the Netherlands
'Kids in Bizz' is a free game focusing on entrepreneurship that has been offered to all primary schools in the Netherlands by 'Stichting Jong Ondernemen'. In four afternoons, kids learn how to set up and run their own company, perform market research, write a business plan and work with their own products. ABN AMRO is main sponsor and provides employee volunteers using their specific expertise in helping the kids.
Tree planting in Soweto project in South Africa
To celebrate its tenth anniversary, ABN AMRO South Africa partnered with Food and Trees for Africa to plant trees in Soweto. The trees symbolise the countries in which ABN AMRO is present and form part of a carbon offsetting programme.
Banco Real Universidade Solidária Award
The Banco Real Universidade Solidária Award encourages university projects nationwide. Teachers, students and communities work together to create local sustainable and communitarian development solutions, particularly those which generate income. Additionally, the Award strengthens the importance of team work to promote the values of civic and social responsibility among college students. Projects are assessed and selected to receive financial support for one year. The projects are monitored and may be renewed for an additional year, should they achieve their objectives.