Vanbreda International’s Corporate Social Responsibility Policy
The process of globalisation and the proliferation of mass media have revealed the true impact of business on its environment, and awakened the critical segment of civil society. Companies are expected to take up their responsibilities towards all stakeholders within their sphere of influence, including clients, suppliers, employees, and the physical environment. Taking up responsibilities comprises taking initiatives, closely monitoring performance and reporting to stakeholders.
Vanbreda International’s structures and policies reflect a strong sense of responsibility towards employees and the environment. Now that the company is becoming more and more active outside Belgium and Europe, our internal policies will have an international impact. Moreover, as an international insurance product and service provider, we can and do have a considerable impact on thousands of people’s employee benefits plans, their financial comfort, and their access to health care providers.
The three main constituents of Vanbreda International’s policy regarding Corporate Social Responsibility are our membership of the UN Global Compact, our partnership with UNICEF and our endorsement of the Diversity Declaration.
The UN Global Compact
In 2005, Vanbreda International joined the UN Global Compact, a public-private partnership founded in 2000 by the former Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan. By signing the UN Global Compact, we expressed our commitment to support the Compact’s Ten Principles regarding human rights, labour standards, environment and ethics. Our Communication on Progress describes in detail our commitment, actions and performance concerning each Principle.
UNICEF Partnership
Vanbreda International is a full partner of UNICEF Belgium, which entails a three year commitment (starting 2007). In the framework of this partnership, we are sponsoring the project ‘Survival of the Young Child in the Democratic Republic of Congo’.
Diversity Declaration
Vanbreda International signed the Diversity Declaration of the Employers’ Platform for Diversity, a collaborative initiative of UNIZO, VOKA and VKW, the representative bodies of the employers of the Flemish region in Belgium. By endorsing this Declaration, we committed ourselves to foster diversity by objectifying our personnel policy in terms of recruitment, development and salary.
Just like in our quality programmes, we will not be content with a status quo, but we will continually strive to improve on our standards.
What’s new?
- The representatives of Vanbreda International travel by plane on a regular basis, visiting their clients all over the world. Being aware of the substantial amount of CO2 emissions that this brings about, Vanbreda International decided to offset the CO2 emissions from its international travelling by investing in CO2 reducing projects.
Offsetting our CO2 emissions means that for each ton of CO2 discharged during our business flights, we invest a fixed amount in a biomass project in India that corresponds to an equal reduction in CO2 emissions. This project produces renewable energy from sustainably grown biomass from local agricultural products such as rice husk, cotton stalk and paddy straw. Not only does this conversion generate ‘green’ power, it also contributes to the local economy. The project has received the official validation from the UN Executive Committee and the Det Norske Veritas.
The decision was made to offset the CO2 emission of our international travelling starting in 2006.
http://www.co2logic.com/home.aspx/EN
- Since the beginning of 2008, Vanbreda International's donations to Unicef have been used for a new project 'Child survival and development activities in two health care zones in Katanga - DR Congo'. The project aims at reducing child mortality in two specific zones in Katanga, namely Moba and Kitenge.
Child mortality figures worldwide and for the DRC appal still today. Worldwide 9.4 million children die from preventable and treatable diseases. 40% of them do not survive their first month of existence. In the DRC, one fifth of children die before the age of five.
Some of the measures to reduce child mortality seem easy to implement and relate to what we consider to be very basic health and living conditions such as the availability of safe drinking water and mosquito nets, and washing hands before meals.
The project that we sponsor aims at implementing a basic health care system for 425.256 people, and help 92.851 children under the age of 5 and 19.651 pregnant women. It wants to substantially increase the number of DTCHepB3 vaccinations and mosquito nets. It looks at expanding medical care at home or in a health care centre, ensuring exclusive breast feeding and washing hands, providing qualified medical assistance at childbirths and adequate care for malnourished children, performing HIV/Aids tests and last but not least, educating people on healthy conditions.
In 2008, the project succeeded to finance and provide 78 kits of essential drugs, 8.740 mosquito nets and 2 kits of cold chain equipment. It managed to implement a monitoring system for maternal and child mortality, to reorganise the obstetrical services in 42 health care centres, to train 126 community health workers, to rehabilitate 3 health care centres, and to maintain and provide fuel for vehicles.
To give an idea of what our contribution represents, it equals the value of 5.177 mosquito nets, an essential tool for protecting children against insect-borne diseases such as malaria.
For more detailed information about this project, you can consult the presentation in English or progress report in French.