Corporate Social Responsibility Case Studies

During the last 18 months, with all the new guidelines surrounding coronavirus pandemic, the traditional approaches to volunteering had to change. But for Aviva Insurance Group, that didn’t mean it has to stop all together. Every year, Aviva employees are given 21 hours of paid leave to volunteer in their local communities and help them build a brighter future. During #VolunteeringWeek every July, 564 colleagues undertook a litter pick – either in support of their daily exercise routine or as a team volunteering day in their local community. Some colleagues even organised a 24-hours litter pick to raise money for local food banks.

The British Mountaineering Council – Hills 2 Ocean campaign work with their members who regularly enjoy the great outdoors: climbing, hiking, walking, mountaineering and rambling to help to make a difference to their local environment. This innovative campaign encourages such nature lovers to help clean up the countryside by taking part in a litter pick or undertaking their own solo litter pick – carrying a reusable bag and folding litter picker. Since the launch in 2019, the campaign has seen over 2000 members of the public get involved, collecting tonnes of rubbish which would of ended up in our oceans. So far, they have given out 1,350 litter pickers and collected over 7000 bags.

The Costa Community Programme empowers team members to make a difference giving time and space in-store to their local communities. Since 2014, over 48,139 hours have been donated. Over 1,300 stores have joined in their neighbourhood clean up programmes – including Spring Clean. Launched in 2017, the ‘reading week’ initiative, includes education resources on litter and the environment into local schools and in store competitions engaging young minds across the UK.

Through their This is Forward sustainability programme, Coca-Cola encourages their members, customers and supporting brands to build a better future, for people and the planet. Working alongside The Great British Spring Clean, over 500 employees have rolled up their sleeves supporting 60 community clean up events as well as organising their own river and street clean ups, collecting over 1000 bags of rubbish and recycling! Did you know their own bottles & cans are 100% recyclable!

The Cooperative Group members state one of the biggest challenges to clean and safe community spaces is litter. With many of Coop staff across 4,000 stores are already involved in local litter picks – providing reusable litter picking kits and campaign resources for their stores, member pioneers, Coop academies and 3,000 colleagues at Angel Square supports  Co-operate 2022 community plan which focuses on three areas; Spaces, Skills and Wellbeing and their broader sustainability commitments.

Debries Consultancy Company specialise in waste stream and how you can reduce your ecological footprint through sustainable waste management. Not only for business, but consumers too – they have supported 2,450 litter picking schemes across Holland mobilising over 104,000 volunteers with clean up equipment.

Proud partners of the National Littering campaign ‘Keep It, Bin It!’ Extra have joined forces with some of the biggest companies to tackle the scourge of Littering.

Across the 10 Extra Motorway service areas in England they have targeted reducing fast food litter and how they can reduce waste by increasing recycling rates. Trials of the ‘Recycle on the Go’ Streetboss trials across 3 sites evidenced that 624 tonnes of Litter can be diverted from landfill, giving a projected saving of more than £40,000 every year.

Fost Plus is responsible for promoting, coordinating and financing the selective collecting, sorting and recycling of household packaging waste in Belgium. Fost Plus has taken an active role in the battle against litter for many years.
Working in partnership with Mooimakers; Belgium national litter action organisation, together we engage over 400,000 children and adults each year in building awareness of litter and take action with clean-up campaigns.

As part of their sustainability agenda, John Lewis & Partners invested in Recycle on the Go community hubs across 21 stores in the UK. Looking for volunteer litter picking equipment – pop in to any one of the stores and ask for the ‘community champion’.

Looking for environmental funding? The groups Community Matters charitable giving scheme runs throughout John Lewis & Partners shops. You’ll come across a similar scheme at your local Waitrose & Partners too.

Lidl Group go out on litter patrol every day across their 700 stores. Key to their supply chain for site maintenance are sustainable products which reduce single use, support re-use and increase productivity for their workforce & customers.

The Litter Less Campaign is a joint initiative of the MARS Wrigley Foundation and Foundation for  Environmental Education across 35 countries. The project aims to engage and educate children on the issue of litter and encourage them to make positive environmental choices. Since it’s launch in 2011, over 3 million students have been involved. Working in conjunction with Eco-Schools England programme, 152 primary school Litterheroes from 15 schools across Leicester made Abbey Park sparkle, removing 213 bags of litter .

For 2019 Recycle Week, theme ‘Recycling – It’s in Our Own Hands’  – Lucozade took that motif literally. Ribena replaced its brand logo on packs with ‘Recycle Me’  which will help to drive awareness of its 100% recycled plastic bottle since 2007. And across Lucozade Ribena Suntory sites over 150 staff members litter picked every day of Recycle Week in and around their site premises; collecting 4 tonnes of litter – of which nearly 3 tonnes were recycled.

Every year McDonalds employees litter pick over 150,000 miles as part of their daily litter patrols and national clean up events. Did you know they sponsored the Capital Clean Up Programme too? Sprucing up the city of London, donating volunteer litterpicking equipment and grants to over 100,000 volunteers.

As part of their sustainability agenda, Scotmid Co-operative invested in Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Spring Clean campaign. The partnership saw 12 Scotmid stores from Brechin to Dumfries serve as community hubs for the duration of the campaign. Each hub had bespoke Clean Up Kits  that supporters used to carry out a Clean Up event in their community and  guidance on how to organise a Spring Clean – which saw over 30,000 volunteers take part.

VisitScotland undertook an Olympian effort to cover almost a 1,000 miles of Scotland as part of national litter pick campaign. The national tourism body backed Keep Scotland Beautiful Clean Up Scotland campaign by encouraging its employees to pledge at least an hour of litter picking. More than 170 staff stretching across the length and breadth of Scotland, from Dumfries to the Shetlands, St Andrews to Outer Hebrides, including many from VisitScotland’s 26 iCentres, completed 280 hours of litter picking, equating to the equivalent of 840 miles. It comes in the wake of the tourism body Responsible Tourism campaign encouraging visitors to #RespectProtectEnjoy whilst visiting, focusing on asking people to leave no trace and protect our landscapes.