SO1, 9 AND 10
Dialog and maintaining high standards play central roles in the Group’s aim to enhance the positive impacts that Electrolux can bring to new communities while minimizing the negative ones.
Electrolux can support community development in terms of promoting universal standards of doing business, jobs, knowledge transfer and economic opportunity. In return, communities provide the Group with its license to operate. No operations within the Group are deemed to have negative impacts on their local communities.
Aligning acquisitions with Group standards and Codes has been a focus area over the last four years to mitigate potential impacts. Although no acquisitions were made in 2014, Electrolux acquired ten factories in Egypt and three factories in Chile and Argentina during 2011 and one facility in Ukraine in 2010. Since then, training, the ALFA assessment and audits have been conducted to gauge progress. The section Addressing Human Rights risks provides more information on internal Code of Conduct findings.
Since 2004, Electrolux has been relocating over half of production to low-cost areas to align its operations to its business strategy. The Group is mindful that these decisions affect both individuals and local communities. In setting up new operations or managing organizational change, Electrolux therefore aims to act transparently and responsibly, in dialog with those affected. Below is a review of restructuring initiatives ongoing during 2014.
In 2014:
In the Electrolux experience, where feasible, supporting the search for investors to take over plants and provide jobs for employees has the greatest long-term benefits for both local community and those directly affected by the decision to restructure. This approach was implemented in Revin, France.
Electrolux maintains dialog with local authorities, Workforce Development Agencies, and union representatives to develop a social plan for employees and mitigate potential negative impacts on communities. Social plans may include early retirement schemes, training, severance pay, as well as internal and external job-search support.
Management approach: Society provides further information on the Group’s approach to mitigating impacts during restructuring.
The sector continues on a deliberate path of growth, strategically adding to the workforce while balancing the expected employee growth pending regulatory approval of the GE appliances acquisition.
Electrolux invests actively in the communities in which it operates to create shared benefits for the society and the company.
At Group level, Electrolux has an ongoing partnership with AIESEC, the world’s largest student-run organization. This win-win cooperation helps Electrolux acquire talent, contributes to Group diversity goals and offers students internships within the Group’s worldwide organization. In addition to a yearly remuneration, approximately 28 (50) trainees were hosted by Electrolux, fewer than in previous years due to restructuring.
Examples of initiatives supported by local Electrolux organizations include:
Electrolux raised nearly SEK 1.45m (AUD 220,000) in 2014 for the Children’s Cancer Institute – the country’s only independent medical research body wholly dedicated to ending childhood cancer. For the past four years, Electrolux has been the Institute’s major sponsor. In addition Electrolux Australia made product donations to the Ronald McDonald house and the Children's Hospital Westmead, among others.
At the Electrolux Juarez campus in Mexico, Electrolux has a scholarship program for the children of production employees. In 2014, 295 scholarships were granted to a total value of SEK 191,974 (USD 22,692). Through an agreement with companies operating the vending machines at the Juarez campus, 10% of the income from sales is directed towards books and uniforms of employee dependents at the start of every semester.
Electrolux has been collecting and laundering clothes for typhoon victims and survivors in the Philippines for a number of years. In 2014, the initiative was called the Delightful E Simple to Share campaign and Electrolux partnered with Gawad Kalinga’s Barangay Trese community to ensure that clean clothes were collected and that any unusable donated clothes and fabrics were recycled into quilts for newborns in orphanages and communities in need. As a result of this initiative, Electrolux Philippines collected close to 2 tonnes of clothes and produced 200 quilts for the newborns.
Electrolux partnered with local charity ”Food From The Heart” to run Singapore’s first ever 72-hour bake-a-thon. The bake-a-thon brought together members of the public, corporate partners, local personalities and students who helped bake thousands of scones, cupcakes and biscuits in support of over 1,000 underprivileged families.
The Foundation Livslust (Joy of life), an initiative Electrolux co-founded in 1994, provides housing and vocational training for disadvantaged young people in Latvia. Electrolux has provided appliances for its residential facilities and economic support. Electrolux and its employees contributed a total of SEK 112,000 as well as product donations.
Electrolux Thailand partnered with King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) to support the efforts of young Thai innovators in the Solar Decathlon Europe – an international competition that tasks university students from all over the world with the mission to create fully-functional houses powered only by sunlight. Electrolux Thailand supplied a wide range of energy-efficient home appliances to KMUTT Team.
The ‘Wash for Merit’ campaign took place in Thailand in 2014. Over the past five years, Electrolux Thailand has donated 9,000 pieces of clothing worth approximately SEK 360,000 (THB 1.8 million) through the Wash for merit campaign.
Donations to science and technology education, critical needs, women's health causes and the arts amounted to SEK 5.3m (US $630,000). Electrolux employees volunteered close to 1,300 hours in the community at, for example, food banks. In addition, Electrolux supplied products to charities at a value of over SEK 4.2m (US $500,000). Electrolux North America contributed more than SEK 1.3 (US $157,000) to the United Way, matching employee donations.