Serving the Community

An important aspect of our community involvement is to help our people to make a difference in their neighborhoods: this is co-ordinated and funded through the AkzoNobel Community Program; we also support projects where our products can contribute to solving global development needs. A focus on specific topics or stakeholders is created by the AkzoNobel Education Fund and the AkzoNobel Art Foundation. Early 2009, AkzoNobel participated in an overall assessment of its operations on realizing the Millennium Development Goals: the MDG Scan.

Community Program
The AkzoNobel Community Program which was launched in 2005, encourages employees to get involved in their local communities by actively contributing to local, worthwile projects and gives them the financial support to do it. This allows sites and individuals to get involved where our products/ resources and the skills and knowledge of employees can benefit the wider community, but also provides opportunities for employees to develop team building and leadership skills.

Since the start of the program more than 7,000 volunteers from 50 countries have worked on more than 1,400 projects, totaling over € 10 million. According to the NCDO Millennium Development Goal Scan methodology, these projects have impacted an estimated 400,000 people. The many initiatives vary from offering sustainable support to disabled people, young children and the elderly to providing better conditions for homeless people, disaster victims, deprived groups and even animals.

Details on the performance of the program as well as details of several specific projects can be found in the performance section.

Products for Society: Fighting Iron Deficiency
* The AkzoNobel product Ferrazone is already being used to prevent iron deficiency in an estimated 35 million people in south east Asia though staple food fortification programs.
* We also support the Flour Fortification Initiative in their work with governments in Africa to improve public health by making fortification of flour produced by large roller mills standard practice. We work together with the Flour Fortification Initiative (FFI), BOSK, The International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus and the Dutch government to train millers throughout Africa in fortifying flour with essential nutrients so that people will benefit from more vitamins and minerals in their staple foods. In 2008 Kenya announced that they are committed to mandatory flour fortification by 01 Jan 2010. 
* We are a partner of the Amsterdam Initiative on Malnutrition (AIM). This public-private partnership is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of The Netherlands, Wageningen University and Multinational Companies Unilever, DSM and AkzoNobel. Its goal is to
eliminate malnutrition for 100 million people in Africa by 2015. AkzoNobel's contribution to the initiative is highlighted here.

Education Fund
A special focus area of our Community Activities is primary education, one of the UN Millennium Development Goals. Launched in 1994, the AkzoNobel Education Fund was set up to support children in developing countries, mainly by financing educational projects, but also by healthcare and environmental programs. Financed by Corporate funds as well as by employee donations and special actions, and supported by the expertise of Plan Internatinal, the money is used to build, equip and develop schools in the poorest area’s of developing countries. In the past 12 years, more than 50 projects in 15 countries in South America, Africa and South East Asia have been financed. Details on recent projects see performance section.

Art Foundation
Reflecting AkzoNobel's worldwide activities, the AkzoNobel Art Foundation is building an internationally oriented contemporary art collection. The virtual museum *) will give you an impression of AkzoNobel's collection of works of art acquired since its start in 1996. All works are all reminiscent of young artists, most of whom have proven their qualities in the international arena by now. The AkzoNobel Art Foundation is based on four basic policy principles. The collection is to serve as a source of inspiration and creative reflection in the working environment. The collection aims to reflect AkzoNobel's social responsibility and - in terms of sophistication - to equal AkzoNobel's activities, demonstrating that art and the Company can function as communicating vessels. The art collection should serve as an independent means of communication that may contribute to other forms of communication within the company. Further reading on the background and the vision of the AkzoNobel Art Foundation is to be found in the texts 'As far as hands and eye can reach' by Cees J.A. van Lede and 'Hands on' by Hester Alberdingk Thijm.

The MDG scan: Measuring AkzoNobel’s impact on the realization of the Millennium Development Goals 
Early 2009, AkzoNobel participated in an assessment of Global Companies’ impact on realization of the UN Millennium Development Goals: the MDG scan. The assessment uses a model developed by the Dutch Centre for Sustainable Development (NCDO) and focuses on three types of impact:

1. economic impact through regular business activities (mainly on MDG 1: eradication of extreme poverty)
2. impact through sales of specific products (example: Ferrazone., see above)
3. impact through Community Activities