During 2014, CHEP Australia staff gave more than 900 hours volunteering for charities and not-for- profit organisations in their local communities.
CHEP Australia is part of the Brambles Group, which has an employee volunteering policy that offers employees three days of paid leave per year to volunteer with community-based not-for-profit educational or environmental organisations.
According to the Brambles 2014 Sustainability Review, released this month, more than 1,000 employees volunteered a combined total of 11,461 hours across the group in FY14.
Employees volunteered for projects around the world, ranging from delivering school bags and stationery to children in rural South Africa, planting trees in the UK, to providing mentoring opportunities for at-risk children in Australia.
CHEP ANZ sustainability manager, Nicole Boyd stated, “It’s a privilege for us to be able to work with charities like The Smith Family, Foodbank, Oxfam, Habitat for Humanity and Youth off the Streets who do so much for our local communities.”
In addition to volunteering, CHEP Australia donated almost $1 million in cash and in kind to local charities in FY14.
CHEP Australia launched its Helping Hand program, for example, in March 2011 to support its volunteering program. Helping Hand is a charitable giving initiative that financially supports the causes that are important to CHEP employees. It has a total of $50,000 to distribute each year and the committee of volunteers from CHEP's national workforce gets to choose seven organisations each quarter to receive funding. Employees who have a direct or ongoing active interest in an activity or cause that benefits the broader community have the opportunity to apply for funding.
In New Zealand, CHEP employees have contributed donations to various appeals, most notably a joint donation with Brambles of $100,000 to the Christchurch earthquake appeal, and $7,900 to The Hearing House, a provider to the Northern Cochlear Implant program.
