Corporate social responsibility
Our local initiatives

In Italy

Several group companies have launched local welfare initiatives. Here, you can discover a number of these activities which involve our companies around the world.

In Italy, Europ Assistance has focused its ethical activities on improving health and social conditions in developing nations.

With this in mind, the company has developed a humanitarian marketing project, and set up a non-profitmaking, socially responsible Organisation Committee, Eurasolidale which handles the task of collecting, managing and distributing funds for various social projects, in complete transparency and totally separate from the group's commercial activities.

Furthermore all Europ Assistance Italy's employees and network of suppliers are informed about the social initiatives and involved in the various fund raising or volunteer initiatives organised.

After  the Social Report Europ Assistance Italy published, in 2007, its first Balance of Sustainibility:a guide for the substainable growth of the Group in the perspective of a dialogue with all the stakeholders. This new document clearly reports the Company's culture, as well as its social sensibility and ethical values.
All these pubblications may be consulted on the Europ Assistance Italy website: http ://www.europassistance.it/


www.eurasolidale.it

The "Santa Macrina" centre in Bucharest

Organised for two years, working with the Onlus foundation, "aiutare i bambini" (Help the Children), the purpose of the "Santa Macrina Centre" project in Bucharest consisted in building up a new structure with the aim of welcoming street children, and support medical and socio-professional reintegration programs.

The new building was completed and opened in September 2007. Technical assistance has also been provided, including for example medical transportation to specialised hospitals where necessary, medical assistance by telephone and remote consultations 24 hours a day, free insurance policies for trips made by the foundation's staff, and other measures to assist volunteers.

"Cuore di Bimbi" – A new project for 2007/2008

The leading aim of this project is to have African children suffering from serious cardiac problems operated on in Italy (with 10 children treated per year). The person in charge of this project is a secular missionary who runs a hospital in Zimbabwe. She sends children to Italy suffering from heart disease or heart malformations, where they can be operated upon and saved from certain death. Italy has a network of hospitals and surgeons ready to treat these children and to operate on them free of charge. Europ Assistance Italy is working with the “aiutare i bambini” foundation to provide financial assistance to pay the travel costs for these children and their parents, from Zimbabwe to Italy.

The project's secondary goal is to have children suffering from serious cardiac problems operated upon in their own country (around 90 children per year). To achieve this, an Italian medical team travels to the foreign countries concerned (Morocco, Kenya, the Ukraine, Romania, Albania and Uzbekistan) to operate on children suffering from serious cardiac problems. During each of these missions, between 10 and 12 children are operated upon, and a further 80 children receive a health check-up. Additionally, local doctors are given the opportunity to undertake training in this field and to acquire the skills they need in order to be able to carry out operations on children requiring this type of care.
Working alongside the “aiutare i bambini” foundation, Europ Assistance Italy provides financial assistance to pay for the mission-related costs (travel costs for the medical team and operations). All the instruments and equipment used for these operations are left in the hospital in the host country, for use by local doctors.

"A crèche for every child": a project supported by Europ Assistance VAI

From January 2007 onwards, Europ Assistance VAI (Europ Assistance's Italian company specialising in roadside assistance) supports the "A crèche for every child" project, the aim of which is to open new crèches and play rooms in the urban suburbs of the country's most disadvantaged areas. Promoted by the Onlus Foundation “aiutare i bambini”, this initiative is aimed at children in difficulty, poor families and single mothers who need to work. Europ Assistance VAI contributes to this project by donating one euro for each VAIClub card sold during the year. This card provides the company's clients with roadside assistance and a number of other useful services throughout Italy (including medical consultations, tourist information and reductions off the price of VAI24 rental prices, etc).
The funds raised are used to buy toys and educational or hygiene equipment and to pay the salary of the staff for the first 4 crèches opened.
The company uses a number of marketing tools to encourage its network of suppliers and his end clients to take part (including posters and leaflets) to ensure that this project received as much coverage as possible, and to lend a helping hand to the fundraising effort.

Télémedicine projects

Europ Assistance Italy developped different projects based on the most advanced telemedicine equipment in order to help elderly and disabled people. In details, The Company provides for free a complete telemedicine equipment in order to allow a remote monitoring of the patients health conditions and manage any situation in a fast way. All the clinical data are recorded and evaluated by the staff of Group Medical Unit.

These social initiatives confirms the mission of the Group to help people in need and strengthen its positioning as a reliable partner for health assistance services with the support of an advanced technology.

The Commitment for the environment

Europ Assistance Italy carry out a constant monitoring activity of the environmental and energetic resources (ex. paper, electric or water cunsumptions) and  promote a responsible use of plastic, paper and toner.

Furthermore the italian Company  chose to adopt an internal policy to reduce the CO2 emissions as regards its vehicle fleet (included the ones of the Rent activity). To  promote internally the  culture of sustainable mobility, stimulating between its employees the use of public transport to reach the work site, the Company made an interesting and useful agreement that allows to get subscription transport cards at advantageous conditions.

"TARTANET"and "SOS CETACEI": two initiatives to protect cetacea and marine turtles in the Mediterranean

For many years Europ Assistance Italy has been supporting a project, named “SOS CETACEI” in cooperation with Natural History Museum of Milan in order to protect cetacea of mediterranean sea, trough a dedicated free phone number to collect the sightings and activate the rescue centres.

In June 2006, Europ Assistance Italy joined forces with TARTANET, a project launched by the European Committee aimed at protecting the Caretta Caretta (the most common turtles living in the Mediterranean.  This includes the launch of "SOS Turtles" a service operating 24 hours a day with a freephone number, 800-904841, which the public can use to report any turtles in danger or under threat.
Europ Assistance Italy's alert centre receives and manages all incoming calls and immediately contacts the nearest local Italian centres who then rescue the turtles.