Volvo Cars at the moment launches a brand new philanthropic fund with the ambition to positively influence one million lives over time by assist initiatives within the communities wherein we function.
The Volvo For Life Fund will focus initially on social and environmental initiatives that centre round empowering individuals, restoring and preserving our planet, and offering safety when pure disasters strike.
By working along with world and native companions, and channelling the engagement of communities and our staff, the Volvo For Life Fund continues our heritage of care and security.
“We have a long history of social, environmental and community engagement, and I’m proud that we continue this tradition through the launch of the Volvo For Life Fund,” says Jim Rowan, Chief Executive of Volvo Cars. “It will enable us to work alongside expert global and local partners to address global challenges close to our company’s values, and help create lasting, positive change.”
People, the planet and safety
The Volvo For Life Fund might be organised into three focus areas, themed round individuals, the planet and safety. Guided by native voices and insights, and delivered by trusted companions, most of the fund’s initiatives might be tailor-made to handle the challenges of the completely different communities wherein we function.
For individuals, we need to assist create safer, extra empowered and socially cell environments in marginalised communities. We will give attention to creating and growing academic and socio-economic alternatives for younger individuals and youngsters.
For our planet, we are going to put money into native and world tasks devoted to the restoration and preservation of pure ecosystems and biodiversity, and supporting the struggle towards local weather change. There might be an preliminary emphasis on reforestation and ocean well being, in addition to group engagement.
For safety, we are going to assist emergency response and reduction efforts that assist to fulfill speedy humanitarian wants when pure disasters happen in international locations linked to our worth chain. We will even assist longer-term work to make sure that schooling and studying stay a precedence even when pure disasters strike.
The first partnerships
Our fund’s first companions are Girls Who Code, One Tree Planted and Save the Children, every related to considered one of our focus areas.
Our partnership with Girls Who Code will assist tackle the present underrepresentation of girls in pc science and software program engineering roles, with the ambition to equip younger girls with the coding expertise and confidence essential to excel on this subject.
In our work with One Tree Planted, we assist reforestation and concrete tree planting tasks in seven international locations throughout 5 continents, with the purpose to plant greater than half one million bushes and restore greater than 450 hectares of land annually.
By partnering with Save the Children, we assist construct the resilience of academic methods in international locations susceptible to pure disasters, present momentary studying areas in emergency conditions and be sure that youngsters can return safely again to studying after an emergency – all to assist safeguard and maintain youngsters’s schooling.
Volvo Cars has at all times had a give attention to security, and considered one of our most vital contributions is the trendy three-point security belt. Since we launched it in 1959, and later granted free use of its design, the security belt is estimated* to have saved one million lives. That’s why we now purpose to enhance one million lives with the Volvo For Life Fund.
With this fund, we recognise its modest measurement and prioritise steady studying and improvement. We respect the ability of well-designed small-scale initiatives, whether or not they’re native or world in scope. Our method emphasises progress one step at a time, understanding the significance of each contribution inside the broader context of optimistic change.
We will monitor our influence by way of our companions and embody programme-specific targets that measure our contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
“At Volvo Cars, our goal is clear: to create scalable, long-term impact, just like we did when we shared the three-point safety belt for all to use,” says Jim Rowan. “We know we can make real change – every action counts, big or small, because it brings us closer to a safer world.”
The small print
*Based on normal and in-house statistics on accidents and belt utilization.