Aico’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, ‘Aico in the Community’, like everything else, was slightly stunted during the pandemic. The need to support local businesses, charities and schools increased but had to be done in the virtual world, in a new way. Aico were still able to show their support in various ways including virtual fundraisers, marketing support to smaller charities and online educational encounters with several schools but were unable to complete what they had prospected for the year.
With restrictions easing and lockdown coming to an end, Aico want to ensure their support to the Shropshire community and beyond is more impactful than ever. In order to support these goals, Aico have provided their CSR colleagues with a new fully electric, branded Community Car.
Aico understand the importance of sustainability and one key focus of their CSR programme is the impact that the business has on the environment. Aico have recently been nominated as a Net Zero Business Champion, with a pledge to become carbon neutral by 2030. With this in mind, it was important that their new community vehicle would be completely electric and will add to the company’s increasing fleet of electric and hybrid cars across the UK.
Jane Pritchard, Community Liaison commented “We are delighted that Aico have provided us all with this fantastic car. This will give us the chance to help even more in our communities, whether that is charitable volunteering or the educational support we are able to provide in schools and colleges. We are really looking forward to getting back out on the road!”.
All colleagues at Aico are encouraged to get involved in their CSR initiatives and are granted three days outside of the regular working schedule in order to volunteer in their own communities, giving their time and supporting in various ways. With the pandemic having a significant impact on fundraising and support to charities and organisations, Aico are keen to get back out into the community and increase their support through education, business enterprise, charity and volunteering.