Sustainability and our people

Living our values

Through our employee listening survey, an overwhelming majority of our people say they believe Aviva is a good corporate citizen. Here are some of the ways we encourage our people to get involved in our Sustainability Ambition:

Sustainability is integrated into annual goal-setting and performance.

Aviva matches employee charitable donations (up to $300/year).

Our people can take up to three paid volunteering days to support causes and organizations they care about.

Aviva organizes regular sustainability learning and volunteering opportunities for our people.

Our people

Our AvivaGives program gives our people paid time off of work to volunteer in their community and matches their personal donations to charities they care about.

Suzette Winter

Manager, Personal Lines and Underwriting

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Suzette and the team from the Dartmouth office spent a volunteer day at Feed Nova Scotia where they moved sacks of potatoes and onions onto skids that were shipped off to food banks across the province, helping address the affordability crisis in her community.

“We started off just wanting to get out and use our volunteer days, but now it’s beyond that. Now we’re seeing the big picture and feeling part of that community value.”

Louise Ngan

Change Delivery Lead, IT

Markham, Ontario

Alongside 120 of her colleagues, and a very special guest – her father - Louise climbed the CN Tower’s 1,776 steps in support of WWF-Canada’s 2023 Climb for Nature. Together, our Aviva teams raised over $22,000 to help WWF-Canada continue their work to restore and protect nature.

“Nature is vital to our communities. With all the natural disasters and wildfires that are happening, it was really important for us to show up for this cause and I’m glad WWF-Canada hosts an event that allows us to do that.”

Climate Day

Every year, we bring together thousands of our people across Canada for Climate Day, a mass volunteering event where we spend the day engaging in activities ranging from planting native trees and shrubs in local communities to weaving upcycled mats from discarded milk bags.

See what it’s like to be a volunteer on Climate Day:

Video transcript

0:08 Gwen Cheung, VP, Head of Legal, Aviva Canada: My name is Gwen Cheung, I’m the VP, head of legal at Aviva Canada. As I was driving in, all I could see was the tent was set up, and lots of blue t-shirts were arriving. The building lobby was filled with lots of people, crowded. Everyone’s trying to get in, big smiles, getting ready. [General talking, laughing]

0:43   Gwen: We’re getting on the bus!

0:54   Gwen: We got there about 9:40 am. When we arrived, a lovely lady from Tree Canada, Rebecca I believe her name was, demonstrated for us how to properly do it.

1:05   Rebecca Seltzer, Lead Manager, Urban Programs, Tree Canada: Alright, let’s get started. Anyone seen one of these before? This is a tree. [laughter] You’re going to put it on its side very carefully.

1:16   Gwen: She described getting the tree out of the pot, where the soil needs to be versus the stem of the tree, putting the coconut mat, and the purpose of the mulch that we put on top of it, so that was a very good demonstration by her. Then people just got to work.

1:42   Celia Johnstone, Forestry Specialist, Tree Canada: Thank you so much to each and every one of you for coming out today. You are absolutely awesome. That’s 1,300 trees and shrubs that you’ve planed in a day. [applause]

1:57   Gwen: A fun day. The sun was out, lots of people participated, lots of smiles, and a great sense of achievement as a team. I believe there were 350 of us. That was really good to see, that natural teamwork that exists at the end of it. It felt really good to be part of that.

[On Screen: Aviva logo, Tree Canada logo]