Our communities
Building safe, confident and connected communities
Overview: Our extensive community and customer engagement continues to highlight the importance of reconnecting local communities to support their resilience and our business success. Our collaboration ranges from international programs such as the United Nations Environment Programme – Finance Initiative, to national partnerships like the Australian Red Cross, to state and local level activities through partners and programs such as State Emergency Services and 100 Resilient Cities. At an industry level, we partnered with others to better understand issues important to our business.
A global approach to sustainable
finance
and risk management
In July 2018, IAG worked with NAB, Responsible Investment Association of Australia, Investor Group on Climate Change, Principles for Responsible Investment and the United Nations Environment Programme – Finance Initiative to host the Financing a Resilient and Sustainable Economy conference in Sydney. We are now helping to develop a regional plan for Australia and New Zealand, focused on creating sustainable finance solutions that support progress against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Building a resilience movement
Confident communities
In 2018, we continued to grow our local community partnerships through our Good ’Hoods program. While we initially set out to partner with five communities, we found making meaningful impact takes time. We have now focused our efforts on:
- co-creating a framework with the Blacktown community to improve economic inclusion; increase community connection; and reduce the impact of severe weather events; and
- partnering on a community-led planning framework and supporting resilience initiatives in Murrindindi, a region we have supported since the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires.
National, regional and local partners
Our NRMA Insurance partnership with both the New South Wales and Queensland State Emergency Services aims to improve community understanding of storm and flood risk, to reduce potential impacts. For example, almost nine in ten people who saw our storm preparedness campaign took mitigating action. We also continued to trial the DipStik flood-warning device – a flashing beacon that warns motorists not to drive through flood-prone locations and communicates with emergency services – in six flood-prone areas of Australia.
Research indicates that while 80% of Australians believe preparing for an emergency is important, fewer than 20% prepare.
Through our 10-year partnership with the Australian Red Cross we co-created and launched the Get Prepared smartphone app. The app provides an easy way to prepare for emergencies, such as identifying tasks, and lets you digitally share your plan. A study conducted with a cohort of users showed that 63% increased their awareness of potential risks in their local area and 56% felt more prepared than they did before using the app.
We are also supporting the 100 Resilient Cities strategies in Sydney and Melbourne. This includes partnering with the City of Sydney to target 100,000 downloads of the Get Prepared app in the city.
Industry-specific partnerships
We also collaborate to better understand topics relevant to our business. This year, we supported the waste industry through a forum with the Environment Protection Authority, fire brigades, government, regulators and insurers. This investigated best practice operating standards, risk management and contingency planning. We entered a 10-year partnership with iMOVE Australia to get insights into the future of smart, connected transport and continued to work with Suncorp and James Cook University Cyclone Testing Centre to understand the cost of claims and community resilience after cyclones. We also worked with the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, a global leader in climate modelling, to better understand how climate change will affect our region.
Community investment by type – 2018
1This reflects the contribution by the business to the IAG Foundation, and includes matched funding for employee workplace giving
Discussion: Partnering to amplify
community impact
In 2017, CGU partnered with Catalysr, Australia's first start-up incubator for refugee and migrant entrepreneurs in Blacktown. The program was built on the knowledge that many refugees and migrants are skilled and highly motivated, but face unique barriers to entering the workforce. CGU’s support has been critical in helping Catalysr to empower ‘migrapreneurs’, bring more business ideas to life, and to evolve and scale the program. A 2018 report by CGU estimated that refugee and migrant small business owners could create 200,000 new jobs in the next five to ten years.
Usman Iftikhar, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Catalysr, and 2018 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year