BNP Paribas launches first ever permanent staff donation fund designed to help NGOs combat humanitarian crises
BNP Paribas has launched an ‘Rescue & Recover’ fund, which offers Group staff the opportunity to provide generous support to disaster victims, whether in the form of rapid aid in an emergency situation or through long term support for charity organisations and NGOs working to combat various ‘forgotten’ humanitarian crises around the world.
A unique approach
In setting up this charitable fund, presided by Group Chairman Baudouin Prot
and permanently open for donations from all BNP Paribas staff worldwide, BNP Paribas is taking a pioneering approach to corporate humanitarian and charitable aid.
BNP Paribas will match every donation made by any Group employee with an equal sum. The funds thus collected will be passed on to three partner NGOs: leading international humanitarian organisation CARE; the French Red Cross; and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).
Emergency aid experts on the Board
Launched late last year, the donation fund’s Board includes two highly qualified experts in the field of emergency aid, who are able to contribute in-depth knowledge of the issues and thus help to decide which projects should receive financial support.
– Sylvie Lemmet, a graduate of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), with further qualifications from Harvard University and leading French business school HEC, is Director of the Technology, Industry & Economics Division (DTIE) of the United Nations Environment Programme. She has been responsible for large-scale projects in sustainable development, a Senior Auditor at the French Cour des Comptes, and has also been Financial Director and member of the Executive Board of Médecins Sans Frontières
Professor Marc Sabbe is a full Professor in Emergency and Disaster Medicine at the University of Leuven, Belgium and an attending emergency physician at the University Hospitals of Leuven. In the 1990s he founded the European Society for Emergency Medicine, of which he is now the Honorary Secretary.
A promising start
The fund has now been open for donations for a few weeks. It is designed to collect donations from employees in 17 countries where BNP Paribas is present. The average donation has so far amounted to over €90, illustrating the generous commitment of Group staff to assisting a number of projects in the field of mother-and-child health to which the fund has pledged support:
– A Médecins Sans Frontières maternity-child centre in Colombia
– A CARE initiative to combat malnutrition in Niger
– The work carried out by the Red Cross to help people access care services in the Central African Republic
About BNP Paribas Corporate Social Responsibility policy
At BNP Paribas, being a responsible bank means first and foremost helping to finance the real economy by helping all our clients – individual customers, corporates and institutional clients – to make a success of their plans and projects. However, in addition to this economic responsibility, the Group’s approach to CSR manifests itself in three other areas:
– Employer responsibility, by ensuring fair and loyal treatment for the Group’s 190,000 employees and by engaging in meaningful dialogue with the workforce representatives.
– Civic responsibility, by helping to combat social marginalisation and promoting education and culture. The Group is closely involved in initiatives for the general good of society beyond the purely banking sphere, including providing help to disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods, micro-lending, and supporting social economy and charitable projects. Our social commitment is also demonstrated through the philanthropic work carried out by the BNP Paribas Foundation to promote social solidarity, education, culture and healthcare research.
– Environmental.responsibility: BNP Paribas monitors the environmental impact both of its banking activities, through specific policies relating to sensitive sectors, and its own day-to-day functioning. Through the BNP Paribas Foundation, the Group also supports environmental care projects.