Annual Report 2017 ┃ Corporate Social Responsibility
Extending the AO’s Corporate Social Responsibility activities The AO Foundation in 2017 continued to build on its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative with measures ensuring that the AO operates all aspects of its daily business in a manner that takes into consideration its impact on society, the environment, and its own people. SOCIETY AO Alliance (AOA) The AO’s most significant annual contribution is to the AOA, a developmental non-profit organization dedicated to improving fracture care in low-and middle-income countries. The AOA diversified into policy advice in Myanmar, delivering valuable advocacy, awareness and policy advice, as well as courses. The AOA also augmented its country initiative program for Ethiopia, and its Ghana country initiative got underway. Additionally, the organization educated 70 physicians on pediatric fracture care in Ghana and Myanmar and made significant Faculty Education Program (FEP) investments in French- and English-speaking Africa, and Asia, where more than 60 AOA faculty members were trained to become better educators. In parallel, the AOA completed phase two of the rollout of the Play Safe with Sisimpur project, providing training about prevention of pediatric injuries for 1,000 child mentors, 1,200 adult mentors, 160 government school teachers and 100 first responders in Bangladesh. Direct CSR support To make it easier to directly support the foundation’s CSR activities, the AO made it possible for all faculty and officers to renounce their per diems and/or expense reimbursements–partly or in full. The proceeds amounted to CHF 47,000. These renunciations were allocated to the AOA (50%); the carbon offsetting projects in Malawi (25%); and the local charity ARGO (25%). ENVIRONMENT Since 2013, the AO has voluntarily offset a portion of its carbon footprint to make its events carbon neutral. In addition to offsetting the AO Trustees and AOTK System meetings through financial support for infrastructure projects in rural Kenya, in 2017 the AO began offsetting its carbon emissions by supporting activities in Malawi, including the rehabilitation of community boreholes and corresponding maintenance training, and improvement of health clinic infrastructures to improve the patient care for 50,000 patients and their relatives in rural Malawi. Thanks to the program, these people now have access to clean drinking water and better health care in their local clinics. PEOPLE Through its Human Resources (HR) activities, the AO advanced its commitment to providing a fair workplace–to both existing and future employees–such as no-gender-bias salaries. To better gauge employees’ opinions of the AO as an employer, HR conducted a 43-question branding survey, which yielded a 77% response rate. The AO received the highest ratings on questions gauging respondents’ commitment to the AO’s mission, their sense of integration into their respective work teams, and professional relationships with their supervisors. The survey’s objective was to identify employees’ perceptions of the AO; analysis of the survey results got underway in the first quarter of 2018 and employees’ feedback will be integrated into the AO’s employer branding to support its recruitment strategy. 6
