At Asda we believe we have a responsibility to help make the world a better place and we know that our colleagues and customers want us to play our part in tackling real-life issues. The things that matter to them, like poverty, protecting the planet and healthy living. These are big challenges for society and they demand big changes. So, we’re Creating Change for Better. It’s about being a force for good and making a real difference to people’s lives and bringing together all the work we’re doing at Asda to help transform the communities that we’re part of.
Some problems are too big to tackle alone and we don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we are incredibly proud to support thousands of charities across all of our communities every year. For example, there are more than 14 million people living below the poverty line in the UK. So, we launched our Fight Hunger Create Change programme. It’s a partnership with two leading charities where we’re donating £20 million over three years to help tackle the hunger problem, this is also supported on a local level with our community champions out in their own communities working with their local foodbanks and those who are in crisis.
We’re helping to build stronger local communities too through the work of the Asda Foundation. It supports thousands of projects every year, helping local charities and community groups to bring people together. Our customers want us to do more to protect the planet so that it can be enjoyed by future generations, which is why we’ve made a series of commitments, like making our own brand packaging 100% recyclable by 2025 and increasing how much recycled packaging we use.
This year, we’re making a few changes to our community programme so we can offer opportunities and give more support at a local level that builds stronger communities. We’re on a mission to try and transform every Asda store into a local hub that builds connected communities and tackles issue that matter the most to the people within them. The Asda Foundation grant giving programme will now be focussed on supporting even more small, local activities and groups that directly involve our customers and strengthen local communities.
We know the incredible work of larger charities is invaluable and we will continue to work with our nominated national charity partners – Fareshare, Trussel Trust, BBC Children in Need, our Tickled Breast Cancer Partners – and we have a whole host of activities planned with them throughout the year, and not forgetting our on-going support for the Poppy Appeal in November.
We understand this will mean some change for individual stores and charities we have worked with in the past, so we are slowly introducing the changes over the coming months.
It is only through the hard work and dedication of our colleagues and the generosity of our customers that we are together able to make such a huge impact on our communities, and we would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to each and every one of them.
Our brilliant community champions work tirelessly to ensure we are able to reach as many groups as possible, not only through monetary donations, but also through providing space in store, green token scheme and more, and we are excited to see how much further we can go together this year.
To find out more about our giving programme click here.
