Prepare to have those preconceived notions knocked right out of your head. Tonic talked with Chevron, and we have to admit, we are impressed with the steps they have taken to increase their sustainability and bring the good work they do to the forefront of their branding campaign. We think you will be too.
Matt Lonner, Chevron’s Manager of Global Partnerships and Programs, oversees the company’s global contributions efforts, leading community engagement strategy and stewarding major charitable programs around the world. Lonner gave Tonic some great perspective on the partnerships that help bring change to communities that Chevron operates in all over the world.
“The program with the greatest longevity is the Angola partnership initiative. Twenty-seven years of civil war had ravaged the region and decimated the agricultural industry. We’ve been operating in Angola for a long time and we recognized that just finding a narrow program to invest in wasn’t going to take care of the issues this country was facing. So we came in with a significant partnership with USAID and started from the ground up.” Lonner continues, “Creating a sustainable economic climate was first and foremost, not only so they could feed families but they could also create economic opportunity and create individual wealth. It started with providing seed and agricultural training, and then through micro-finance and business incubators the program helped create the micro-enterprise movement in Angola. Now a country that certainly has its challenges is enjoying the fastest economic growth in Africa.”
This company is so big that our best efforts will only scratch the surface of the sustainable programs they have in place. Consider this a first-look at Chevron.
People
- Education: Chevron has partnered with the Discovery Channel to brink the educational power to television to schools in places like Angola, Nigeria and Venezuela. Chevron provides teachers with educational materials and training on using the television as an educational tool to enhance the classroom experience. Chevron has contributed more than $5.3 million to establish 65 Learning Centers in Angola, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa and Venezuela since 2002. These centers serve 104,000 students, 2,400 teachers and 312,000 community members.
- Microfinance: In 2004 Chevron helped create Angola’s NovoBanco. Now a total of eight locations serve over 35,000 clients; $49 million in loans have been provided to thousands of entrepreneurs. In 2009, $5 million of the loans were invested in projects that focused on the 2009-2010 agriculture planting season.
Planet
- Solar power: Project Brightfield in California is a solar test field located on a former Chevron Refinery. The company is testing the efficiency and performance of solar panels; results will lay the ground work to use more renewable energy in the future.
- Reclaimed water: At the El Segundo Refinery in California it takes 275 million gallons of water each month! Recognizing that many of the communities it operates in have limited water supplies, Cheveron implemented several projects that will conserve, reuse and improve efficiency of water use. In early 2010 a new facility was built at Chevron’s Richmond Refinery that uses cutting edge water treatment technologies, including microfiltration and reverse osmosis. Every gallon on reclaimed water Chevron uses (approx. 8 million gallons daily) saves the equivalent amount of fresh drinking water for residents.
- Wind power: In Casper, Wyoming on the site of an old Texaco refinery, Chevron is analyzing the land they have and trying to use it responsibly. Completed in December 2009, the 1,400-acre property is now home to an 11 turbine wind farm that generates 16.5 megawatts — enough energy to power 4,400 homes. The power is sold to a local utility company that delivers it to consumers.
Profit
Ranked No. 3 on Fortune 500′s list of America’s largest corporations, Chevron had 2009 annual revenue of over $263 billion. In 2008, Chevron invested nearly $160 million in community engagement activities, with primary focus in health, education and socio-economic development.
More Partnership Highlights
Lonner made it clear that Chevron values and relies on a partnership model in their social investment programs, saying, “It’s in our DNA to bring other partners along to leverage expertise, their resources and provide local content to where the need is known best.”
Chevron was the first corporate champion of Global Fund. “Three years ago Global Fund came to us recognizing a need to build private sector partnerships. They came to us largely because of our history and commitment in the area of HIV. Global Fund was a good fit for us for a number of reasons,” explains Lonner. “One, they have very robust metrics to monitor and evaluate the impact, secondly they are both geographically and programmatically aligned with where Chevron was. So AIDS Malaria, tuberculosis, all diseases in areas where we operate, where our employees live where our communities exist. What we liked about the model was it was partnership focused, not one-size-fits-all. It was built around the concept of focusing on the programs and in-country partners that align with our goals and objectives, disease areas that our communities identified as priorities for them. In addition, the Global Fund’s ability to marshal and leverage millions of dollars fit very well with our approach and it’s been a great partnership.”
Although the partnership with The Global Fund ends this year rest assured that there are more positive moves happening at Chevron. Keep reading Dollars & Sense to find out more or go to the Chevron website.
Read more Dollars & Sense.
Image courtesy Chevron.