Towards this end, Diageo aims to contribute to local development by providing local jobs, building local talent and leadership, fostering an enterprise culture throughout our value chain, sourcing from local businesses where feasible, playing a proactive role in promoting effective policies, maintaining high governance standards and addressing local concerns through community investment programmes. Fundamental to all of this is the engagement of our partners and local stakeholders.
Our community investment strategy supports our wider, holistic approach to local economic development. While our environmental programmes address local water challenges through increased water efficiency, our community investment programme, Water of Life, aims to ensure that local communities benefit from increased water access. While our hiring and sourcing programmes leverage local talent and business where possible, our community investment programme, Learning for Life, aims to better equip the local workforce with additional employment opportunities. All of these programmes complement Diageo’s primary community focus to promote a positive role for alcohol in society.
The Diageo Foundation and our regional hubs establish and fund major programmes that focus investment around needs most relevant to each region.
The following are our key community investment focus areas:
• Water access – Through our Water of Life programme, we support projects that help combat water poverty by improving access to clean drinking water and sanitation.
• Skills – Our Learning for Life programme provides education and training to help prepare participants for employment in a variety of industries throughout our local communities.
• Other community investment – We aim to address local need by supporting our employees as community volunteers in various capacities. We also actively respond to major disasters in our communities through emergency relief, long-term rehabilitation projects and support for employees' fundraising efforts.
For more information on our local economic development impacts and the progress our community investments are making, please visit our Sustainability & Responsibility Report.
