Community investment

The issue: Heathrow as a neighbour has both good and bad effects on the surrounding areas. We are able to provide employment for over 70,000 people, but our operations also have negative impacts such as noise for those living nearby. We need to develop and maintain good relations with our local community.     
                                                                         
Our approach: Our community investment programme seeks to support environmental, educational or economic regeneration projects through a variety of methods including charitable donations, sponsorship, staff volunteering and collection of foreign currencies donated by passengers.

In this way, people can benefit from living close to a major world airport in terms of employment and education, as well as from a wide range of environmental projects which improve their surroundings and mitigate the negative effects of Heathrow.

This year we undertook a review of our community investment strategy following a survey of our employees about our investment programme and support for charities. The survey showed there was very low awareness amongst staff of how we invest in our local community. We have therefore refocused our investment strategy to support a charity of the year, chosen by staff, and will continue to support other causes via a new award scheme.

Our performance:
Education and the Heathrow Academy
The newly refurbished Heathrow Academy (formerly the Visitor Centre) opened in January 2007.

The building includes a new exhibition, ‘Explore Heathrow’, which celebrates the highlights of Heathrow past and present whilst speculating on the future of the airport and aviation. The exhibition is open at weekends and school holidays, with educational visits during the week.

Our new, free-of-charge ‘Discover Heathrow’ community talks have been very successful this year. Held at the Academy, the talks explore aspects of airport life encompassing a wide variety of issues from construction at the airport to management of the environment and day-to-day airport operations.

Over 100 students from schools across the Richmond area became airport engineers for the day in an engineering competition challenge organised by BAA Heathrow and Richmond Education Business Partnership in March 2007. The event pitted eight Richmond secondary schools and two sixth-form colleges from across the borough against each other to design the highest airport lighting tower. The challenge is designed to introduce pupils to a potential career in engineering but also helps develop key skills including teamwork and communication.

Celebrating Heathrow’s 60th anniversary
To help celebrate Heathrow's 60th anniversary, we held a Family Day in conjunction with the Heathrow Rotary Club at the Academy which attracted around 4,000 visitors. Families were able to enjoy fairground attractions, a raffle and displays from airport groups such as the fire service and police and the event raised around £20,000 for our supported charities.

Environment awards
The scheme, through which BAA helps organisations to make a difference to their local environment, received over 120 applications this year – the ninth year of operation. The Awards are run in partnership with Groundwork Thames Valley, an independent local charity committed to social, economic and environmental regeneration. A total of £32,500 was distributed to local groups.

Encouraging staff volunteering
Some 71 members of Heathrow staff secured £37,000 in donations from BAA’s I-Volunteer Awards. Projects staff chose to support ranged from scouting groups to language projects, and five of the category winners or runners up were based at Heathrow. We also continue to encourage staff groups to take part in teambuilding days around the airport.

Terminal 5 charity
The Terminal 5 (T5) charity continued to support local projects in the immediate vicinity of the Terminal 5 site, including an annual donation to organisations of importance to T5 staff – such as £10,000 to the Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals Neonatal Unit. All funds for the charity are raised by staff on the project themselves, and the committee is made up of T5 workers. In 2006 between January - December the charity gave away a total of £52,000.

Fulcrum Challenge
A group of 26 local sixth-form students spent two weeks in north-western India as part of a BAA-sponsored leadership development programme. The BAA Communities Trust invested £30,000 in the Fulcrum Challenge that saw the students building an orphanage in Gujarat. The young people, who were selected by their schools, each had to raise £2,000 in sponsorship as part of the challenge. They worked towards an ASDAN Certificate in Personal Development, an equivalent qualification to an AS-Level.

VSO Global Xchange
We supported the VSO Global Xchange scheme once again this year. This enabled nine young Britons aged 18-25 to join nine young Kazakhstani partners working in the central Asian republic from September to December 2006. The whole team then returned to England to carry out three months of community work with local organisations in Hounslow. Through this programme BAA (working with VSO, CSV and the British Council) helped to support overseas development and tackle areas of need in the communities around the airport. At the same time the scheme gives young people in the UK the opportunity – through aviation and travel – to work overseas and develop themselves. BAA Communities Trust invested £75,000 in the programme, matched pound for pound by the Government-funded youth volunteering charity v.

Support for charities
Around £32,000 was raised for eight local charities through foreign coin collections in the terminals, and £3,760 was given in response to sponsorship requests.

This year we exited our relationship with these eight charities after over ten years of support. Following a review of our community investment programme we have decided to adopt a charity of the year, working with a large national charity that works locally around Heathrow. Following a survey of staff and local community representatives two charities were put forward to staff vote – Marie Curie Cancer Care and the NSPCC – with Marie Curie securing 56% of votes. They will therefore go forward as Heathrow’s Charity of the Year in 2007.

We will continue to support other local charities through alternative means.

Our plans:
We will continue to focus on supporting the initiatives that make a difference to the local communities around our airport. Specifically we will:

• Introduce a Charity of the Year campaign with the aim of raising over £100,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care in 2006-07 through a range of events. The funds raised will enable Marie Curie to provide 5000 hours of care to cancer patients in the area around Heathrow. The campaign will kick-off in July 2007 with an action-packed programme of events.
• Introduce new quarterly community and environment awards for local groups and charities to apply to fund local projects.