It is with great pleasure that I introduce Avon’s online Corporate Responsibility Report. This report captures many of the key efforts through which we engage our stakeholders—including our 42,000 associates, more than 5.5 million Avon Independent Sales Representatives (Representatives), customers, investors and communities—and delight and empower women around the world.
In this, our second corporate responsibility report, we also discuss our existing goals and objectives and their relationship to, and alignment with,our enduring commitments to our stakeholders. We seek to improve our communication of corporate responsibility and expand on the data provided and goals stated in our first report.
Avon’s dedication to the principles of corporate responsibility has been part of the company’s DNA for more than a century. Our founder, David H. McConnell, started this company in 1886 based on solid values and principles and a longstanding commitment to ethics and integrity. More than 120 years ago, he developed the revolutionary business idea that women could run their own entrepreneurial businesses selling products in their communities and recruiting others to do the same. Thus began Avon's rich heritage of empowering women—34 years before they had the right to vote.
Today, Avon is known as the company for women and is the largest direct seller of beauty products in the world. We are also the world’s largest micro-lender for women, extending some $1 billion in product and credit each year to help women start their own entrepreneurial businesses. In every country in which we do business, we see first-hand the powerful impact that the opportunity to earn a decent living can have on a woman’s life. When a woman’s income rises, her access to healthcare improves, as do her educational opportunities. These benefits flow beyond the family and into the community, building hope and spurring broader social progress.
We have elevated environmental stewardship to one of our highest priorities. In 2008, we launched the Hello Green Tomorrow Chairman’s Task Force, a cross-functional team of high-potential executives, which is charged with the task of better understanding our impacts and developing new initiatives that will help Avon even further strengthen our environmental stewardship.
We also try to make a difference in the communities we serve through our global philanthropy and the Avon Foundation, the largest corporate foundation for women in the world. Avon and the Avon Foundation have raised and awarded more than $660 million to causes that are important to women and their families—breast cancer and domestic violence—as well as emergency and disaster relief, and we are proud to be change agents to improve women’s lives.
Every day, we continue to build upon our founder’s legacy as we seek to improve the lives of our stakeholders. We are committed to providing safe products for our customers, promoting diversity and inclusion in our ranks, improving the safety of our associates, ensuring ethical sourcing, and reducing the environmental impacts of our operations. As a result, Avon has been recognized as an industry leader in many of the areas discussed in this report.
Thank you for your interest in and support of Avon. We encourage you to comment on this report and on our progress. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us to improve our performance and the communication of our efforts in the years to come.
Andrea Jung
Chairman and CEO
Avon Products, Inc.