We’re proud to share that Anthesis London has partnered with UK anti-poverty charity the Trussell Trust, as part of our 2019/2020 company-wide Corporate Responsibility engagement initiative to support the Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger.
The Trussell Trust supports a UK network of more than 1,200 food banks to provide emergency food to people locked in poverty. As the COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly unfolded and the income from employment or benefits has reduced – or in many cases, ceased altogether – the demand for the charity’s vital services has become strikingly apparent. New figures show that the Trussell Trust had its busiest ever period with an 81% increase for emergency food parcels during the last two weeks of March 2020 (compared to the same period in 2019), emphasised by the fact that in the six weeks to 12 April 2020, 1.8 million people applied for Universal Credit.
A coalition of charities, including the Trussell Trust, is now urging the UK government to implement a Coronavirus Emergency Income Support Scheme to ensure that each and every person in our society has enough money to afford the bare essentials during this period.
Since the summer of 2019, our London team has been building its relationship with the Trussell Trust and Pecan (charity that operates Southwark Foodbank in our local borough of London) by volunteering and bringing in guest speakers from both charities to raise awareness amongst our employees of food insecurity and how we can help. Our approach to supporting the Trussell Trust going forward continues to be twofold: to assist the charity by providing sustainability expertise – initially with both an environmental and modern slavery policy – as well as engaging in volunteering and fundraising activities.
Our Corporate Responsibility programme at Anthesis aims to deliver positive impact to colleagues, clients, communities and the environment. Our 2019-2020 CR efforts to support the SDG2 Zero Hunger focus on the three key pillars of Education, Engagement and Innovation, with colleagues in other regions driving their own local initiatives and activities to support this important sustainable development goal.
