The Corporate Charity Leaders annual competition, a joint project of the Donors Forum, an association of charity organizations; the Vedomosti business newspaper; and the PwC international audit and consulting network of firms, recently recognised ALROSA “as one of the leaders in financing charitable activities among Russian and international companies”, the Russian miner announced yesterday.

The aim of The Leaders of Corporate Charity programme is to support, develop and promote the ideas of corporate charity; and its goal is to identify the best charitable programmes of companies and spread information about them to draw the attention of society, business, authorities and mass media to corporate charity in Russia.

“The competition organisers carried out a study based on non-financial reporting of 47 Russian and international participating companies,” ALROSA elaborated. “The data on charitable contributions was provided by 40 respondent companies; the total amount of their contributions in 2017 exceeded RUB 50.5 billion.”

Of the total, ALROSA’s contribution amounted to a significant portion – about RUB 10 billion – of the spend on social investments in 2017. Only one other company exceeded this amount, ALROSA noted.

“In fact, social investments make up an impressive part of our Company's budget,” said ALROSA CEO Sergey Ivanov. “Being aware of our responsibility towards the regions where our production is based, we strive to ensure their integrated social and economic development. This is an integral part of our work. ALROSA implemented more than 500 social and charitable initiatives in 2017. By maintaining this level, the Company will continue to invest in the social well-being of employees, their families and all residents of the regions of its presence, providing a decent standard of living for them.”

The PwC study on the sustainable development indicators published in 2017, recognised ALROSA as “the absolute leader in the diamond industry in terms of investment in social programmes”.

Enumerating the various areas in which it undertakes charitable work, ALROSA said that the Company finances medical and educational charitable projects, and channels funds for the maintenance of infrastructure of the regions where it is present. “In addition, material, corporate, sponsorship and targeted assistance to individuals, public, municipal, state organizations, institutions and settlements is provided free of charge,” the Company added. “A substantial part of the funds is annually sent to the Target Fund for Future Generations of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which distributes funds for the implementation of socially significant projects and programmes in the region.”