About this Report
Welcome to Allstate’s 10th Corporate Responsibility report. We are committed to reporting annually on our sustainability performance, including both our achievements and opportunities for improvement.
Report Content
The content of this report is determined both by the GRI guidelines and through our understanding of stakeholder priorities and concerns. Our stakeholders include customers, employees, agency owners, investors, opinion leaders, policymakers and consumers. We also regularly receive feedback from and engage with a wide variety of community groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and activist organizations, and staff members from organizations that regulate our business and operations.
Interactive Chart: Materiality Analysis Output
Influence on Business Success
-
Carbon
Footprint
Travel
Fuel-efficient and
alternative-fuel fleets can
help reduce footprint.
Click to learn more >
-
Sustainable
Procurement
Consideration of environmental
issues in procurement
of goods and services for
business operations.
Click to learn more >
-
Environmental
Management
Operations
Efforts to reduce: water usage,
company waste streams, paper
consumption, the environmental impact
of Allstate facilities; commit to purchase products from certified sustainably
managed sources, and ensure
responsible end-of-use treatment
of electronic products.
Click to learn more >
-
Strategic
Philanthropy
Aligning philanthropic
efforts with a company’s
core competencies ensures
maximum impact.
Click to learn more >
-
Community
Involvement
Efforts to promote and enable
employee and agent activities
and investments in local
communities through donations,
volunteering and fundraising.
Click to learn more >
-
Financial
Literacy
Efforts to provide resources
that help customers
and consumers build
financial knowledge.
Click to learn more >
-
Natural Catastrophe
Preparedness
Promotion of preparedness
through education and incen-
tives for customers’ use of
weather-resilient materials.
Click to learn more >
-
Affordable
Housing
Efforts to provide
resources that enable
affordable housing options
for those in need.
Click to learn more >
-
Diversity and
Inclusion
Proactivity in ensuring that
all levels of workforce reflect
and impact company’s
customer base.
Click to learn more >
-
Employee
and
Agent
Satisfaction
Efforts to measure and
improve employee and agent
perceptions of Allstate as
a favorable company to
work for and with.
Click to learn more >
-
Health and
Safety
Efforts to provide a safe
working environment and
mitigate risks and dangers.
Click to learn more >
-
Labor Rights
Promotion of employees’
rights to express, promote,
pursue and defend
common interests.
Click to learn more >
-
Compensation
and Benefits
Assurance of fair
compensation and benefits
to all employees based on
industry benchmarks.
Click to learn more >
-
Work/Life
Balance
Promotion of balance
with flexible work hours,
telecommuting and
other options.
Click to learn more >
-
Supplier
Diversity
Efforts to use diverse
suppliers reflective of the
company’s customer base,
business community.
Click to learn more >
-
Stakeholder
Engagement
Identification and regular
engagement with key
stakeholder groups to
understand trends, priorities.
Click to learn more >
-
Political
Influence
Efforts to transparently
influence public policy in
ways aligned with business
objectives, stakeholders’
expectations.
Click to learn more >
-
Transparency
and
Engagement
Efforts to make financial and
sustainability performances and
material risks and opportunities clear
and accessible, allowing managers,
investors and key stakeholder groups
to make informed decisions while
updating them about progress.
Click to learn more >
-
Data Privacy
and
Protection
Policies and management
systems to support safe,
secure management of
customer data.
Click to learn more >
-
Business
Ethics
Expectation of employees
to comply with company’s
ethical standards and ensure
truthful marketing
understood by clients.
Click to learn more >
-
Corporate
Governance
Efforts to provide performance-based
executive incentives, ensure a
diverse board of directors, senior
leader oversight and disclosures about
role of board, CEO evaluation, etc.
Click to learn more >
-
Risk
Management
and Business
Community
Efforts to gauge risk and reward of
enterprise portfolio opportunities such
as climate change and to ensure critical
business functions are available to
customers, suppliers and others.
Click to learn more >
-
Responsible
Investment
Efforts to ensure that
Allstate’s investment approach considers environmental,
social and governance risks
and opportunities.
Click to learn more >
-
Access to
Insurance
Expansion of access to
insurance in communities
and areas currently
underinsured.
Click to learn more >
-
Customer
Services
for
Sustainability
Encouragement of sustainable
lifestyles by providing financial
incentives and education
to customers.
Click to learn more >
This year, to sharpen our reporting focus and to help guide future strategy, we undertook a sustainability materiality analysis. This analysis allowed us to take a close and considered look at the issues that are of the highest concern to our stakeholders and that could significantly affect our ability to execute our business strategy. In effect, the materiality analysis highlights areas both of opportunity and risk to help us refine our overall strategic reporting approach and improve performance.
Working with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a leading corporate responsibility consultancy and research firm, we began our analysis by evaluating stakeholder concerns. We reviewed stakeholder input gathered directly through interviews with agency owners, investors, suppliers, customers, policymakers and NGOs, as well as through indirect materials such as ranking surveys, trade reports and other materials. These interviews helped us to better understand stakeholder priorities and concerns related to a range of issues. We also conducted internal surveys and discussions, interviewing business leaders of key functions including Human Resources, Enterprise and Risk Management, Sourcing and Procurement, Corporate Relations and Law and Regulation in order to clearly identify how environmental and social issues were increasingly interconnected with business objectives. This information was then brought together in a leadership workshop to refine the resulting matrix and discuss implications for our sustainability reporting and for our strategy.
As a result of this materiality analysis, we increased reporting in some areas and added a few entirely new sections. For example, we increased our reporting on our efforts related to natural catastrophe preparedness, since this issue has a significant impact on our business and is clearly a priority for our customers and the communities we serve. Our sustainability materiality analysis indicated data privacy is an issue of rising importance and as a result we have expanded our reporting on how we protect data privacy and our customers’ key concerns. New report content on Corporate Involvement in Public Policy discloses information on Allstate Board oversight and contribution to governance, organizations and initiatives that we support; an overview of expenditures; and corporate contributions to candidates and political action committees (PACs).
In order to build sustainability materiality analysis into our business strategy on an ongoing basis, we will do a rapid review every year with a cross-functional business team. This team will be responsible for incorporating the changes into the business and stakeholder landscape.
Our Reporting Framework
This is our third year using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework for reporting. GRI is a set of global guidelines to standardize sustainability report content and allow for comparisons between different organizations. The guidelines are continually refined and improved to give companies a more effective framework for organizing content.
More information about our business is available in our Annual Report here. More information about our 2011 financial performance is available in our 8-K filed on May 2, 2012 (which includes the impacts of our January 1, 2012 adoption of new DAC accounting guidance on a retrospective basis) here.
Please send correspondence, comments and questions regarding this report to: SocialResponsibilityFeedback@allstate.com.
Report Period, Scope and Boundaries
This report was published in August 2012 and covers our sustainability performance for the 2011 fiscal year, which ran from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2011.
Data in this report does not cover the facilities, operations and employees of our exclusive insurance agencies or the independent insurance agencies who sell Allstate products, unless otherwise noted.
This year, we are including expanded information on our operations in Canada and Northern Ireland, as well as online insurer Esurance, which we acquired in the fall of 2011. In the coming years, we will further integrate those operations into our data-collection and reporting processes.
Reporting boundaries in other areas differ by content.
-
Climate Change: Reporting covers Allstate and subsidiary-owned and leased facilities and operations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
-
Energy: Reporting covers Allstate and subsidiary-owned facilities and operations in the United States and Canada.
-
People: Reporting covers the employees (and temporary workers) of Allstate. The employees of exclusive agencies, independent agencies and partners are not covered except when specifically noted in the report.
-
Products and Investments: Reporting covers all of our products, financial services and investments during calendar year 2011.
Information for this report was collected by individual departments within Allstate that gather, store and manage the data in their business systems. Data was not verified by a third party, but the data and statements made have been confirmed by internal Allstate teams, including representatives from Human Resources, Investments, Risk Management, Tax, Administration and Real Estate, Sourcing and Procurement Solutions, Finance, Legal, Accounting and our Public Social Responsibility team. No significant changes were made in measurement from the previous reporting years.