Local Communities

Alstom seeks to make a positive impact on disadvantaged local communities, improving their living conditions and their socio-economic standing through pragmatic dialogue, by encouraging employee awareness and employee involvement in various volunteering and charitable activities, and by allowing the use of company property or by giving employees the time to participate.

Most usually Alstom’s employees get involved in fund-raising events such as charity runs, bike race, walks or sale of products. But overall, Alstom addresses social needs through its support to charities and through community project support.

Examples of charitable support:

• In Canada, donation was made to the Montreal Children Hospital Foundation through an agreement covering more than 113,000 EUR over 3 years to support children and their families.
• In India, >30,000 meals were prepared and donated to needy people in collaboration with NGOs such as Rise Against Hunger.
• In the United Arab Emirates, To celebrate the 8th anniversary of the Dubai tram, Alstom teams participated in a Cycling Challenge to raise money for the Al Jalila Foundation and support patients with musculoskeletal conditions.

Alstom has apprentice and internship programmes in place in several countries which are often focused on young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In Brazil, Alstom sites continue to run an Apprentice Programme for underprivileged students (14-24y) with NUBE & SABER, to develop them, qualify them and favour their inclusion in the labour market.

Mentorship is also a common practice. In Canada for instance, a collaboration with Connexion CA links companies with local NPOs that need experienced people to sit on their Board of Directors, participate in a working committee or to be a mentor and share knowledge for a few hours.

These actions frequently involve partnerships with local institutions, the training of internal mentors, and the development of a training plan. The aim is for apprentices to learn a trade as leverage for future employment – whether in Alstom or elsewhere. Training can be full or part time and of different durations. 

In France, Alstom has a partnership with the Blaise Pascal Foundation for the promotion and development of mathematics and computer science. “Girls, Maths & IT” days are organised with schools in areas close to Alstom sites.

By providing mobility solutions worldwide, the Group anchors its projects in local economies. Alstom is able to meet local content requirements especially from public procurement policies, to comply with demanding regulations, to respond to localisation conditions from institutions/States/Cities financing the projects, as well as to satisfy growing expectations from its customers and stakeholders on local footprint.

Its contribution to economic and social development includes a wide range of initiatives, such as: employment, trainings, investments at the local level, or collaboration with small, medium and large local companies, start-ups, innovation clusters, associations, universities, inclusive actions, as well as the development of relations with regional economic stakeholders. 

Here are a few examples of how we encourage the development of local enterprises:

In India, Alstom has partnered with NSRCEL, the startup hub at IIMM Bangalore, to implement a Sustainability Incubation Programme and support startups and innovation in the fields of electric mobility, last-mile connectivity, green buildings, logistics and supply chain.

In Australia, for the Victorian Supplier Day in Ballarat and to reinforce the local chain, Alstom hosted a networking and information day with presentations from the senior leadership team, procurement representatives and speakers from the Department of Transportation & the Victoria University.

Several countries organised volunteer days in order to clean places. In China, Alstom employees went to the Grass Beach Ecological Industrial Park to participate in a clean-up event to remove 22 sacks of trash along the 1.5 km riverside.

In Germany, employees planted trees as a contribution to enlarge greener spaces and reduce CO2 emissions. Alstom employees organised an event with NGO “Bergwaldprojekt” to plant 1800 trees and reforest the Harz area. 

Some countries put in place initiatives to favour recycling. In Italy, Alstom employees were invited to collect old running shoes for Esosport to recycle them into material used for the construction of children’s playgrounds, athletic tracks, fitness corners or gym pads.

In 2021, Alstom University launched “Challenge Accepted”, a programme hosted for five months on the Alstom i-Learn portal, in which any Alstom employee that attended a learning module could collect points to be given at the end of each month to a non-profit organisation working in the social and economic development field. A ceremony was held at the end of the period, and points were converted into money donated to the selected organisations.

This programme enabled the donation of a total of €46,000 to eight organisations. In China for instance, World Vision was given €8,000 to strengthen protection skills of local NGOs and support various quality designed activities which targeted most vulnerable children and families.