News
Alcoa uses the Chronos e-learning tutorial to
teach employees in Brazil about sustainability
PRESS RELEASE
4 September 2008
The Brazilian subsidiary of Alcoa, the
leading international aluminium production company, has taken
delivery of a customised version of Chronos. The generic version of
Chronos in Brazilian Portuguese was customised by the University of
Cambridge Programme for Industry (CPI) working with Alcoa staff, in
order to make the tutorial relevant to Alcoa.
Making the tutorial available to its Brazilian
leadership is part of the company’s goal of raising awareness of
sustainable development throughout the organisation. Alcoa is
also offering Chronos licences to some of its associates in other
companies. Newly added material includes a welcome message by the
President of Alcoa Latin America and Caribbean, links to Alcoa web
sites and information about Alcoa values and principles of
sustainable development.
Franklin L. Feder, President of Alcoa Latin
America and Caribbean, said that Chronos would be used to train
employees about issues of sustainable development as they relate to
business. “Chronos will support us in aligning the concepts of
sustainable development amongst our senior executives. The
exercises in Chronos are very interesting and touch on questions
that are relevant to our business.”
Polly Courtice, Director of the University of
Cambridge Programme for Industry commented: “There are now
over 37,000 people in Brazil who have access to Chronos in
Brazilian Portuguese, including employees of Banco Real, Energias
do Brasil and Petrobras. We are delighted that Alcoa has chosen
Chronos to promote sustainability awareness amongst its staff.”
For further information please contact:
Sheila von Rimscha
Email: sheila.vonrimscha@cpi.cam.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1223 342124
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Chronos adds Portuguese to the languages
supported
WBCSD and CPI are pleased to announce the
availability of Chronos in Portuguese. Thanks to the support
of EDP and Sonae Sierra, who jointly sponsored the translation,
companies in Portugal now have the opportunity to offer their
employees the Chronos sustainability e-learning tutorial in their
own language.
Both EDP and Sonae Sierra have already taken
delivery of customised versions of Chronos. Each customisation
includes a welcome message by the company’s CEO. As Sonae Sierra’s
CEO Álvaro Portela comments, Sonae Sierra aims to be the best
sustainable international shopping and leisure centre specialist.
'The sustainability training programme developed by CPI and WBCSD
is a unique tutorial to help the company and our staff to
understand the concepts and challenges of sustainability.'
A major rollout of Chronos is underway in both
companies. EDP, which purchased 10,000 licences for its staff,
believes that companies should show leadership in
sustainability. According to EDP’s Environment Director
António Neves de Carvalho, EDP aims to be a sustainable company and
is very proactive in this area. ‘EDP is ranked among the leading
operators worldwide in renewable energies. To walk the talk, we
have adopted Chronos as a valuable and proven tool that will allow
us to successfully introduce our staff to the concepts and
attitudes that sustainability involves.’
Chronos is now available in English, Spanish,
Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese. Both EDP and Sonae have also
made their own customised version of Chronos available to staff in
all of these four languages so that staff can choose the language
with which they feel most comfortable.
The Chronos website has been completely
redesigned to coincide with the launch of the Portuguese version
and registration procedures have been improved. The English
language version has a new welcome message given by HRH the Prince
of Wales.
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ABN
AMRO rolls out Chronos world-wide
ABN AMRO staff around the world now
all have access to a customised version of the Chronos e-learning
tutorial. Making the e-learning tutorial available to all staff is
contributing to the Managing Board’s goal of raising awareness of
sustainable development throughout the bank.
A dedicated team of sustainability specialists
from various Business Units in ABN AMRO adapted the tutorial,
adding case studies and photographs, comments and videos from
managers and information about ABN AMRO’s own sustainable
development policies. ABN AMRO Chronos is available in English,
Dutch and Portuguese. The Portuguese version, written for Banco
Real, ABN AMRO’s subsidiary in Brazil, includes localised material
that make it relevant to a South American audience.
Managing Board member Huibert Boumeester
provided the foreword to ABM AMRO Chronos. He believes that Chronos
is a dynamic, insightful and highly relevant tool. “Chronos
demonstrates that integrating sustainability into our business is
not only feasible, but that it actually increases our brand value,
contributes to employee pride and above all limits risks and
creates new business opportunities.”
ABN AMRO has bought 75,000 licences, making it
the largest multinational user of Chronos worldwide. Polly
Courtice, Director of CPI, noted that this was the most recent of a
number of projects around sustainable development themes on which
CPI had worked with ABN AMRO.
“ABN AMRO has been a good friend of CPI over a number
of years now. We have been very grateful for their sponsorship of
the Business & the Environment Programme and, more recently,
our Business and Poverty Programme. We are really delighted that
they have chosen to use our e-learning tutorial to build
sustainability awareness across the company.”
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Employee engagement: Chronos webinar
presentation
WBCSD is holding a series of webinars to
explore how member companies are engaging their employees on
sustainable development and what tools and examples have been
successful. They have been designed for human resource
professionals, learning and development specialists, corporate
university executives and business professionals working in
sustainable development and corporate responsibility.
Click
here to read the presentation on Chronos, the subject
of the most recent of these webinars, on 30 August 2007.
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Rio Tinto customises Chronos e-learning
program
Mining group Rio Tinto has just completed a
major customisation of the Chronos sustainability e-learning
program. 10,000 Rio Tinto employees throughout the world will be
given access to this new version of Chronos, which builds in Rio
Tinto’s own material, in order to deepen their understanding of the
broad principles of sustainable development as they apply to their
business.
As part of the customisation process, case studies from the Group’s
business units around the world were added, as well as information
relating to Rio Tinto’s own sustainable development policies. Rio
Tinto’s version of Chronos asks employees to evaluate the company
using its own sustainable development decision-making criteria,
such as resource efficiency, quality of life and shareholder value
creation. Rio Tinto’s Chronos also includes a welcome message by
Preston Chiaro, Chief Executive of the company’s Energy Group and
head of the Sustainable Development Leadership Panel. According to
Mr Chiaro, Chronos will help employees learn how personal values
can translate into sustainable action for themselves as individuals
and for Rio Tinto. “The world is under increasing pressure from
threats like climate destabilisation, growing populations, growing
social inequality, terrorism, loss of biodiversity, and HIV/AIDS.
These issues present serious risks to our societies, including our
businesses. I believe that by increasing our understanding of
sustainable development through tools like Chronos, and by firming
our commitment to society's transition to sustainable development,
Rio Tinto can be seen more as part of the solution to these
problems.”
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