RUSAL adopts a Social Impact Strategy

The Board of RUSAL, a leading global aluminium producer, has adopted the corporate Social Impact Strategy until 2035. The strategy focuses on the well-being of employees and their families, as well as bringing the quality of living up and ensuring the development of the areas where the Company operates.

RUSAL has been actively involved in social projects, offering support to local communities and initiatives in various areas since its foundation in 2000. The Company aims at creating social impact by improving the urban environment and housing conditions, building and upgrading the social and transportation infrastructure, bringing the quality of education and health care up, driving sports and a healthy lifestyle, volunteering and social entrepreneurship.

Currently, the Company's social impact across the Russian regions is delivered through five large-scale programmes: "RUSAL Territory" and "Sustainable Cities" (social and economic development of areas where the Company operates), "School for City Transformation" (a programme to call up and train initiative groups who want to improve urban spaces), "Helping is Easy" (supporting and developing corporate and city-wide volunteering), and "Social Entrepreneurship" (support to, and development of, small and micro-businesses which supply socially meaningful services).

The key tool for defining the Company's social impact priorities from this year onwards is the Sustainable Living City Index. The Index was tailored by the Company with the involvement of expert community based on internationally compatible indicators aligned with OECD methodology to better address the needs of smaller-size and mono-industry localities. Using statistical and survey data, the Company's specialists are capable to assess the level of maturity of every city across 12 areas of social, economic and environmental well-being, including overall satisfaction with the quality of living and confidence in the future.

The implementation of the Social Impact Strategy is coordinated by the Corporate Social Policy Committee. The Committee sets the priorities and directions of programme funding, based on an open dialogue with the workers’, youth, and women's councils of the Company's production sites, as well as data sourced from the Sustainable Living City Index for each locality; the Committee also approves the programme budgets and partnership engagement. The Public Expert Council on Sustainability, a permanent advisory body of RUSAL, will play a special role in delivering the provisions of the Strategy, while ensuring constructive stakeholder engagement, including in the area of social and economic development of the territories where the Company operates.

Commenting on the approval of the document, Irina Bakhtina, RUSAL's CSO, noted: "The significance of social aspects for our operations (from ensuring safe workplace for employees and contractors, open and respectful dialogue with local communities to the implementation of ethical norms throughout the supply chain) has noticeably increased recently and they will continue to remain in our focus. RUSAL's Social Impact Strategy is one more critical piece of strategic planning that will help the Company to define and adjust social investment priorities for the coming decade, taking into account the opinions of all stakeholders and ensuring balanced progress for the cities where our employees live and work."

Since 2011, RUSAL has invested over 13.4 billion rubles to social programmes in the territories where the Company operates. Support has been provided to 510 infrastructure projects in the social sphere, benefiting over 2 million people. RUSAL has awarded more than 1,500 grants to non-profit organisations, social institutions, and active citizens, totalling in more than 600 million rubles. The Company's initiatives in the social sphere have engaged tens of thousands of local residents involved in volunteering and charitable activities across all the localities where the Company operates. The "Centre for Social Programmes" charitable foundation established in 2004, is responsible for managing RUSAL's social investment and volunteer programmes.