IT IS easy to understand why Aviva is seeking both the Large Business Of The Year and Best Business and Community Link titles.

Large does not describe it. Aviva is massive. Of its 45,000 employees there are 4,500 in Yorkshire, just under 3,000 of them in York, the centre of its industry-leading UK life and pensions business.

Globally it is the world’s sixth largest insurance group with premium income and investment sales at £47.1 billion last year.

It provides more than 53 million customers with insurance, savings and investment products and is the UK’s biggest insurer. The York operation alone serves more than 19 million UK customers.

That’s large.

And community links? They are tough for any other business to match in depth and scale.

Such is Aviva’s dedication to Corporate Responsibility (CR) that the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index has ranked it in the top ten per cent of socially responsible companies globally. It is also recognised by the FTSE4Good Index as being in the top five companies in the world for managing sustainability.

Last year alone in the UK Aviva invested £4.3 million into communities with employees donating an extra £600,000 through fundraising and donations, spurred on by 24,500 hours of paid leave to volunteer.

Its flagship Street to School programme, which supports vulnerable young children on the streets of the UK, has helped more than 7,000 youngsters. Then there are Aviva’s determined efforts to develop a national financial awareness education programme for 14 – 19 year olds called Paying For It.

Locally Aviva forms CR networks and sets agendas to raise money for regional charity partners. Many among the 2,500 employees in York are passionate about supporting local communities.

In the first quarter of 2011 alone they gave 287 volunteering hours, with ten per cent offering regular payroll giving and 17 per cent giving through the Pennies From Heaven scheme.

One project which pointed the way for other cities was Aviva’s York-based York Cares programme which brings together businesses and charities to help vulnerable children in care. And there is the Learn & Thrive project – a partnership with City of York Council which raised £350,000 to support the £540,000 redevelopment programme to redevelop York Central Library into York Explore.

To celebrate York Explore’s first birthday last May, author Freya North unveiled a commemorative plaque with Aviva’s distribution director, Graham Boffey.