Recent Avis Awards

2010 Sunday Times Top Brands (7th consecutive year)
World Travel Awards Winner
Awarded Superbrand Status
Diners Club ASATA Awards

Corporate Social Responsibility is all about sustainability

At Avis, we recognize that we have a responsibility to our Environment, Our Communities and our People. With these pillars forming the structure of our sustainability programme, our policies and work within these focus areas is continuously directed at ensuring the company plays a healthy, involved and pioneering role within South Africa and in the global space.

The Avis ethos of conserving our heritage, wildlife and environment, was planted in the 1970's, when our then MD, Glenn van Heerden committed Avis to the support and sponsorship of organisations dedicated to the conservation of wildlife. Over the past 4 decades, Avis have been strong supporters of the WWF, Wilderness Leadership School, The Wild Life College, the Wilderness Foundation, the Peace Parks foundation, SANParks and have contributed too many other related projects.

Avis has supported the work of the WWF since 1997. WWF the leading global conservation organization, is committed to conserve the natural heritage of South Africa for future generations.

Avis also invests in preserving South Africa's natural heritage through its support for the Peace Parks Foundation, a project to establish six transfrontier conservation areas, also called peace parks, which will play a crucial role in restoring migration routes and preserving biodiversity.

In many instances, investing in the environment goes hand in hand with investing in people. Avis' support for WWF has been extended to include the WWF Southern African Wildlife College, an institution that educates natural heritage managers, giving them the skills they need to manage wildlife populations and environmental areas in a sustainable and culturally sensitive manner.

Avis also supports the Wilderness Leadership School Trust, which exposes young people to positive experiences in the great outdoors, thereby raising their environmental awareness and instilling in them a love for nature and an appreciation of its value and beauty.

Ever since the inception of our new democracy in 1994, South Africans as a nation have become more aware of the need to embrace the change and provide assistance to those in need. Our country has hundreds of communities in dire need of upliftment and provision of basic resources. As an organisation, Avis has heard the call for help by many of our citizens and keeping in line with its promise that "People are more important than cars" have lent a helping hand to make a difference in the lives of others.

Some of the projects that Avis are involved in are listed below:

Food and Trees for Africa (FTFA) is a third partner organisation through which Avis makes a dual investment in the environment and people. FTFA helps to establish sustainable natural resources that provide food security for poverty-stricken people and contribute to the greening of marginalised communities.

Women and youth empowerment forms an important part of Avis' contribution to community upliftment. Avis supports the Clarins/Fair Lady Most Dynamisante Award, which acknowledges the philanthropic work that individual women carry out in needy communities.

Avis also recognises that children are the most vulnerable group in society and that many South African children are exposed to the horrors of abuse and the difficulties that come with HIV/AIDS. To help address this, the company supports Women and Men Against Child Abuse, supplying the transport that enables this organisation to make all-important home visits to at-risk children.

For many years, the company has also worked with the President's Award for Youth Empowerment. This international organisation empowers young people, between the ages of 14 and 25, through a mentorship-based programme that improves their self-esteem, develops new skills, teaches them to be of service to others, and encourages them to seek out new challenges. By partnering with the Department of Correctional Services this organisation has had a significant impact on the lives of young prisoners through a more rehabilitative approach to the incarceration of young offenders.

With our "ownership" of the Avis Derby, a sport that generally has a "white elitist" tag attached to it in SA, we realized the need to expand our involvement to offer support to previously disadvantaged individuals and give people of colour an opportunity to grow in the sport of horse riding in SA.

We discovered a great need in respect of transporting young riders between events they needed to participate in, which led to Avis sponsoring the Soweto Equestrian Centre with a minibus last year. Enos Mafokate, founder and manager of the centre, is passionate about the wellbeing of horses, educating and assisting cart horse drivers and also to give local youth the chance to learn and compete in the exciting sport of carriage driving, show jumping and vaulting.

Johan Snyders, from Icexpress Progressive Prosthetics, launched the Jumping Kids Project in 2009 to provide revolutionary prosthesis to children who had lost limbs, and to date, some 25 young children have been fitted with new legs. The Project provides a holistic service including physiotherapy, rehabilitation, occupational therapy and monitoring and maintenance of the prosthesis.

Having focused on disabled children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, for a number of years, we have extended our sponsorship to the Jumping Kids project and aim to raise funds to purchase a mobile clinic, so that Jumping Kids can reach those children in remote areas who would probably have no other access to this kind of care.

Avis sponsors a new microbus for Pretoria School for the disabled.
Following a call for help, after their school bus burned out, Avis listened and went to the Pretoria School for the disabled and learned of their plight and desperate need for transportation of its disabled students to the numerous activities and sponsored the school with a Microbus to lighten their load.

St Mary's Children's Home
St. Mary's vehicle was stolen in December 2009 and the home was stranded without a vehicle to transport the children to and from school, extra mural activities and doctors appointments. Avis, together with some partners at the Avis Travel Bags luncheon, raised money to donate an Opel Corsa lite to St. Mary's Children home. Avis Cares volunteers continue working with the children at St. Mary's, giving them extra lessons in Maths, English and reading. They also provide soccer coaching and spend time with the children over special occasions like Easter and Christmas.

What makes the Avis Cares programme so special though, is the immense support it receives from its Brand Ambassadors, who give unselfishly of their own time, energy and money toward the programme. Below are some of the projects that the Avis Cares Volunteers have been involved in.

Avis Tswane builds a new Media Centre for Motheong Primary School in Atteridgeville
Born from an idea planted in the mind of Allan Chellan - the Avis Regional Manager in Pretoria - by a customer, Allan set out to involve his team of Brand Ambassadors to make a difference in the lives of the pupils at Motheong Primary School, who were in need of a computer and interactive centre, when they assisted with the building of a media centre for the school.

Avis Plants 300 Trees for Local Communities

Our Avis Cares program ensures that we continuously look at ways of reducing our impact on the environment and community upliftment. With this in mind Avis staff planted 75 indigenous trees at Thuthuka Primary School. Another 225 trees will be planted at Masisebenze Secondary School (25 trees), Nyiko Primary School (25 trees) and Enxiweni Primary School (25 trees). The remaining 150 trees will be utilised by community members to plant trees within their own gardens.

Avis Cares volunteers rolled up their sleeves together with Miss Earth ambassadors, to help plant trees and make gardens at the Elethu Themba School.

Management and Staff of Avis in KZN undertook the painting of classrooms in the UDOBO SCHOOL, an underprivileged school in Durban as part of their CSI initiative. A total of eight classrooms, the kitchen and ablutions were painted by 35 Avis Cares volunteers.

Avis Cares Volunteers gave up their Saturdays to help weed, level and clean up the Viva Village and the Berakah Creche in Mamelodi.

A leading focus on Environmental issues

Avis have provided significant financial and transport support to a range of leading African wildlife conservation organizations since 1975.

Avis Environmental Firsts

- First car rental company in South Africa to introduce Hybrid Vehicle technology (the Toyota Prius) at cost rates to its customers, since 2007

- First company in South Africa to receive a CarbonNeutral® accreditation in accordance with international protocol, for the offset of its CO2 emissions (internal fuel and energy usage) since 2009.

- First car rental company to provide customers with their carbon emissions information on invoices.

- First car rental company in South Africa to conduct intensive water recycling efforts and effectively becoming ‘water neutral' at its Western Cape and Durban operations in the wetter months - now saving South Africa over 75 million litres of water per annum.