Avon Products, Inc, known as Avon, is an American international manufacturer and direct selling company in beauty, household, and personal care categories. As of 2012, Avon had annual sales of $10.0 billion worldwide in 2013.
It is the fifth-largest beauty company and second largest direct selling enterprise in the world, with 6.4 million representatives. Avon Products is a multi-level marketing company. The company’s CEO is Sherilyn S. McCoy, who was appointed to that position in April 2012. The former CEO, Andrea Jung, became the executive chairman of the board.
Supporting The Community : Avon Products Nonprofit Service
Breast Cancer
In 2012, Avon celebrated 20 years of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade. The company is the leading corporate supporter globally of the breast cancer cause; through 2013, Avon breast cancer programs in 50 countries had donated more than $815 million to fund life-saving breast cancer research and access to quality care.
The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and the Avon Walk Around the World for Breast Cancer have been critical fund-raisers. From 2003 to 2013, Avon Walks in the United States raised more than $500 million through the dedication of 192,000-plus participants. More than 2 million people have taken part in the Avon Walk Around the World since the international fund-raising Walks began in 2005.
In 2012, Avon celebrated 20 years of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade. The company is the leading corporate supporter globally of the breast cancer cause; through 2013, Avon breast cancer programs in 50 countries had donated more than $815 million to fund life-saving breast cancer research and access to quality care.
The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and the Avon Walk Around the World for Breast Cancer have been critical fund-raisers. From 2003 to 2013, Avon Walks in the United States raised more than $500 million through the dedication of 192,000-plus participants. More than 2 million people have taken part in the Avon Walk Around the World since the international fund-raising Walks began in 2005.
Avon Breast Cancer Crusade Events
According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is responsible for 502,000 deaths per year worldwide. Avon’s efforts to support the cause have enabled more than 18 million women around the globe to receive free mammograms and breast cancer screenings. And the Crusade has educated more than 145 million women about breast cancer. Since 1992, Avon has donated more than $200 million for breast cancer research, most recently, for those focused on primary prevention, the etiology of breast cancer, the role viruses may play in causing breast cancer, and the development of a blood or saliva test for early detection.
Supporting Reforestation
As a direct seller with a “store” that consists of a brochure and printed materials, with virtually no brick and mortar stores, Avon is a significant user of paper. The issue of deforestation is especially important to the company given its reliance on paper. Through Healthy Forests, Beautiful World, Avon’s reforestation fundraising initiative, Avon is committed to helping end deforestation—a crisis that endangers the health and wellbeing of our society and environment.
Healthy Forests, Beautiful World, formerly known as Hello Green Tomorrow, raises funds donated to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to support reforestation projects in Brazil and Indonesia, two of the most critically endangered ecosystems. Avon markets around the world, ranging from Mexico to the U.K. to South Africa, participate in the program.
Healthy Forests, Beautiful World raises funds through the sale of special, environmentally conscious fundraising products in more than 50 counties, sold by the more than 6 million Avon Sales Representatives and online at Avon eCommerce sites. Avon donates 100% of the net proceeds of the sale of these products to the U.S.-based Avon Foundation for Women, which equally distributes the proceeds to The Nature Conservancy for the Atlantic Rain Forest in Brazil, and to World Wildlife Fund, to support reforestation efforts on the Indonesian islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Lombok. These forests are among the most threatened in the world and are important to mitigating climate change, supporting biodiversity and providing for the health and economic well-being of millions of people.
To date, Avon has donated more than $6.8 million to The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund for reforestation efforts.
Avon also is committed to ongoing improvement in its internal efforts and policies specific to sustainable sourcing. The policies include the Avon Paper Promise and the Avon Palm Oil Promise. Avon also participates in WWF’s Global Forest & Trade Network.
The Impact of Deforestation
Forests are critical to the survival of the planet. Everything we depend upon is directly reliant on our forestlands – air, water, and living things. Forests are vital to the survival of all living creatures worldwide.
Yet, tropical forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate: today, only 15% of Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest remains. In Indonesia, the island of Sumatra has lost 85% of its forests – primarily due to conversion for oil palm and pulp plantations – and a similar level of destruction is taking place on the island of Borneo. In these areas, even the forests that remain are under threat from degradation and fragmentation.
Reforestation is critical to the survival of our planet and to ensuring the wellbeing and livelihoods of millions of people and an extraordinary biodiversity of animals, birds, fish and reptiles.
As a company committed to empowering women, Avon knows forests also open doors for women, often providing them with a direct source of income. For example, in addition to traditional forest-related employment opportunities, working for a World Wildlife Fund protection project can enable a woman to earn consistent income for her and her family, by working in a tree nursery and helping with seed maintenance. In Borneo’s Sebangau National Park, an area benefitting from Avon funding, reforestation efforts generate local income directly through nursery development, planting and maintenance contracts; and indirectly through tree species that promotes the production of rubber, honey, agarwood, local fruits and commercial timber.
Reforestation also sustains families. For the families participating in World Wildlife Fund’s Avon-funded forest rehabilitation program in Borneo, each household is able to plant and manage nearly 2.5 acres of fruit trees, including mango, avocado, banana and rambutan. The men and women of the village clear the land and plant saplings; they will eventually harvest the fruit for sale and their own consumption.
Rainforests also give us the natural ingredients for medicines that are effective in fighting AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.
Supporting Indonesia’s Tropical Forests
Since 2011, Avon has supported World Wildlife Fund’s New Trees program, a six-year reforestation program focused on community-based planting, monitoring and maintenance of more than 148,000 tree seedlings on five priority locations covering more than 370 hectares of degraded forests across the Indonesian islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Lombok. These trees are estimated to absorb more than 6,000 tons of CO2 over the next 10 years.
Avon funding also is supporting a new project in the Heart of Borneo that complements the New Trees work by engaging local communities on reforestation and agroforestry projects adjacent to two critically important forest areas in North and East Kalimantan that provide habitat for orangutans and elephants. According to WWF, this new project will benefit local livelihoods around these forest areas, which can reduce encroachment and drive greater success of forest rehabilitation.
“The rate of forest destruction in Borneo and Sumatra staggers the imagination. Pursuing solutions in this part of the world to benefit forests, local communities and wildlife requires persistence, creativity and collaboration. The funds provided by Avon will result in nearly 150,000 trees being planted on degraded lands on four islands of Indonesia. We are grateful for the support and leadership of partners like Avon who realize we all have an important role to play in meeting this challenge.” — Carter Roberts, President and CEO, World Wildlife Fund
Restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
According to The Nature Conservancy, by helping restore one of the world’s most endangered and bio-diverse rainforests – the Atlantic Forest – Avon is making a positive impact in Brazil, as well as on a global scale. Funding from Avon’s reforestation program has enabled TNC and its partners to plant and protect more than 4 million trees in three key locations in Brazil: the State of Espirito Santo State, Anhembi and Porto Feliz municipalities in the State of Sao Paulo. On a broader scale, restoration of the Atlantic Forest directly impacts water source quality for 60 percent of Brazil’s residents, including people in major metropolitan areas. Beyond Brazil, the Atlantic Forest helps play a crucial role in regulating climate around the world.
