The feelgood factor

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: When catastrophic floods hit Bangladesh last November, TNT’s emergency-response team was ready. The logistics giant, with headquarters in Amsterdam, has 50 people on standby to intervene anywhere in the world at 48 hours’ notice. This is part of a five-year-old partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN’s agency that fights hunger. The team has attended to some two dozen emergencies, including the Asian tsunami in 2004. “We’re just faster,” says Ludo Oelrich, the director of TNT’s “Moving the World” programme.

Emergency help is not TNT’s only offering. Volunteers do stints around the world on secondment to WFP and staff are encouraged to raise money for the programme (they generated 2.5m euros last year). There is knowledge transfer, too: TNT recently improved the school-food supply chain in Liberia, increasing WFP’s efficiency by 15-20%, and plans to do the same in Congo.

Why does TNT do these things? “People feel this is a company that does more than take care of the bottom line,” says Mr Oelrich. “It’s providing a soul to TNT.”

In a 2006 staff survey, 68% said the pro-bono activities made them prouder to work at the company. It also helps with recruitment: three out of four graduates who apply for jobs mention the WFP connection. Last year the company came top in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

TNT’s experience illustrates several trends in corporate philanthropy. First, collaboration is in, especially with NGOs. Companies try to pick partners with some relevance to their business. For TNT, the food programme is a good fit because hunger is in part a logistical problem. Standard Chartered, a bank, is working with the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee on microfinance and with other NGOs on a campaign to help 10m blind people.

Coca-Cola has identified water conservation as critical to its future as the world’s largest drinks company. Last June it announced an ambitious collaboration with WWF, a global environmental organisation, to conserve seven major freshwater river basins. It is also working with Greenpeace to eliminate carbon emissions from coolers and vending machines. The co-operation is strictly non-financial, but marks a change in outlook. “Ten years ago you couldn’t get Coca-Cola and Greenpeace in the same room,” says Neville Isdell, its CEO.