Societal impact

In 2022, Ethias set up the Ethias Impact Fund, a corporate fund hosted within the King Baudouin Foundation.

This fund will support Ethias’ social actions with the aim to have a concrete, visible and measurable impact on society.

In addition to providing financial support for various projects, the fund's mission is to develop a vast network of partners whose actions help to create impact for society. Through Ethias Impact, Ethias wishes to provide concrete financial support to those who are carrying out projects in line with its sustainability strategy, as well as occasional support in terms of time and skills.  

The Ethias Impact Fund will give priority to supporting projects or associations working on the topics of the Sustainability strategy:

• Fighting youth poverty
• Health and environment (including the protection of nature, biodiversity, animals...).

This support are provided mainly through calls for projects, such as the Ethias Youth Solidarity Awards on the poverty front.

The Management Committee, appointed by the FRB Board, is composed of 5 members: Bruno Vanobbergen as chairman, Françoise Pissart as representative of the King Baudouin Foundation and Lucie Dewert, Bénédicte Passagez, Syl Arnols as Ethias representatives. ​​​​​​​

Bruno Vanobbergen was chosen as president for his expertise in the fight against child poverty and his knowledge of the associative field as well as for his sharing of Ethias' human values.

Ethias actively supports the Pelicano Foundation, which is committed to fighting child poverty in Belgium. Ethias employees can choose to donate money via their Flex@Ethias cafeteria plan. The donations are used to cover the basic needs of Belgian children living in poverty: meals, clothes, school supplies, doctor's visits, but also the costs of joining a youth movement or sports club.

In 2023, the bees in the hives of the Hasselt headquarters and the regional office in Alleur produced their delicious honey. As every year, jars of Ethias-labelled honey were sold to employees, with the proceeds going to the Pelicano Foundation.

Every year, Ethias conducts surveys among its customers. Participation in these surveys is encouraged through a pledge to Pelicano.

All these initiatives enabled Ethias to raise € 16,747, which were directly donated to Pelicano in 2023.

Natuurpunt is a benchmark for the protection of nature and biodiversity in the Flemish region.

In 2022, Ethias entered into a three-year partnership with Natuurpunt to preserve the Zwarte Beek valley in Lummen. It is one of the last peat areas in Flanders, currently under great pressure due to climate change.

Thanks to the financial support of Ethias and the Flemish Government, Natuurpunt will be able to acquire the necessary hectares to create a contiguous and robust nature reserve.

For Ethias, the protection of biodiversity is directly linked to its mission as an insurer: an increase in biodiversity contributes to the prevention of natural disasters (particularly the risk of flooding) and to the correlated reduction in the risk of claims in areas deemed "at risk".

Social partnerships

• Char'Ethi Hours
• Digital For Youth
• Red Touch Challenge
• Association Sint-Vincentius Genk & Restos du Cœur Seraing

Community sponsorship

• Belgian Red Cross
• Les Territoires de la Mémoire

Universities and colleges are pioneers in the search for solutions to the various challenges of today and tomorrow. By partnering with them, Ethias ensures that it stays ahead in the field of innovation.

UCL

The Ethias Chair "Pensions" pursues three goals:

• Reflecting on the design of equitable and sustainable pension systems, in terms of their financing, architecture and governance, with a particular focus on the study of supplementary pensions;
• Contributing to the maintenance of a interdisciplinary platform for research on pensions at UCLouvain;
• Ensuring the future of teaching on pension issues at UCLouvain and offer quality lectures on the problems and challenges of pension systems at the Belgian and European levels

HEC Liège

Ethias provides financial support for scientific research in machine learning, via a partnership contract with HEC-ULiège for PhD students. This project uses advanced artificial intelligence tools (uncertainty theory, heterogeneous ensemble methods, modeling noise in data - including unstructured data -, causality, etc.) to better model decision-making and uncertainty.

Ethias has also renewed its innovative partnership in sustainable finance for 2023, in order to face the challenges of ESG integration in investments by combining academic theory with practical experience.