NovantaCARES
Supporting Our Communities
In 2022, we formalized our company-sponsored volunteering program, NovantaCARES. We provide every employee with one paid day-off per year to volunteer at non-profit organizations supporting social charities or the environment. We set a Novanta-wide goal of completing 250 community service days by the end of 2022 and 500 by the end of 2023. In 2022, we surpassed our goal, completing 314 community service days. Our NovantaCARES team partnered closely with the Culture Council to encourage employees to participate around the world, in support of communities in need and the environment.
At many of our sites, local leaders and Culture Council members organized volunteering events. Employees could volunteer for non-profit organizations or environmental cleanup activities in their local community, provided that they meet our criteria for a legitimate charitable organization or environmental cleanup activities. These criteria are published on our intranet site, along with a list of vetted non-profit organizations in each of the eight countries where we operate.
Examples of some successful events held by our sites in 2022 included:
- A volunteering event held at our Bedford, Massachusetts location on Earth Day, April 22nd. Over 60 volunteers participated in a litter clean-up near our Bedford facility. The team collected over 1,600 pounds of trash from around the property and the neighboring wetland area and highway. Waste collected included plastic, metals, lumber, tires, and more.
- A team of employees from Laser Quantum in Stockport UK participated in an 8 mile walk for charity around Carsington Water—a reservoir near the Peak District National Park in England in a fund-raising event for Alzheimer’s Research UK. The group set a target of raising £200 sponsorship per walker. They exceeded their target sponsorship by over 100%, raising a total of £2,028 for the charity, a sum which Novanta matched in addition.
- From October to December 2022, the Women’s ERG in Germany invited colleagues from Berlin to support the Spendenbrücke (donation bridge) Ukraine at the former airport at Berlin-Tempelhof. Over four days, 37 volunteers sorted countless baby socks, folded an almost inexhaustible mountain of donated clothes for both children and adults. The volunteers also checked, categorized, and packaged a variety of donated food items.
