AVIVA and the environment

[ardcarp]

I guess most of us do our bit, probably in varying degrees, to help the environment. Being quite firm on separating recyclable waste (paper, glass, plastics, etc) is something easily done with a bit of family discipline. However, today the postman (I think it was he) staggered up our drive and deposited a large package weighing one-and-a half kg on our doorstep.

It was from Aviva, and included:

1. A sheet of A4 just showing my name and address through a window in the plastic packaging
2. 3 more sheets (didn't read them)
3 A voting form
4 A prepaid envelope
4. Book...Volume 1 of Annual report and accounts. 1cm thick.
5. Book...Volume 2 of ditto. One and a half cm thick.
6. Oh yes, and another slim volume about the AGM.

If I were an oligarch, owning a high percentage of Aviva's shares, I could just about understand it. However, I wasn't aware that I even had any Aviva shares! I guess they are the few that get dolled out when some takeover happens. In any case, I suspect the value of mine must amount to pence.

I am not a rabid eco-warrior, but I must say I was shocked to think of the total amount of paper (= trees) that must have landed on doormats throughout the land.

Anyone else experienced this?

Nobody is going to read this stuff. Wouldn't putting it online be the sensible thing? Then easily deleted.

[Serial_Apologist]

Totally agree. Far too much of what comes through the letter box now amounts to unsolicited, unwarranted junk mail.

[Pulcinella]

It might be worth reading enough to find a phone number or email contact address for them so you can try to get off their mailing list and simply get an email notification of their AGM and documentation.
But you'll then probably have to register your account with them, and have yet another password and set of security questions for access....

[DracoM]

Medicines: if I do not require a prescribed medicament / or I have been given one by mistake and am returning it tightly sealed, UNopened to Boots, they tell me that all such medicines are then automatically destroyed!

I mean................yes, I can see they might think they have been opened, contaminated etc, but SURELY they must have ways of being able to assess if such tablets etc have been tampered with??

Such WASTE? I was staggered.

[Petrushka]

Medicines: if I do not require a prescribed medicament / or I have been given one by mistake and am returning it tightly sealed, UNopened to Boots, they tell me that all such medicines are then automatically destroyed!

I mean................yes, I can see they might think they have been opened, contaminated etc, but SURELY they must have ways of being able to assess if such tablets etc have been tampered with??

Such WASTE? I was staggered.

I agree that it's wasteful but in all fairness I feel that Boots are doing the right thing in this instance. The medicines concerned would have been off their premises for a length of time and they could not possibly take them back for signing off on someone else's prescription.

[LHC]

I agree that it's wasteful but in all fairness I feel that Boots are doing the right thing in this instance. The medicines concerned would have been off their premises for a length of time and they could not possibly take them back for signing off on someone else's prescription.

Whenever I have returned medicines to the chemist, I have understood that this is being done so that they can arrange for their safe disposal. As wasteful as it might seem, I don't think it would ever be acceptable to hand out medicines to other patients that have been returned unused to chemists.

With regard to the OP, I suspect the excessive postal communications may be a result of the ICO's electronic mail and marketing regulations. Essentially, companies are not allowed to contact you unless you have specifically consented to receive emails from them. If they don't have your consent to receive emails, they have to send everything by post. IIRC a few years ago a company (I think it might have been one of the main banks) was fined for emailing their customers to ask if they would consent to being contacted by email in future. The ICO acknowledged that the company's intentions had been honourable, but because they had contacted their customers by email without consent they had still breached the regulations and were fined.

Ideally AVIVA should have sent the voting forms and return envelope out by post, and provided links so that the larger documents could have been seen online or downloaded, but someone probably decided this would be too complicated.

[oddoneout]

Usually companies are only too keen to get you to sign up to online versions so it should be easy enough to find an email address - if only to establish that you do have shares as you are uncertain, especially in view of this? https://www.theguardian.com/business...o-shareholders
Which may also explain why you have the full suite of paperwork. When I had Morrisons shares the annual report was just a slim booklet including the AGM details but once the buyout was finally agreed I had the full double doorstop versions.
I have some Lloyds shares and get the AGM papers as hard copy which includes a brief (2 x A4 equivalent)summary with links given to the full online info.

[oddoneout]

Medicines: if I do not require a prescribed medicament / or I have been given one by mistake and am returning it tightly sealed, UNopened to Boots, they tell me that all such medicines are then automatically destroyed!

I mean................yes, I can see they might think they have been opened, contaminated etc, but SURELY they must have ways of being able to assess if such tablets etc have been tampered with??

Such WASTE? I was staggered.

It is a waste - but the solution is to try and prevent unnecessary medication being given out in the first place. Trying to establish whether packaging and/or contents have been tampered with would I think be very difficult, time-consuming and expensive, and then there is the question of indemnity - it wouldn't be down to the drug company.

[french frank]

I agree about the booklets which go straight into the recycling bag. But if a single letter comes which is blank, or nearly so, on one side it gets torn into four (A6) and used for shopping lists, scrap paper etc. Or it's loaded complete into the printer for 'rough' printing.

Medicines: if I do not require a prescribed medicament / or I have been given one by mistake and am returning it tightly sealed, UNopened to Boots, they tell me that all such medicines are then automatically destroyed!

We are asked to check the medication before leaving the pharmacy. Don't know what would happen if we said we'd been given something by mistake and handed it straight back.

[cloughie]

I agree about the booklets which go straight into the recycling bag. But if a single letter comes which is blank, or nearly so, on one side it gets torn into four (A6) and used for shopping lists, scrap paper etc. Or it's loaded complete into the printer for 'rough' printing.

…but there is a limit to how much is needed for these purposes - Over the years I have accumulated quite a lot of paper which ‘might come in useful’.

[gradus]

AGM's generate mountains of paper almost all of which remains unread on its journey to recycling. Aside form the minimum number of copies required for essential legal purposes, paper documentation should be abandoned in favour of electronic means only. If company/charity law says it must be paper, change the law.

[oddoneout]

AGM's generate mountains of paper almost all of which remains unread on its journey to recycling. Aside form the minimum number of copies required for essential legal purposes, paper documentation should be abandoned in favour of electronic means only. If company/charity law says it must be paper, change the law.

I don't think it's a case that the law says you must send out hard copies so much as certain documents need to be (must?) provided ahead of the AGM and if instruction/option to receive them online isn't provided by the individual then they will be sent snail mail to the address on record. If the notice of AGM letter isn't read then the online option is likely to be missed hence getting paper copies. Certainly the Coop, building societies, company shares I have dealings with push the option with the mailings I receive. but it has to be my decision whether to accept.