We play an active part in the communities where we operate, and our approach involves our community partnership programme where we work with charities and organisations to achieve mutual benefit. We regularly review our approach to ensure we balance, stakeholder and community needs.
We focus on:
- climate change, where the water sector faces tougher challenges than most other industries
- developing and attracting the skills we need to successfully meet the future challenges of running our business
We encourage our employees to make a positive contribution to the local communities, by supporting employee volunteering activities and a payroll giving scheme.
We recognise the effect of our operations upon the community and the environment and invest in programmes that support the community in these areas. For example one of our most successful and long-standing programmes is our flagship partnership with Groundwork, called United Futures. This programme helps to regenerate neighbourhoods following our mains and sewer improvement works. All projects are delivered using ‘environmental footprint’ best practice – e.g. minimising material miles through on-site recycling.
We are also continuing our work in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to conserve the land we own and the wildlife that inhabit it; and WaterAid to help provide water and sanitation to those in poorer countries.
An important part of our activities is ensuring stakeholders know what differences we are making and how they can get involved. We have designed campaigns such as What Not to Flush to engage key audiences and raise awareness of our activities.