Durham based water company, Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), scooped the top prize at the prestigious Utility Week Awards last night (Monday 11 December).
The water company was named Utility of the Year at the ceremony, which took place at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Park Lane. The award was presented to the company’s Chief Executive, Heidi Mottram.
The Utility of the Year award recognises the company that has been successful in all aspects of the utility business, and rewards exceptional performance compared to other companies across the sector.
Heidi Mottram, Chief Executive of Northumbrian Water Group said: “Winning Utility of the Year is a fantastic achievement and emphasises our leading level of performance across the entire utilities sector.
“We work very hard to put our customers at the heart of everything we do, and recognition like this spurs on to continue to maintain and improve on the levels of service we have been able to achieve. This award is also testament to the hard work of all our 3,200 people, who help make NWG the great company that it is.”
This year NWG was ranked the leading water company nationally for customer satisfaction, reflecting its unrivalled customer service strategy based on getting things right first time everytime. According to the industry’s consumer body, CC Water, NWG is also the most trusted water company in the UK, and is the only water company in the world to feature on Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies list.
NWG is also leading the way when it comes to innovation, and earlier this year held the first ever ‘NWG Innovation Festival’, a unique week-long showcase of forward thinking and new technology. The ambitious event brought together infrastructure experts, academics, key stakeholders and supply chain partners from across the world to develop a series of new ideas to tackle a range of social and environmental issues. This will now be an annual event and planning for the 2018 edition is already underway.
Firmly focused on doing business in a sustainable way, in September 2017 NWG also produced its first ‘Our Contribution’ report, a leading approach to reporting that goes beyond financial performance to look at the company’s influence and impact on the wider economy, environment and society. This transparent and holistic approach to reporting the company’s performance and impact resulted in NWG being given the top rating of ‘self-assured’ by water regulator OFWAT earlier this month.
NWG were also finalists in two other categories at the Utility Week Awards – Supply Chain Excellence and Staff Development.