We touch many parts of our customers lives and the communities they live in. We want to leave a lasting legacy by enhancing our communities and environment we work in by supporting successful economies in our regions.
Our reach into communities is extensive, and we benefit from being one of the few organisations to have a relationship with all of the households and businesses in our operating areas. We take this responsibility seriously, and our customers agree that we are an important part of the community. Our activities in our communities are also an important aspect of maintaining trust.
We have worked hard to develop strong relationships with the diverse communities that we serve, and will build on this during 2020-25. Our support for communities contributes to making the areas we serve better places in which to live, work and invest.
We also reinvest at least 1% of our pre-tax profits into our communities through dedicating expertise, employee time, money and facilities. This includes the contributions employees make through our highly successful employee volunteering scheme, Just an Hour.
In order to meet our ambitious goal to be the most socially responsible water company, we measure our activity as a responsible business across all areas of our operations: our people, customers, suppliers, finances, partnerships, communities and environment, and will achieve a leading position in recognised benchmarks.
Our community work supports this, and has five main strands:
- Supporting communities through our employees;
- Developing collaborative communities for water management;
- Supporting communities through local spend and our work with supply chain organisations;
- Supporting communities through project legacy; and
- Supporting communities through local leadership.