Putting something back

We take our responsibilities to the communities in which we operate seriously. Our community programme aims to give something back to the communities we serve and to support our aspiration to be a trusted partner in the community. We know that our employees are proud to support these programmes and it is important in maintaining trust with our stakeholders.

Our community involvement programme focuses on the three areas where we think we can make the biggest difference:

• improving health in communities

• protecting the environment

• enhancing education and improving understanding of energy and climate change

In each of these areas, many of our projects are run in partnership with other organisations, charities and community groups. These long-term partnerships give us more scope to impact the community in a positive and sustainable way, while benefiting the business by enhancing our reputation.

In 2009, we contributed more than £7.2 million to the community through charitable donations, community investment (including employee volunteering) and commercial activities. This investment has generated over £10.5 million of additional funding to benefit our local communities from a range of external sources.

We also support our employees in the work they do in the local community, and recognise and reward the effort put in, through our Volunteer Award scheme, Payroll Giving and Match Funding scheme.

Industry recognition

In 2009, we were very pleased to be reaccredited with the CommunityMark from Business in the Community (BitC). This national standard aims to highlight and recognise companies that deliver sustainable, long-term community programmes.

Many of our individual community and educational programmes also received external recognition in 2009 including:

• a Hollis Award for Best Grassroot Sports sponsorship for our Urban Cricket initiative

• a Green Apple Award from independent environment group The Green Organisation for our partnership with Meanwood Valley Farm

• Didcot Power Station received a ‘Big Tick’ award from BitC for its education programme, which gives students the opportunity to participate in science and engineering activities.

Measuring success

We use the London Benchmarking Group (LBG) model to measure and demonstrate the difference our community investment makes to our business and the community. The model is used by companies around the world to assess and report on the value and achievements of their corporate community investment.

Challenges for 2010

During 2010 we will continue to focus our efforts on grassroots community investment programmes which help to develop trust with the communities local to our operations. We will also continue to measure our impact on the local community so that we can ensure we are providing help to those who need it most.

Feedback from our BitC CommunityMark submission highlighted the need to improve and refine the measurement of ‘skills development’ from our volunteering programme and this is something we are keen to address in the forthcoming year.

In addition, we believe that community investment provides a vital opportunity to engage and motivate our employees. We have recently introduced site level meetings which encourage and engage employees to address local community need. We will continue to measure the impact that our community investment has on our employees through our employee survey.

We remain committed to working closely with our key community stakeholders to understand and address their issues and concerns. Where appropriate, we will continue to develop innovative partnerships to benefit our local communities.