Responsibility

Governance and reporting

Our Corporate Responsibility Committee reviews key non-financial risks and opportunities, and monitors performance against an agreed framework.

Our responsibility commitments and our performance against them

Acting in a socially and environmentally responsible manner is embedded in our group strategy, and this year, we are reporting our corporate responsibility performance as part of our annual group performance reporting. For ease, our key corporate responsibility metrics have been pulled out below. For any further information please see our annual report.

Objective	Our commitment	How we are measuring our performance	18/19 performance	2020 target	More info - report page
Ambition one: We will make our region the most water efficient in the UK	We will empower our customers to save up to 25Ml/d by 2020	Water efficiency level achieved	TBC	25Ml/d	Pages 40, 47, 66
Ambition one: We will make our region the most water efficient in the UK	We will improve understanding of services through education	Number of customers we have educated between 2015 to 2020	171,469	700,000 (cumulative over AMP6)	Pages 22, 40, 52
Ambition two: We will play a leading role to help make our region's rivers even healthier	We will work with landowners and partner organisations to reduce agricultural run-off in our region's rivers	Positive engagement with land managers in targeted areas by end of AMP6	85%	80% (in 12 catchments)	Pages 34, 47
Ambition two: We will play a leading role to help make our region's rivers even healthier	We will do our fair share to achieve Water Framework Directive good ecological status in our region’s failing water bodies, where it is cost-effective to do so	Number of Water Framework Directive classification improvement points (as monitored by the Environment Agency)	19	233 (cumulative over AMP6)	Page 48
Ambition two: We will play a leading role to help make our region's rivers even healthier	We will improve biodiversity in our region by improving at least 75 hectares of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (‘SSSI’)	Number of hectares improved from unfavourable or deteriorating condition using Natural England’s database of SSSIs	9.86	75	Page 21, 40, 47
We put our customers first	We provide a service to our customers that is good value for money	% of customers who rate our service value for money in an independent quarterly survey	59%	55%	Page 52
We put our customers first	We help our customers who are in genuine need and struggling to pay their bills	Number of customers we help each year through social tariffs and assistance schemes	51,716	50,000	Pages 18, 22, 24, 25, 37, 51
We are passionate about what we do	Our employees are passionate about what we do	Group % engagement score from our annual employee survey	61%	-	Pages 30, 31
We act with integrity	We involve our customers in our plans, and we’re honest about how they think we’re doing	We will invite the independent Water Forum to review and comment on our annual performance	Four meetings held this year	-	Page 39
We protect our environment	We do everything we can to prevent polluting the environment	Number of Environment Agency Category 1 & 2 incidents (calendar year metric)	2	0	Page 38
We protect our environment	We reduce our carbon footprint	% reduction in Group carbon emissions (scope 1 and 2 – our direct emissions and those from the energy we use)	4.4%	19%	Pages 40, 47
We are inspired to create an awesome company	No one is hurt or made unwell by what we do	Group – Total workforce % female	0.17 0.15	- -	Pages 43, 65
We are inspired to create an awesome company	We believe a diverse and inclusive workforce is a key factor in being a successful business	Group – Total workforce % BAME	29.99%	8.88%	Pages 42, 50 108
Our suppliers support our values and ambitions	We are a responsible payer	% invoices paid to terms, including self bill (12 month financial year average)	96%	97%	Page 49