Corporate social responsibility

We are switched on to our corporate social responsibilities and are committed to ensuring we have a positive impact on our stakeholders from a social, environmental and economic perspective.

View our 2011 Electricity North West Corporate Social Responsibility Statement. 

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an inherent part of how we do business, continuing to develop this commitment and our forward-thinking strategy.

Our policy focuses on four key areas illustrating the ways in which our business supports sustainability. 

Environment

We aim to facilitate the move to the low carbon economy by:

• maximising the capacity of renewable generation connected to the network
• supporting Manchester’s bid to the government for the Plugged in Places electric car scheme
• enabling Demand Side Response to manage electricity needs
• measuring our waste oil and carbon footprint.

Community

We want to continue building relationships with our local community by:

• promoting safety through our teaching zone website
• improving our service for priority customers with new software, internal procedures, information and assistance.
• operating our match-fund and community sponsorship scheme for employees to get involved with charities.

People

We intend to continue securing the workforce of the future by:

• meeting Workforce Renewal programme targets for training and new apprentices
• continuing to establish a Young Ambassador programme to build links with local schools
• developiong a training centre of excellence for our people.

Governance

We apply best practice in corporate governance and effective oversight by the board of:

• corporate strategy
• financial reporting
• major capital expenditure
• internal controls
• risk management.

Donations and sponsorship policy

We believe that as a successful network operator we should play a role in supporting charities in our region.

As well as giving financial support, we allow and support employees in spending time working with charities and offering our expertise to benefit charitable organisations.

We operate a successful ‘match fund’ initiative where employees can apply for charitable support from our donation fund, as well as supporting community-based projects.

We have recently relaunched our volunteer initiative, 'Switched on to local communities', which encourages employees to take two days' paid leave to get involved in actively supporting a local charity project.