Social sustainability
Heritage Open Day at Mary Tavy
Community engagement
We are committed to being a good neighbour and a trusted partner in the communities we serve.
Our annual Community Sponsorship is targeted at community projects and organisations which are linked to water, benefit the environment or promote youth participation. During 2010/11, £79,761 was allocated to a wide range of projects across the region. Examples included:
- funding to enable under privileged schools to visit the National Marine Aquarium
- Young Business Person of the Year Award
- Cornwall Wildlife Trust Your Shore project.
We contributed £10,000 towards the management costs of the Keep Britain Tidy Beachcare Project. This pilot project is aimed at reducing beach litter on Cornwall's beaches by involving communities.
In September 2010 we opened Mary Tavy hydro electric power station and Brokenbury waste water treatment works, Torbay to the public under the Heritage Open Days initiative.
2010/11 Target
Provide sites for Heritage Open Days
Met
Our employees continue to fundraise for WaterAid, raising nearly £40,000 during 2010/11. The total figure is likely to be considerably higher, given that the charity cannot break down into regions the amounts raised in one of the most popular events of the year, the CoastAlong walk, that takes place in September.
WaterAid
We are developing a programme of employee volunteering to engage with local communities, and a team of employees undertook scrub clearance on a Devon Wildlife Trust nature reserve. Further projects will work with schools, whereby employees will educate children about the water cycle and WaterAid. Other employees will visit Exmoor to help maintain the dam structures which have been put in place as part of the Mires restoration project.