Play Liv’s video introduction to the 2021 Sustainability Report Welcome to our second annual SustainabilityReport. In our first report last year, we explained how we approach the issues of sustainabilityunder three major headings – Taking Care of the Environment, Helping People to Thrive, and Being a Company You Can Trust. This year, we expand on the progress we’ve made and describe a series of further commitments we are making. Long term, we know we can play a leading role in our sector addressing the impacts of climate change. This report is your opportunity to read about how we’re getting on and to tell us what you think. Climate change is a key challenge of our generation and, as a water and waste water company, we’re well placed to play a role in helping the UK become a sustainable, low-carbon economy. We take care of one of life’s essentials, so a healthy environment is vital to the long-term sustainability of our business. Therefore, we are taking positive action to mitigate climate change and ensure we are resilient to its impact. We also operate in pursuit of a strong social purpose. This encourages and enables us to show our customers they can trust us to be a force for good in our communities, and helps us attract the diverse and talented people needed to succeed. This year, COVID-19 has undoubtedly had an impact on every part of life. Our focus now is to want to bounce back stronger than ever from its effects, and ‘building back greener’ is part of this. To kick-start this, in January 2021, we proposed an ambitious package of investments aimed at delivering long-term, sustainable benefits for current and future generations in our region, through improving the environment and also creating jobs. On 17 May, Ofwat proposed to award us £565 million (17/18 prices) to invest in our ambitious Green Recovery programme, providing a great opportunity to deliver long-term growth for the company alongside new investment to support our Environmental, Social and Governance (‘ESG’) ambitions. We are delighted with this outcome and have already started work on the new investments, aimed at supporting the wider national agenda on climate change, delivering long-term flooding resilience, addressing national river quality, reducing water consumption, providing additional water supply resilience and acting as a leader on removing lead from customer-owned supply pipes. In addition, our Green Recovery package will create direct employment opportunities with us over the next four years and further employment opportunities with our delivery partners and in the wider supply chain. Alongside our business plan for the next five years, we have also made many other ambitious commitments that support our purpose of taking care of one of life’s essentials. There’s our Triple Carbon Pledge – committing to net-zero operational carbon emissions, 100% renewable energy and an all-electric vehicle fleet, by 2030, where available. And our decision to invest £1.2 billion by 2025 in environmental initiatives that include planting 1.3 million trees and boosting the biodiversity of 5,000 hectares of land in our region. We’ll work with around 9,000 farmers to find sustainable ways to improve long-term water quality. In March 2021, we submitted our proposed Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions targets to the Science Based Targets initiative, committing us to significantly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. This year, as part of our commitment to be a force for good in our region, we also announced our partnership with the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, to support its ambition to create the most sustainable Games yet, and leave a lasting legacy for future generations. Our plans to help address social issues are just as ambitious – for example, our Community Fund donates 1% of our profits each year to projects in our local communities which need help the most. This year, we awarded £1.5 million to 93 projects and also created a COVID-19 Emergency Fund, donating £1 million to help local charities deal with the effects of the pandemic. All in all, we set ourselves bold ambitions that we believe will benefit all our stakeholders over the long term. We know we can play a leading role in our sector in addressing the issues above, and in safeguarding the long-term sustainability of our business and our region. We’ve made some clear commitments on our path to being a green leader. We know we still have plenty to do, but as you’ll see in the report, we’re making strong progress. This year, COVID-19 has undoubtedly had an impact on every part of life. Our focus now is to want to bounce back stronger than ever from its effects, and building back greener is part of this. “ ” Introduction from our CEO Liv Garfield, CEO Welcome to Severn Trent’s 2021 Sustainability Report. We take care of one of life’s essentials – water – for the people and businesses of our region. So our work is wedded quite naturally to the environment, society and the trust people put in us to do our jobs. This report explains how our environmental, social and governance commitments are part of our day-to-day business plan, and about the progress we are making towards meeting these commitments. We hope you enjoy the read. We always welcome feedback from stakeholders on how we can improve our performance and reporting. Please get in touch at: corporate.responsibility@severntrent.co.uk We are the Commonwealth Games official nature and carbon neutral supporter COMMONWEALTH GAMES 1 All-electric fleet is subject to the availability of vehicles 100% Net zero operational emissions, 100% renewable energy and all-electric fleet1 % 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 5,000 Boosting the biodiversity of 5,000 hectares of land in our region 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0