Sustainability
Serving our communities
Our customers, and the communities in which they live, work, play and relax, are at the heart of everything we do.
Meeting our customers' expectations
Whilst our customers don’t have a choice about who provides their water – so they can’t vote with their feet – they quite rightly have the same high expectations of us as
they would any other brand or company.
We are committed to being a role model, within the water and utility sectors and beyond. We already play a key role in the lives of our customers, looking after one of life’s essentials, but we’re committed to do more.
customers engaged through our education programme from 2015 to 2020
committed to local projects through the Severn Trent Community Fund
long term ambition for volunteering within our region
people in Bangladesh we’ll support through WaterAid from 2020 to 2025
% employees volunteering / FTE hours over the last 3yrs bar graph
£ raised in support of Wateraid projects
What we're doing to help communities
- Providing education through our innovative educational roadshow
- Investing 1% profits in community projects through our Community Fund
- Developing a relationship with Bangladesh through our WaterAid partner
Education – Our Wonderful Water Tour
Our Wonderful Water Tour is our innovative educational roadshow, inspiring and educating children across our region all about the wonderful world of water!
Our dedicated team of Education Officers are committed to visiting every Primary School in our region, offering free assemblies and workshops that support the Key Stage Two water curriculum - as well as cross-curricular links to Maths, Geography and Science - and promote our key water efficiency, hydration and waste water messages.
We have two sector-leading education buses that can accompany the visit; our Digi-bus provides an immersive, digital experience with virtual reality headsets to enable the children to understand the water cycle and enter our virtual Severn Trent Minecraft World on one of our games consoles.
Our Experi-bus lets the children take on various Severn Trent roles – from Call Centre operatives to Scientists – with accompanying fun activities to embed correct water behaviours for life.
From 2020 to 2025, we aim to collect customer commitments around water efficiency, hydration and looking after our sewers.
Our Community Programme
Through our dedicated, sector-leading community programme, we will anticipate and meet the needs of the customers and communities we serve and deliver genuine and wide-reaching environmental and societal benefits.
The Severn Trent Community Fund
From 2020, we're giving away more than £10m over five years to support community projects in the Severn Trent region through the Severn Trent Community Fund.
The purpose of our new Community Fund is to support the wellbeing of the communities we serve.
Our Community Fund is overseen, and all donations are approved, by an independent Severn Trent Customer Panel – so our customers ultimately decide where the money is spent.
In the first 12 months of our Community Fund, we're proud to have supported over 400 non-profit organisations with more than £3.5m of grants and donations, helping to boost wellbeing in a year we've all needed it the most. Our first annual review showcases the wonderful causes we've supported over the last year.
Supporting our communities through the Coronavirus pandemic
In April 2020 we created and donated £1 million through our Coronavirus Emergency Fund to over 300 fantastic non-profit organisations that were helping our communities get through such an incredibly difficult time.
The first £500,00 was donated quickly to charities helping the most vulnerable who were experiencing unprecedented demand for their services, including food banks, mental health charities and those providing support for the elderly.
The second half was donated later in the year through our Recovery Fund, to support the charities themselves that had suffered financially through the pandemic - helping them to get back on their feet and continue delivering their services.
We know though the impacts of the pandemic are still being felt by many charities and organisations who are continuing to deliver vital services to our communities. So, we’re continuing our support in 2021 and allocating some of our Community Fund to support with Coronavirus recovery.
Volunteering in the community
At Severn Trent, we’re big believers in volunteering, which is why we encourage and empower our employees to get out and about in local communities with two days paid volunteering leave per year. Our volunteering scheme is really popular with an average of 30% of our employees volunteering each year.
We encourage volunteering that supports the environment, biodiversity, tree planting and water efficiency, and work in partnership with a number of key partners across our region to deliver this.
Working with Wateraid in Bangladesh
We believe the wonder of water should be readily available to everyone; today and for future generations. That's why we’re proud to work with and support our charity partner WaterAid.
As co-founders, since 1989, our fundraising activities have raised almost £30 million and contributed to bringing clean water and improved sanitation to men, women and children all over the world.
From 2020 to 2025, we will work with WaterAid to help provide access to self-sufficient, clean water supplies and decent toilets for over 100,000 people living
in the Southwest region of Bangladesh.
We’ll also raise £560,000 to support a series of projects that will provide climate resilient water supply facilities – owned, operated and managed by the people in the community – and improve the availability of affordable drinking water in the region.
Our Bangladesh partnership will also help to highlight and overcome some of the continuing struggles for gender equality in the country.
One of the many projects we’ll support will train 80 women in the operation and maintenance of a Reverse Osmosis water treatment plant. These plants are simple to manage, low cost to run and use innovative techniques to clean and purify water.
We believe that the fulfilment of these women’s abilities through skill development, employment and community purpose will have a massive impact on the elimination of poverty and ill health within these communities.
Other charity partners
We're proud to support Children in Need, hosting one of their national call centres, with our employee volunteers on the phones through the night.
Putting customers and communities first
We’re committed to ensuring we always put our customers and communities first whenever we carry out our essential work.
Between 2020 and 2025, we’ll be investing over £2 billion to improve our customers’ water and waste services. We recognise there is never an ideal time to carry out major improvement work, as often our pipes are in roads - which means roadworks.
Before we carry out any planned work we will always contact our customers in advance, and often hold public exhibitions to give customers the opportunity to discuss the work. We keep customers up to date through a dedicated webpage.