Our vision is to bring sustainable energy solutions home to everyone.
Achieving our vision means delivering a safe, socially responsible and competitive service that exceeds the expectations of our customers, our people, our shareholder and the communities in which we operate.
Achieving the right balance
We are among the UK’s leading energy companies. We are also one of the few companies in our sector that handles energy production at every step – from the moment it’s harnessed to the second it’s used. This means we’re very large and very diverse. Clearly, keeping so many people in so many jobs focused on a single vision is challenging.
In response, we have developed a set of shared values, operating principles and ambitions. At the heart of these lies a belief in the importance of striking the right balance in everything we do.
In practice, striking a balanced approach means being open and pragmatic about who we are. Of course, we are a commercial organisation. At the same time, we have external responsibilities that go beyond making a profit. In fact, making a profit today allows us to invest in meeting our future responsibilities to the communities we serve and the environment we share.
Our values
At the heart of our brand lie our values. They drive our operating principles and our ambitions, and they are fundamental to the way we work. These values, which we share with the other members of the EDF family, are:
- respect for individuals
- respect for the environment
- excellent performance
- social responsibility
- integrity
Our operating principles
We have established a set of operating principles that govern the way we manage our business as we work towards achieving our vision. Transforming our principles into action means:
- delivering essential services and being commercial
- serving our customers, our people and our shareholder
- being profitable and investing for the long-term
- investing in assets and in their environment
These principles underpin our five ambitions and shape our relationships with our key stakeholders – our customers, our people, our shareholder and the communities in which we operate.
Better together
Better together is our way of summing up our values and principles. It reassures all our stakeholders that we’re stronger as one company than as a collection of separate businesses. It says that our relationship with our parent company makes us more than the sum of our parts. Better together also tells our stakeholders that we’re committed to building a long-term relationship with all of them.
Our ambitions
To ensure we stay on track to realise our vision, we have established five clear, stretching yet achievable ambitions. Covering every aspect our business, these ambitions apply to all our stakeholders, as follows:
- Safe for all By 2012: our ambition is to ensure that no employee or contractor will suffer injury requiring medical treatment. We will continue to expand the scope of this ambition by widening our health and safety activities to include children, community groups and our customers.
- Customers' Choice: we are committed to keeping our prices competitive and providing enduring support for our most vulnerable supply customers until 2012. By then, we will retain 4% more supply customers than we did in 2007; and 75% of our network customers will be satisfied.
- Shareholder's expectation: our ambition for 2012 is increase profits relative to our competitors.
- Sustainable performance: our ambition for 2012 is to deliver our climate and social commitments while staying on track to deliver our 2020 targets.
- High-performing people: by 2012, we will have attained gold standard from independent experts for our approach to diversity and inclusion. We will also achieve a significant, measurable improvement in employee engagement and performance. In addition, we will increase opportunities for our employees to develop and improve a range of skills, including basic life skills.