We care for our communities and are passionate about supporting them. We also believe that community involvement is a great way to learn and develop new skills. This is why we encourage our all of our employees to get involved in supporting our community investment programmes during company time.
Helping Hands
Through our Helping Hands volunteering programme, our employees have the opportunity to get involved in community-based activities. They can spend two days of company time each year volunteering in the local community.
By donating their time and energy, employees build relationships with communities groups and charities. In 2008, 19% of our employees volunteered for up to two days through Helping Hands, many of them contributing to projects that support the delivery of Our Sustainability Commitments.
Talk Service
Talk Service is a programme which runs across our Existing Nuclear business. Safety is our number one priority – acting responsibly to protect our environment. And, as part of our communities, we pride ourselves on creating an open and honest two way dialogue with local people.
Right across our business we have a wealth of knowledge and experience; and through the Talk Service we share this with our communities.
The concept is simple. Use the best advocates – our people – to talk to colleges, schools and other organisations in the community. The aim is to create open and honest dialogue with the community to help people understand more about the industry.
Supporting our Charity Partners
We encourage our employees to support our national charity partners and have committed to match the money our employees raise by up to £100,000 for both Global Action Plan and the ParalympicsGB.
Our employees have held a wide range of fundraising activities for our charity partners, from cake breaks to more strenuous sporting challenges.
Through our partnership with Global Action Plan, we also have lots of employees set to participate in the charity’s EcoTeams programme. EcoTeams are groups of people – work colleagues, neighbours, friends – who work together to make positive changes; from minimising the energy they use to cutting down on the stuff they throw away. With the support of a trained team leader, team members agree their own goals and how to achieve them.
Ambassador programme
Across EDF Energy, we have 250 ambassadors across the company. Our ambassadors are employees who are passionate about making a difference by helping everyone reduce their impact on the environment and support the communities we serve.
They spend two hours each week on their ambassador activities and through our climate commitments, we have pledged to double the number of ambassador hours.
“The Ambassador scheme is a great development tool. Seeing Lucy grow by being part of this has been inspiring to the rest of my team; so much so that I have agreed for another employee to join the programme.”
Nikie Upperton, Team Manager