Stakeholders engagement

We interview thousands of customers every year and engage with opinion formers and expert advisors, to help develop new products and improve customer service. 

We liaise with specialist stakeholder groups, including the Fuel Poverty Action Group, the Energy Saving Trust, UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Energywatch, Ofgem, BERR, DEFRA, industry panels and many others. We make no contribution to any political parties, politicians, and related institutions.

Through a series of breakfast events we also aim to widen the debate on key issues that affect our business. We held an event on fuel poverty in December 2007 and plan to hold further events on the forthcoming DPCR5 project with a wide range of stakeholders.

Energy policy was high on the government’s agenda in 2007, and we participated in consultations that will have a profound impact on our industry and the UK for decades to come. In 2007, we contributed to the government’s Energy Review, supported policy work through our media activities, participated in several Select Committee inquiries and briefed MPs regularly on energy issues. We focused policy engagement around our plans to develop new nuclear, gas and renewable generation capacity in the UK, making a comprehensive submission to the government’s nuclear consultation process and participated in a series of related public events. We used key political dates – for example, publication of the Energy White Paper and party conferences – to engage journalists and stakeholders on this topic. In October, we showed a cross-party group of MPs around the EDF nuclear plant at Gravelines near Dunkirk and took journalists to Flamanville in Normandy where EDF is building a new nuclear plant.

Through initiatives such as our annual tracker survey of public opinion on energy and environmental issues, and regular briefings, we got our key messages across to the trade, regional and national media. In league tables calculated by Millward Brown Precis, a business that provides intelligence on companies' media positions, EDF Energy achieved first-place ranking in both national and regional media coverage for 2007.For the second year running, the efforts of our media team were recognised at the PR Week Awards, where we were ‘highly commended’ in the Private Sector Department of the Year category.

CommunicateResearch surveyed 150 Members of Parliament between November and December 2007 by self-completion questionnaire on behalf of EDF Energy on their recognition of EDF Energy and came 2^nd amongst the big suppliers. We also receive comments from MPs via a range of other channels including letters, events (Annual House of Commons Tea Reception, Party Conference) and face-to-face meetings. This information is brought to the attention of our senior management on a regular basis via monthly media reporting.

Sponsorship is a great way to build our brand and connect with communities and becoming the first official Sustainability Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was a highlight of 2007. The partnership builds on our reputation as a sponsor of professional and grass-roots rugby; it also supports Our Climate Commitments, published on World Environment Day in June.

We engage with local communities through our Helping Hands and One Community Ambassador volunteering programmes, both of which support employees who give their time to contribute to worthwhile causes. We’ve worked with a ‘charity partner’, Mencap since 2005, raising around £719,000 to support its Energise project, and with the WRVS, to promote our Safe, Warm and Well awareness campaign.

EDF Energy engages with a wide range of bodies to understand how we can improve our services. We work with the WRVS to support our activities across our customer initiatives and networks. We have held debates at the House of Commons in 2007 and 2008 on the social tariff and energy efficiency with the National Right to Fuel Campaign (NRFC which is a recognised body that campaigns on these issues with a wide range of panellists and guests to discuss. We are meeting with other organisations on an ongoing basis to talk about our Climate and Social Commitments – Countryside Alliance, Christian Aid are two very recent examples.

In 2006 we set up a Stakeholder Advisory Panel to engage with independent experts from relevant disciplines. This panel meets with our Chief Executive and Executive Team every three months to discuss the strategic issues we face and their impact on our business strategies and our policies. The panel provides a healthy challenge to our Executive team and a strong voice for our stakeholders. It also helps to shape our business strategy.

The panel helped us to define the content of both Our Climate Commitments and Social Commitments – challenging us to make sure the goals we set were relevant and ambitious.

The table below is an illustration of our engagement with stakeholders on key topics for the company.