Community investment

Our work puts us at the heart of local communities in the North West of England, where customers and employees live and work. Working in partnership with others means we can create better places, stronger communities, and accomplish more to address mutual issues together.

For example we invest in community partnerships to tackle issues more effectively, to find new solutions to the challenges we face, and to access new funding streams, driving efficiency and a better overall outcome. Last summer we signed two memoranda of understanding with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and The Rivers Trust – partners held in high esteem by local communities with a broad membership base, enhancing the credibility of what we do.

2021/22 we supported communities through direct community investment of £2.82 million (calculated using the B4SI method). This was higher than the previous year as a result of increased activity with partners, such as payments from our £300,000 Catchment Systems Thinking (CaST) fund, and returning to customer-facing events such as the RHS Tatton Flower Show. As part of our CaST fund, we provided funding to community groups across the North West to deliver elements of our catchment management approach, focused in particular on community engagement with nature or helping shape and promote natural capital markets.

Our community investment breakdown:

How the investment was made

Type of support

Corporate Citizenship, a leading independent sustainability consultancy, has undertaken limited assurance of the 2021-2022 community investment data against the GRI Principles for Defining Report Quality. This engagement was performed in accordance with the International Standard on Assurance Engagement (ISAE) 3000. Our 2022 assurance statement is available here (115 KB PDF opens in new tab).