Centrica
Energy services and solutions company Centrica has launched a Levelling Up Impact Report which assesses its social impact and recommends further steps it can take.
With a 200+ year heritage, Centrica provides energy and services to over ten million residential and business customers primarily in the UK and Ireland through brands such as British Gas, Bord Gais, Dyno Rod, Hive and Centrica Business Solutions, supported by over 7,000 engineers. As well as energy supply and boiler maintenance, it works across EV charge point installation, smart meters, heat pumps, solar and battery storage projects, gas production and electricity generation. Its purpose, developed with its employees, is to help people live sustainably, simply and affordably, supported by its values of care, delivery, collaboration, agility and courage.
As part of that work, the Levelling Up Impact Report has been developed with the Purpose Coalition and considers Centrica’s work against a set of 14 Purpose Goals, known in the UK as Levelling Up Goals. Launched in 2021, they provide a framework to help organisations identify gaps in access to opportunity, covering key life stages from early years to adulthood as well as the barriers that can prevent people from achieving their potential, for example good health and wellbeing or digital connectivity. They also provide a way of generating benchmarks, targeting social impact more effectively and collaborating through the sharing of best practice.
The report demonstrates Centrica’s strengths in meeting five Goals in particular and highlights a number of initiatives that makes Centrica a successful purpose-led company:
Goal 3 Positive Destinations Post 16+ An extensive apprenticeship programme, with a strong focus on gender equality and diversity, which has welcomed over 900 new apprentices in the last 18 months with a pledge to create one new apprenticeship for every day of the 2020s.
Goal 5 Open Recruitment Recruitment of a Net Zero Battalion of 500 former service men and women (and their partners), with a tailored programme which will place them in a range of roles to facilitate the transition to Net Zero.
Goal 8 Good Health and Wellbeing Its internal staff support programme, MyHealth, takes a holistic approach to employee mental health and wellbeing and its approach to workplace mental health has placed it in the top three of 100 of the UK's largest companies.
Goal 13 Harness the Energy Transition Its People and Planet Plan sets out its ambition to make customers net zero by 2050 and to achieve net zero business status as an organisation by 2045, developing new, greener skills and technologies that will support opportunities for its customers, colleagues and communities.
Goal 14 Achieve equality through diversity and inclusion A recognition that its people should reflect the communities in which they work so that it offers an open and inclusive employee journey, including at senior levels, with a commitment to fill 30% of executive board roles and 40% of middle management with women by 2030.