Anglian Water employs 4,500 people directly, and many thousands more through our partners and contractors, so saying thank you to all of them for their amazing work is always a challenge.

 

But when we receive news like the announcement last night that we have been awarded Responsible Business of the Year at the Business in the Community Awards, that is exactly what we need to do.

 

This award, which has been won previously by M&S, Jaguar Land Rover, Fujitsu, Veolia and many other great, forward thinking companies, is a wonderful endorsement of our employees, customers and suppliers that have been part of our sustainability journey. We are overwhelmed to have won.

 

Our Love Every Drop approach is a vision for how we believe a modern utilities company should be run. That vision means creating a country with a resilient environment that enables sustainable growth and can cope with the pressures of climate change. Creating infrastructure that is affordable and reliable, meeting the needs of customers, communities and the environment.

 

We want our people and our communities to be resilient too. We want to show how businesses in the UK can be trusted by customers and communities, to work with a purpose and create a positive legacy in the most challenged communities

 

But as well as being the best business we can be, we want to help others to innovate and grow sustainably. Our aim is to create a more open approach to collaboration, an approach that stimulates the supply chain, encourages and supports entrepreneurship and provides a test bed for a step change in sustainable innovations.

 

Winning this award is not the end of the story, but just a new beginning. Using the platform that this award affords us we will work with BITC to put these models on the national stage and seek to replicate them around the UK. We will only be able to do that if other responsible businesses rise up to the challenge and collaborate with us and each other. If you are a part of one of those businesses then let’s work together to create a smart, sustainable and resilient UK.