National Grid’s role as a good corporate citizen supports our strategic ambitions, and is delivered through a sustained and consistent approach.
Local communities
Our community investment objectives include supporting communities, developing our business, supporting our employees and enhancing our reputation through targeted community involvement activities. Our approach continues to be centred on three key themes: energy and the environment; education and skills; and community development.
During the year, we have again reviewed our social policy to ensure our approach to community investment remains relevant to, and supports society’s wider social and environmental priorities. This review has included analysis of existing activities and best practice, both across National Grid and externally. We have also engaged independent experts to review our community investment activities and to ascertain whether our work in this area meets with the needs and expectations of relevant stakeholders. This review will also benchmark our activities against leading UK and US peers
We continue to lead on the ‘Young Offender Into Work Programme’. During 2007, we received a Business in The Community Silver Jubilee Award in recognition of 10 years of providing education, skills training and jobs for young people at risk of exclusion and for young offenders. This year also marks a great milestone as 1,000 people have now successfully been through the programme, which involves about 100 companies and operates in over 20 prisons across the UK. Its achievement is demonstrated by a reduction in re-offending rates from the national average of around 70% to less than 7%.
Wider society
We continue our work with the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights, an international business-led initiative aimed at developing practical business tools to incorporate human rights into day-to-day business decision-making.