BUSINESS PROFILE
As a water retailer, operating in a competitive
marketplace, our focus has always been
investing in and delivering a great service for
our customers and a positive return for our
shareholders. As a progressive business we
also believe that we have an important role
to play by behaving responsibly and driving
positive change for the environment and
society as a whole.
This belief is shared across the business. Our
people want to work for an organisation that
makes a difference - for its customers, of course,
but also for its employees, the environment and
local communities – and this led us to develop our
vision to make a positive difference.
From the outset we knew that to deliver this
vision we needed to agree clear actions and
set targets that would hold us to account. To
do this effectively, we aligned our plan to the
Business in the Community Responsible Business
Map, designed to help organisations assess the
contribution they make to the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals. By understanding
what we wanted to achieve, we were then able
to identify and introduce a series of initiatives that
would help bring our vision to life.
As a water retailer, we play a key role in helping
our customers to reduce their water use. To date
we have helped our business and public sectorcustomers save over 43 billion litres of water – the
equivalent of over half a billion filled bathtubs. With
high ambitions in this area however, we recently
launched a pledge to help our customers reduce
their water use by 20%. We also became the first
water retailer to partner with Waterwise, the UK’s
leading NGO on water efficiency and conservation
to help promote the importance of using water
wisely.
We have taken an honest look at what we should
be doing internally as an organisation to help
reduce our environmental impact. Through
introducing a series of measures, including
removing all single-use plastic bottles from our
vending machines; providing our employees
with re-usable water bottles and coffee cups; and
increasing our recycling facilities, we are aiming to
become a circular office.
In order to help foster healthy communities,
we have developed partnerships with other
organisations to support primary school children,
teenagers and school leavers, including running
a primary school volunteering programme with
Business in the Community; providing mentoring
and paid work experience placements with Career
Ready; and expanding our Modern Apprenticeship
Scheme.
Finally, recognising the importance of looking
after our employees, we have invested in a rangeof initiatives designed to improve their health
and wellbeing. This has included enhancing our
family friendly policies; providing mental health
first aiders across our offices; offering wellness
sessions; and introducing an Employee Assistance
Programme, which provides our people with 24/7
access to free confidential support.
There is no doubt that there is an increasing
expectation on businesses to behave responsibly- and rightly so. In our experience the rewards
are endless. Not only are we reducing our
environmental impact and helping others outside
the organisation do likewise, but we’re also giving
our people a renewed motivation to come to work,
knowing they truly can make a positive difference.
Find out more at business-stream.co.ukMAKING A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE WITH
BUSINESS STREAM
Business Stream’s Making a Positive Difference
Launch Event – September 2019Johanna Dow, Chief Executive