Dow Jones Sustainability Index

What is it?

• Biggest 2500 companies in the Dow Jones Global Total Stock Market• The indexes serve as benchmarks for investors who integrate sustainability

considerations into their portfolios• Global and regional benchmarks including World, European, Eurozone,

Nordic, North American, US, Asia Pacific, and Korean indexes. • It provides an effective platform for companies who want to adopt

sustainable best practices. • An external assessment of how companies operate as a business and if

they do so in a sustainable, responsible manner. • World index- companies are selected according to the corporate

sustainability assessment that identifies the sustainability leaders (top 10%) in each of 57 industry groups from 10 sectors.

• Over 90 questions under three headings: Environmental, Economic and Social dimensions

• Assesses our regulated operational activities as well as how we run our business

What do you get?

• Benchmarking feedback

• Reputation and brand

• Sustainability investing

• DJSI member label

• SAM Distinction

• Participation is free of charge for all companies that have been invited to take part in the assessment.  

What does it entail?

Environmental

Economic

Social

•Biodiversity•Climate strategy•Environmental reporting

•Workforce indicators •People development•Talent attraction & retention•Community Investment•H&S•Standards for suppliers•Access to water•Stakeholder engagement

•Company Governance•Risk & Crisis management•Codes of Conduct•Scorecards•Water Operations•Customer Relationship Management

Why does UU do it?

• Our vision is to become a leading service provider in the North West and to be the best UK water and wastewater company

• Underpinning this are our themes of :

– Best service to customers

– At the lowest sustainable cost

– In a responsible manner

• The DJSI gives us the means to measure how we are implementing responsibility within our business

• Responsible business practice delivers business value

– Investor confidence

– Reduced operating costs

– Compliant business activities

– Reduced business risk from future impacts

How do we embed this?

• Scorecard – This links the vision, strategic plans, goals and KPI’s. These will ensure each part of our business is clear on where its heading and how it will measure success.

• We ensure there is a golden thread from Executive KPI’s down to team KPI’s.

• The UU scorecard includes the following perspectives: Environment, Reputation, Process, People, Customer, Service, Shareholders and Society.

• Under the Society heading is a sustainability measure which is to achieve 90% of a basket of measures identified as development areas by the Dow Jones

Sustainability Plans

• Box 1- business area KPI’s and projects which directly contribute to DJSI score

• Box 2- business specific actions with four generic ones;

DJSI submission

Carbon

Community Investment

Communications

One or two business specific actions

• Target - still 90% achievement of DJSI basket of measures

– 26 of these across the business tracked centrally to give an overall picture as well as business area specific

– Has given us an anchor to help embed sustainability

Success

• So far we are on track to deliver the sustainability plans with an LBE of 96% completion

• We have retained world class for the 5th year running and have been the sector leader for the last 2 years

• We have engagement all across our business on the topic of sustainability and it is gaining momentum

• We measure this engagement via our annual employee opinion survey

• Last year we had an average score of 87% of our employees were clear what they needed to do to help us become a sustainable business

• The future- we have put a stake in the ground and are building around it, to achieve long term sustainability a long term measure is essential.

QUESTIONS ???