Centrica’s group chief executive on why being a responsible business matters

Iain Conn, Group Chief Executive, Centrica

 

Our responsible business ambitions bring Centrica’s purpose to life. Of course, we’re in business to satisfy the changing needs of our customers through energy and services, and thereby to create long-term shareholder value through returns and growth. But we’re also in business to be a trusted corporate citizen, an employer of choice and a 21st century energy and services company.

 

Our ambitions are designed around four pillars, namely our customers, climate change, colleagues and the communities in which we operate. Together they give meaning to the goal of helping you run your world in ever more sustainable ways. We’ve been active in each of these areas for many years but wanted to bring them all together and set specific targets for 2030. Like other businesses, we have used the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a guide, mapping the challenges facing society against our capabilities, to better understand how we can make the greatest contribution.

 

In the matter of climate change, we’ve laid out clear goals to 2030 in the three areas where we can make a real difference as a responsible energy and services company. The first is to help our customers reduce their emissions. The second is to enable a decarbonised energy system through flexible, distributed and low-carbon technologies. And the third area, of course, is to address our own emissions, where we have delivered an 80 per cent reduction in the last decade. We are now working towards reducing our internal carbon footprint by 35 per cent in the ten years to 2025, to demonstrate by 2030 that we are on track with the Paris Accord, and to develop a path to net zero by 2050.

 

Through these ambitions, we can play a part in helping the communities in which we operate to manage their energy more efficiently and contributing through volunteering and skills development. With our employees, we are creating the right environment for people to succeed, and we’re promoting STEM skills and improving diversity and inclusion. For our customers, we are bringing new energy technology which will make a real difference to how they run their lives. As a company involved in energy, our climate change goals are of fundamental importance and are built around our customers, the energy system and our own emissions.

Our ambitions are not going to be easy, but setting challenging goals is the right thing for our company. They will also help us deliver better long-term sustainable value for all our stakeholders.

 

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To find out more about Centrica’s Responsible Business Ambitions, click here.