Our People & Planet Plan is built on strong foundations that ensure we act fairly and ethically in everything we do.
Together, they support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Global Compact.
2023 Achievements
£500m
Support for vulnerable customers via mandatory and voluntary contributions
700
Additional customer service agents hired in the UK
Top Tier
CCLA Mental Health Benchmark
7.7/10
Colleague engagement
Our Foundations
Our People & Planet is underpinned by our foundations - which cover Customers, Colleagues, Communities and Ethics, and the Environment.
Customers
We want to be there for our customers, whenever they need a helping hand.
Vulnerable customers
The cost of energy remains a worry for many. That’s why since 2022, we’ve created the largest voluntary energy support package for customers which totals £140 million and provides vital support during the energy crisis. In total during 2023, we gave nearly £500 million in mandatory and voluntary contributions to provide debt advice, grants and energy efficiency measures to those struggling with their energy bills.
Customer service
We strive to provide an excellent service to customers. Towards this, we invested in customer service systems, training and provided 700 additional call centre agents. This helped contribute to an improvement in net promoter scores and complaints for the majority of our customer-facing businesses but not all. We remain focused in providing a better service to customers through our continued focus on energising a greener, fairer future.
Colleagues
We want our people to feel safe, engaged and rewarded.
Safety & Wellbeing
Keeping our colleagues and customers safe is key. We continue to build and reinforce a culture focused on safety, while constantly striving to improve controls and monitoring. We’re also focused on mental health provision and prevention, including via our 100-strong network of mental health first aiders and free healthcare.
Colleague Engagement
Motivated and engaged colleagues are key to our ability to deliver for our customers because they’re the beating heart of our business. We're continuously working to make Centrica a more inclusive and supportive place to work. Our colleague engagement scores reflect this, improving by 0.3 points to 7.7/10 in 2023.
Reward and Remuneration
We reward our people fairly. This includes being a Real Living Wage employer in the UK, upholding equal pay and working hard to reduce our gender and ethnicity pay gaps, which we’re making good progress on.
Communities
Our scale and passion enable us to be a force for good in our communities.
Supply Chain
A reliable and ethical supply chain is vital to serve our customers and support our communities. In 2023, we continued to target high standards to maximise opportunities and minimise risk. This included rolling out 20 on-the-ground site audits and issuing over 6,500 remote worker surveys. Although no serious non-conformance was detected, we agreed 142 improvement opportunities to continuously raise standards.
Human Rights
Upholding the human rights of everybody who works for us or with us, is a priority. We ensure that colleagues in higher risk countries are safeguarded and aim to protect and advance the rights of those in our supply chain. To date, we’ve identified no instance of modern slavery but we remain vigilant.
Environment
Alongside our focus on getting to net zero, we also aim to reduce our wider environmental impact.
Water
Efficient water management is essential. While we don’t operate water-intensive activities in water-stressed zones, we seek to minimise use of this vital resource. In 2023 our water consumption remained relatively steady, increasing by 6% to 335,512m3.
Waste
We aim to reduce, reuse and recycle as much waste as we can to avoid landfill. We’re also working to eliminate single-use plastic. In 2023, our waste decreased by 19% to 15,161 tonnes due to a reduction in decommissioning works and process enhancements.
Biodiversity
We continue to manage our business’ impact on biodiversity, particularly in energy generation where the potential impact is greatest. We run impact assessments and develop action plans that involve colleagues and communities wherever possible.
Air emissions
We strive to reduce air pollutants. This includes the combustion of natural gas in power generation which releases pollutants like Nitrogen Oxides and Sulphur Dioxide.
Performance & Reporting
Access reports and explore our Data Centre to find out more about our responsible business performance
