Colleagues from across Pennon Group’s water businesses have sat down with their future customers to understand more about their priorities and to share the companies’ future plans.
As part of Pennon’s annual insight programme, the company held four workshops in February in Truro, Exeter, Bristol and Bournemouth. The sessions are part of a series of engagement activity by Pennon’s water businesses South West Water, Bristol Water and Bournemouth Water, to share its future plans with young people and to find out their priorities.
The all-day workshops featured a short introduction to the water industry followed by a series of interactive activities, including the chance for the youngsters to give a Dragons’ Den style pitch on a water resources topic provided to them, with only 20 minutes to prepare.
Pennon teams praised the pitches, which covered subjects like how customers are charged for the water they use, smart metering and the benefits it can provide, and the future of water resources across the region. This provided valuable views on important topics for the company to better understand the priorities of its future bill payers.
The Pennon team were also impressed with how articulate the students were, and how much they understood the environmental pressures the water industry faces due to population growth and climate change.
Having explored what the future may look like for a young person in 2024, the students highlighted that a focus on sustainability is an expectation and a must-have for all businesses and industries, including the water sector.
Laura Flowerdew, Pennon Group’s Chief Customer and Digital Officer, said: “We’re always looking to the future as outlined in our business plan from 2025-30, so it was a great to be able to discuss our upcoming plans with the next generation of customers and decision makers, but perhaps more importantly, to explore what their priorities were. Their feedback will be invaluable as we finalise our plans for the region, for the benefit of everyone.”
Pennon’s plan for 2025-30 features £2.8 billion of investment and an increase of 2,000 jobs in the region. It focuses on four key priorities: investing in water quality and resilience, tackling storm overflows, delivering for customers and addressing affordability, and achieving net zero.
The Youth Board events form part of Pennon’s ongoing commitment to young people across the region. The company has recently doubled its apprenticeship and graduate schemes with plans to recruit 1,000 people by 2030, along with offering 5,000 work placement opportunities.
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