Social sustainability
We know that the way we do things has an impact on people, whether it’s our colleagues or our communities. We aim to conduct our business in a way that contributes positively and shares value. This means creating a fair and inclusive place to work and giving back to our local communities.
In SSE Thermal, we have a proud legacy of local investment and charity work, ensuring we’re making a positive difference for the areas in which we live and work. From funding life-saving equipment to making charitable donations for each month our sites go injury free, our community investment is driven by our people for local causes they truly care about.
"Working with our teams really allows you to understand the sense of family that each project creates. We’re committed to making a direct and positive impact on the local community through the work we do."
Jade Fernandez Head of Stakeholder Engagement
Fairness at work
SSE has been a proud Living Wage employer in the UK since 2013, meaning our employees earn an hourly rate that exceeds the national living wage.
In 2016, SSE was the first large corporate business in the Republic of Ireland to become a Living Wage employer.
Employee volunteering
Through our Be the Difference programme, each of our employees can take a day away from their usual job to help a charity or community group of their choice. We're proud to regularly donate our time and skills to help support schools, sports clubs, and others local organisations.
If you know of a charity or community project that could use our help, or if you want any further information, please email [email protected]
Promoting diversity and inclusion
We have been taking measures to attract and retain a genuinely diverse workforce. We recognise there is a lack of diversity across the entire energy industry. We also know diverse and inclusive organisations are more likely to be innovative and commercially successful.
SSE was one of the first FTSE-listed companies to publish its gender pay gap and the steps it is taking to close it. We also work with inclusion specialists, Equal Approach, to quantify the financial return on investing in inclusion.
Principles of Engagement
SSE Thermal is committed to ensuring that our projects are built on a foundation of meaningful stakeholder engagement that understands and addresses the needs of communities.
We work collaboratively with our stakeholders and communities across a project's lifecycle to ensure positive benefits are felt within the communities in which we operate.
Communication – We are open and transparent, delivering effective, timely and regular communication.
Collaboration – We seek the views and opinions of a wide range of stakeholders and work in partnership with interested parties to develop our proposals.
Implementation – We work alongside our project delivery teams to implement changes to our proposals through design and delivery where possible.
We have published Principles of Engagement which provides more information about the principles we are committed to and the tools we use to achieve engagement.