Talking Energy 2009 Performance

Few, if any, industries are facing challenges as far reaching as those facing the energy industry because they strike at the very fabric of our society.The challenges are now well documented. They are threefold and in our eyes, inextricably linked: we need to provide our customers with affordable and secure supplies of energy and do so in a way that’s less harmful to the planet.

We’ve made good progress on all these fronts during 2009.

We reduced our carbon intensity by 8% with a figure of 529 ktCO2/TWh at the end of 2009. We also achieved the largest reduction to date in our own energy consumption, down by 8% on the 2008 figure.

We’ve continued to put our customers at the heart of everything we do. We know that without them, our business will cease to exist. That’s why we’re constantly looking at how we can improve the service and products we offer them. In particular, we aim to offer them practical help and advice to keep energy affordable; this is extremely important in light of the global recession that’s affecting everyone, but particularly those who already struggle to pay their bills. Last year, for example, we spent more than £20 million on supporting our most needy customers. We launched a ground-breaking project, Challenge 100, to seek to eradicate fuel poverty from 100 homes in 100 days. This will give us invaluable information on how best to tackle fuel poverty on a wider scale; we toured the country to offer free energy efficiency advice, through events like our Winter Bureau roadshows, helping people understand which tariff best suits them and how they can save on their bills.

We’ve introduced net promoter scores (NPS) as our key method of getting feedback from customers on how satisfied they are with the service we provide them. To date, we have received more than 40,000 customer feedback comments and we’ve already refined our processes as a result of what they’ve told us.

We’ve continued to ensure our business is sustainable for the long-term and this has involved making some tough decisions in light of the global recession. So 2009 saw the loss of around 450 jobs, mainly due to restructuring in our retail and energy services businesses. Employees affected were consulted at every stage and those who did leave received support in finding new jobs.

Delivering affordable, reliable and low carbon energy to our customers remains our focus for 2010.

In particular, we’ve begun to engage with our customers to understand the journey we want them to take with us to a low carbon future. So we’ve launched an external campaign to explain in an open and honest way why an energy company like us would encourage its customers to use less of its product – because we want more customers who are loyal to us because we’ve helped them reduce their energy bills. To support this, our nationwide Energy Fit campaign offers customers an energy monitor to check on their usage. We’ve launched two new solar power products and will continue to develop and launch new, leading edge technology based products to provide customers with low-cost, low carbon energy. Smart meters will be in all UK homes by 2020, and we’re working closely with the Government to be at the forefront of what will be one of the biggest undertakings since privatisation.

We remain committed to developing the balanced portfolio of generation options we believe we need to solve our trilemma, including renewables, gas, clean coal and nuclear. However, the effects of the recession on the UK economy have slowed down the requirement for new generating capacity in the short to mid term and we’ve therefore put on hold a number of projects, including our proposed clean coal plant with carbon capture and storage at Kingsnorth in Kent and our new gas-fired power station at Drakelow in Derbyshire. We will continue to monitor the ongoing energy requirements in the UK.

Central Networks , our distribution business, is facing a crucial period over the next five years as it prepares to meet the levels of customer service required under the Distribution Review for Period 5 (DR5) set by the Regulator and continues to upgrade the network to cope with the future requirements of smart meters and smart grids. To do this, we’ve put in place three ground-breaking alliances with partner companies – a first for any distribution business in the UK – to deliver new levels of expertise and performance.

This report reflects our approach to how we do business, and captures our performance, in relation to our Changing Energy strategy. Changing Energy is driving our efforts to deliver sustainable solutions to current and future energy challenges. We're aiming to transform every aspect of energy: how we make it, how it's used, and society's understanding of it.

To achieve this, we've identified our Corporate Responsibilities to provide the framework and direction for our actions and to demonstrate our responsible and sustainable approach to how we do business. By explicitly defining our responsibilities, we can focus our efforts so that customers and other stakeholders will know what to expect.

Our CR report is available online where you can find a comprehensive account of our business performance, with charts, comparisons and case studies.

We have also produced a pocket-sized 'CR in brief' leaflet summarising our approach to CR and signposting readers to this web-based report.

The report has been compiled using the G3 guidelines from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). this highlights E.ON's activity across the UK and complements the E.ON Group CR report 2009 available on our Group website, www.eon.com.

The data in this report covers the 1 January to 31 December 2009 reporting period unless stated otherwise and has been independently verified by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The Directors are responsible for the content of this report and the preparation of the selected information in accordance with the criteria set out in the Reporting Guidance. The E.ON UK management is also responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the Company’s ‘Our responsibilities’ website.

We're continually looking for ways to improve our reporting and actively seek feedback from a wide range of stakeholders about what they would like to see in future reports. So if you have questions or feedback about this report, or the company's CR activities in general, please contact the Corporate Responsibility team, E.ON UK, Westwood Way, Westwood Business Park, Coventry CV4 8LG cr@eon-uk.com.