ONE of the largest private-sector employers in the East of England is again sponsoring the Employee of the Year category in The Hunts Post Huntingdonshire Business of the Year Awards 2009. We are one of the largest employers in the region and recognise t

ONE of the largest private-sector employers in the East of England is again sponsoring the Employee of the Year category in The Hunts Post Huntingdonshire Business of the Year Awards 2009.

"We are one of the largest employers in the region and recognise the importance of the contribution our employees make to the success of our business, said Huntingdon-based Anglian Water's corporate responsibility manager Ramani Vaheesan.

"Anglian Water is one of the leading water companies today, primarily due to the commitment and hard work of its people. There are a lot of dedicated employees out there and we wanted to celebrate their service by sponsoring this award."

AW supplies water and sewerage services to the largest, driest and flattest geographical region of any water company in England and Wales. With more than five million customers, what the company does is fundamental to the communities we serve and the future of our region.

"We take seriously our responsibilities as one of the region's largest employers, investing heavily in the health and safety of our 3,800 employees who we believe are key to our success," Ms Vaheesan said.

"Climate change is the biggest threat we face and we see ourselves as being on the front line in our region in combating the worst impacts. Changes in rainfall patterns, temperatures and sea levels could affect almost every part of our business, and more extreme weather events are already having an impact.

"We are embedding our response to the challenges of climate change into our decision-making processes across the business, ensuring it is integrated into everything we do," she explained.

"We are ensuring our infrastructure has the resilience to cope with the changing climate by assessing, for example, the vulnerability of our critical assets, sites and infrastructure to potential changes in flood risk and sea-level rise. We have also been working closely with external organisations, for example the Met Office to understand how future changes in rainfall might affect our sewer design standards."

Anglian Water was a very different animal half a dozen years ago, when it had aspirations to become a multi-disciplinary multi-national corporation, as chief executive Jonson Cox explained in an interview with The Hunts Post last year. Since then it has re-invented itself, divesting its overseas assets and turning itself back into a regional water company, solidly embedded in eastern England's communities.

It is a strategy that staff clearly like. Staff turnover is as low as employee satisfaction is high, even if there was a threatened strike by a few workers last month.

AW has undertaken an ambitious programme of employee awareness of the need to conserve not just water but energy and biodiversity as a practical contribution to mitigating climate change.

It has introduced a green travel award and green teams that meet periodically to share best practice, Ms Vaheesan said.

"We have communicated the importance of biodiversity to our employees through the intranet and in the internal magazine. A field guide for all employees was published at the end of 2008.

"As we are in the enviable position of touching the lives of all those who reside in our region, we are determined to demonstrate our commitment to protecting the environment and be seen as a leading voice in the climate change debate.