Why we’re proud to be Wales’ first ‘Fair Tax Mark’ company

Here at Welsh Water, as many of you know we like to do things a little differently.

Earlier this year, we marked our twenty-year anniversary of being the only not-for-profit utility company in England and Wales. Our unique operating model means we have no shareholders and invest any surplus money back into services and to benefit customers.

We always aim to put our customers at the heart of everything we do. So much so, our company vision is ‘to earn the trust of our customers every day’. It may not surprise you, then, that trust is extremely important to us. And we are among the most trusted across the water sector, as a Consumer Council for Water (CCW) report revealed just last month.

As an ethical and socially responsible company, transparency in everything we do is important and helps build our customers’ trust in us even further. This is why we are proud to join just over 60 organisations which are recognised for managing their tax affairs responsibly and transparently.

Through a combination of direct investment and our wider supply chain, we already support over £1 billion of economic activity. We invest around £1 million per day into our water and wastewater services, which means that in the last five years (2015-2020), we invested a total of £1.9 billion. Over the course of the next five years (2020-2025), we’ll be investing a further £1.8 billion.

We know our customers want us to not only be responsible but also transparent. In gaining this accreditation, we hope it can help our customers recognise that we really are proud to do the right thing and operate as a socially responsible business, right through from reinvesting our profits to benefit customers to paying the right tax.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the Fair Tax Mark, you can read more information here.