ENGAGING WITH OUR STAKEHOLDERS. Building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders across our business is crucial to our success. Our strategy and business plans are developed with consideration given to the relevant needs and wants identified by these stakeholders as most important to them. Stakeholders, their specific role, how we engage with them and what’s important to them are described here.
CUSTOMERS
PARTNERSHIPS
GOVERNMENT & REGULATORS
COMMUNITY
Customers sustain our business, provide the foundation for continued growth and future product development.
Via our partnerships, we seek and deliver opportunities through which we can develop mutually beneficial ventures aligned with our mission, purpose, vision and goal.
Government and regulators set the regulatory frameworks that determine our operating environment and provide the construct within which we can develop our business.
Our community relationships provide us with support to operate and the context to better understand the social and environmental issues we face in our communities.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO THEM ABOUT MERCURY? • Customer experience
• Natural resources
• Generation development
• Natural resources
• Customer loyalty
• Generation development
• Sustainable growth
• Generation development
• Natural resources
• Climate change
• Climate change
• Sustainable growth
HOW DO WE ENGAGE WITH THEM? Our customers are at the core of everything we do. Understanding their needs, expectations and what they care about helps us to have in place the products and services that earn their business. Our customer relationships are valued, and often longstanding. We strive for effective and responsive customer engagement, proactively seeking feedback and input through several avenues including: through our Customer Engagement Centre (via calls, email, direct mail); our website and My Account portal; via social media; customer surveys and market research; and through our community partnerships, sponsorships and events.
Some of the ways we engage with our partners are through commercial joint ventures, customer reward partnerships, and by dedicating time and effort into understanding each other’s business. We build positive, mutually beneficial, longstanding relationships with the communities in which we operate.
We work collaboratively at different levels of government and with other governing entities to develop solutions, identify opportunities, and overcome challenges. Engagement takes place through formal scheduled meetings, responses to submissions, ministerial briefings, and participation in energy industry events and regulatory/political forums. We host site visits and engage through the development of external reports that we commission or contribute to.
Key team members actively participate in a variety of community forums. We also sponsor events in the communities in which we operate and respond to river flow and lake level requests from our communities. Through our role in the Waikato Catchment Ecological Enhancement Trust (WCEET), we engage on improvements to the natural and social environments which the business depends upon. We work with budgeting groups and government agencies to understand and better support the needs of vulnerable customers.
ENGAGING WITH OUR STAKEHOLDERS IS CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE