Northumbrian Water Group, parent company of Essex & Suffolk Water, has maintained its world title as the only water company to be added to the 2015 World’s Most Ethical Company® list for the fifth year running.

The company is also the only UK-based utility company to be awarded the title by the Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices.

The World’s Most Ethical Companies designation recognises those organisations that have had a material impact on the way business is conducted by fostering a culture of ethics and transparency at every level of the company.

The water company is one of just two UK-based companies to make it to the list, acknowledging Northumbrian Water Group’s ongoing commitment to leading ethical business standards and practices ensuring long-term value to key stakeholders including customers, employees, suppliers, regulators and investors.

Heidi Mottram, Chief Executive Officer of Northumbrian Water Group, said:

“I am delighted that this is the fifth year we have been named as the most ethical water company in the world.

“This recognises how our people across the business always keep environmental and social issues at the heart of our thinking, to provide excellent service to our customers and to contribute to the success of our local communities.”

Ethisphere’s Chief Executive Officer, Timothy Erblich, said:

“The World’s Most Ethical Companies embrace the correlation between ethical business practice and improved company performance. These companies use ethics as a means to further define their industry leadership and understand that creating an ethical culture and earning the World’s Most Ethical Companies recognition involves more than just an outward facing message or a handful of senior executives saying the right thing.

“Earning this recognition involves the collective action of a global workforce from the top down. We congratulate everyone at Northumbrian Water Group for this extraordinary achievement.”

The World's Most Ethical Company assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute’s Ethics Quotient™ (EQ) framework developed over years of research to provide a means to assess an organisation’s performance in an objective, consistent and standardised way.

The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies, rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics. The EQ framework and methodology is determined, vetted and refined by the expert advice and insights gleaned from Ethisphere’s network of thought leaders and from the World’s Most Ethical Company Methodology Advisory Panel.

Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%).