Our charitable contributions, programs, and community events align with our commitment to enhancing the quality of life in our communities by fostering economic growth, education, and well-being.
Built by our Government & Community Affairs team in collaboration with local management, our community giving plan supports organizations that share our commitment to helping others. Our community partners also provide input on program information and community benefits so we can regularly evaluate and improve upon our performance.
We engage in multiple, long-standing initiatives designed to support the communities that we serve. Examples of our ongoing initiatives include:
We donated a total of approximately $1.58 million to local organizations through our philanthropic activities. Top giving categories included assistance for at-risk, under-served and disadvantaged communities; community improvement, economic and workforce development; and education.
Other highlights of our community support efforts in 2022 include the following:
By striving to maintain open, transparent, and consistent communication with our stakeholders, we gain a better understanding of our actual and potential impacts. Positive community relationships allow us to gather input, address concerns, and incorporate feedback to enhance our practices and better serve our communities.
We seek to build trusting, positive connections with our key stakeholders in order to provide transparency, discuss and understand the needs of our communities, and identify ESG focus areas. Conversations with community stakeholders usually occur on a weekly—if not daily—basis. Additionally, our Government & Community Affairs team and local management teams collaborate annually to prepare a Community Engagement Conspectus, which outlines a consistent engagement approach across service areas and offers opportunities for our managers to enhance community involvement and philanthropic giving. We promote local community engagement through management participation in citizen advisory committees, service clubs, and community boards.
In collaboration with our partners, we also continue to advocate for reliable access to safe, clean, and affordable water for our customers and communities. We do this by supporting policies that fund critical water infrastructure, enhance assistance for low-income customers, and contribute to water availability. For information about legislation we support, see the Public Policy and Political Involvement section.
For all main replacement and other capital projects that may cause a temporary inconvenience, we send letters to nearby customers to provide advance notice of the project, including details on project location, duration, process, and potential water service disruptions. Depending on the size and impact of the project, we may conduct additional outreach to other stakeholders through direct engagement; press releases; digital and social media communications; community meetings; and other communication channels.
We engage stakeholder groups in the following manners and topics:
| Stakeholder Group | Primary Engagement Methods | Key ESG Topics and Focus Areas |
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| Customers, Communities, and “Grasstop” Stakeholders (i.e., city council members, county supervisors, chambers of commerce board members) |
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| Employees |
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| Industry Associations |
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| Investors |
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| Non-Governmental Organizations and Activists |
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| Regulators and Legislators |
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| Suppliers |
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We maintain memberships in a variety of associations:
Through our Quorum engagement platform, our local management and Government & Community Affairs teams can efficiently monitor and track our stakeholder engagement activities. The platform serves as a repository for political, regulatory, and community outreach efforts and streamlines processes to evaluate interactions. Using this tool, we track engagement channels, tone, location, issues, support from team members, and participating stakeholders. We require local management in California to report stakeholder interactions through this platform, which continues to offer insights about our engagement.
We use various other mechanisms to collect, report, and address feedback, which informs future stakeholder engagement activities. In support of continued improvement, we leverage customer satisfaction surveys, and after-call surveys to provide vital input on service delivery. See the Customer Service section for details.
We also hold public participation hearings (PPHs) that allow community members to voice opinions on specific projects. Open communication informs our approach to minimizing impacts and improving service for customers. In addition to our regular engagements, we may hold community meetings and participate in panel discussions about the drought to answer questions and review our drought management.
We are proud to work with Water Education for Latino Leaders (WELL), an organization that creates educational opportunities, fosters inclusive cultures, increases the effectiveness of local leaders, and contributes to healthy communities. Multiple employees represented Group at the WELL 2022 Central Valley conference, and our Chief Water Resource Sustainability Officer was a speaker for a panel on “The Economic Impacts of Drought and Potential Solutions for Communities.”
Additionally, one of our District Managers was a member of the 2022 program, which included 14 elected officials within California. Through this fellowship program, the group travelled to different areas in California to learn about regional water challenges, best practices for watershed management, water conveyance systems, water contaminants, and other critical issues. The participants developed the interpersonal and leadership skills to positively contribute to California water policy.
We established and expanded multiple initiatives in 2022:
In 2022, Cal Water team members attended nearly 100 meetings of local governing bodies, such as city councils. We also had more than 1,670 interactions with community stakeholders in California, from local mayors to members of Congress. The top five topics discussed during our interactions were:
Natural disasters, fire events, spills, Public Safety Power Shutoffs, water contamination, and other emergency events require rapid response to help mitigate harm to our communities and maintain service during crises. Our goal is to always be prepared.
At Group, we strive for agility and reduce the potential impact of emergencies through diligent maintenance, education, and communication. Our policy includes conducting regular inspections of fire safety equipment and maintaining clear paths to exits. We seek to align all employee training and procedures with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 30 and OSHA 10 certification. As part of our wildfire hardening strategy, we conduct annual vegetation management intended to reduce the chance of wildfires spreading to our facilities.
We also monitor external threats to our infrastructure by tracking communications from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Infragard, a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the private sector to protect critical infrastructure. In addition, employees are encouraged to report any suspicious activity through multiple convenient channels that are monitored around the clock.
We coordinate training and tabletop exercises across our service areas intended to prepare for emergencies, and we provide a comprehensive Emergency Action Guidebook to all employees. In addition to this guidance, which includes hazard-specific checklists for various emergency scenarios, we develop unique, location-specific Emergency Response Plans. To help meet our goal of 100% employee participation in emergency response training, we hold annual training to all employees and provide additional training for field employees. Internal training and simulations test our evacuation practices and the functionality of emergency equipment. We believe that our ongoing commitment to training, exercise drills, and continuous improvement contributes to a robust risk mitigation program.
Effective preparation for and response during emergencies requires collaboration with our communities. Across our regions, our Operations and Community Emergency Response Team hosts annual Emergency Operations Center (EOC) training events in coordination with local first responders, police departments, contractors, city employees, elected officials, electric utilities, and other key stakeholders. EOC training exercises promote community preparedness, resilience, and outreach. Managers and employees also receive internal EOC training to learn how to more efficiently respond within the command framework and support EOCs when emergencies occur in other districts. Our procedures are designed to align with guidance from the Standardized Emergency Management System and National Incident Management System.
Wildfires and electricity interruptions present significant risks to our business and require us to be prepared. To help mitigate these risks, we have leveraged findings from our Wildfire Risk Assessment for Wildfire Hardening study to prioritize key initiatives, including main replacement projects, improvements to system interconnections, and the formation of our Wildfire Taskforce, which guides our emergency preparedness efforts by confirming completion of relevant training, upkeep of vegetation management, and the placement of critical equipment in strategic locations. The taskforce also helps maintain open lines of communication with fire agencies and other first responders. Additionally, our annual wildfire training reviews standard operating procedures for fire hydrant inspections, hydro pack operations and maintenance, fire prevention, dry weather monitoring, and responses to changing air quality.
During emergencies, we strive to keep our employees and communities safe while delivering a reliable supply of water to customers and first responders. Supplemented by mobile offices as needed, our EOCs act as central command centers that enable communication with relevant external stakeholders to organize emergency response and recovery, including the distribution of essential equipment, resources, and support. As a participant of mutual aid programs in multiple states, we share resources across communities, support systematic processing of mutual aid requests, and contribute to collective approaches for community protection. We continue to work with organizations to implement similar programs across all subsidiaries.
Our investments in backup-power generators, portable power sources, and other equipment allow us to restore and maintain service during emergencies, which may increasingly include events caused by climate-related risks. To help our customers through emergencies during after-hours operations, we provide additional customer service lines to answer concerns and provide updates.
Emergency events may leave long-lasting impacts on the community and our employees, so we typically extend our response and recovery efforts beyond the end of a crisis, providing water, food, and information to the affected community. In accordance with our disaster relief plan, we offer bill discounts and assistance to those who have lost their homes. Employees can also receive support for emotional wellness and recovery through a peer-to-peer support program and the professional CareBridge Employee Assistance Program. For more information on our employee health and wellbeing services, see the Compensation, Benefits, and Employee Wellbeing section.
By tracking our progress, executing tactical projects, and regularly evolving our strategy, we are better able to support the long-term resiliency of our operations to emergency events. We evaluate our emergency response by using after-action reports, tracking alignment with regulatory requirements, and leveraging post-incident evaluations to identify opportunities for future improvements. During our annual review of significant emergency events, we facilitate discussions that are designed to inform the next year’s training and planning activities.
In 2022, we hosted a bioterrorism-focused training drill with representatives from multiple agencies, including the FBI, Butte County Inter-Agency Bomb Squad, Cal Fire, Chico Police Department, Cal OES, and City of Chico. All agencies used the joint exercise to practice emergency responses to potential scenarios, such as water supply tampering and discovery of suspicious devices, to strengthen our preparation and coordination in advance of any future events.