We're committed to maintaining high standards of corporate governance and to ensuring that we appropriately identify and manage relevant risks. Energy is an indispensable part of our daily lives. Reliable and affordable energy forms the foundation of a strong economy and is the basis for the prosperity of society as a whole. Access to environmentally less-harmful energy is an essential requirement for growth and sustainable development around the world.

As an energy and service provider, we bear a special responsibility, to ensure the efficient use of energy resources, to help bring about a sustainable energy economy in which we can play an active role in society's energy future.

We can only achieve this if we do business responsibly. This means that we have to take a long-term view and a balanced approach to our financial resources and performance, environmental protection and social engagement. We will work to earn, maintain and enhance the trust of our stakeholders in a fast-changing landscape of economic, social and environmental conditions.

For this to be successful we must work further towards integrating Corporate Responsibility (CR) into everyday business activity. In 2007 the E.ON Group was listed for the first time in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, showing that our performance places us amongst the top 10 percent of energy companies in this respect.

Our Chief Executive, Paul Golby, is co-chair of the E.ON Group Corporate Responsibility Council which makes recommendations to the Board, oversees CR management and strategy, and monitors implementation of CR goals. Our General Counsel and Company Secretary also sits on the Group CR Council and is responsible for CR in the UK and ensures that it features regularly on the Board agenda.

We appointed a new Head of CR in the UK to ensure we have a robust CR programme. She works with a network of CR Partners from across the UK business to facilitate discussion and further embed CR within everyday business practice.

Our day-to-day business is managed through the Executive Board, which meets weekly, and through the leadership teams of our main business units. The Executive Board consists of the members of the E.ON UK Board plus the Managing Directors of Energy Services and Business Services and the General Counsel. Trading risk and hedging activities are controlled through a Risk Management Executive, which meets on a monthly basis to consider key risk and operational issues affecting our retail, generation and trading businesses. It also reviews regulatory risks affecting the business.

We have in place a set of 12 policies, approved by the Executive Board, that apply to all employees and cover risks with a high potential impact on our ability to deliver our business objectives effectively. These cover areas such as environment, competition and regulatory, health and safety and risk, anti-fraud, data protection and IT acceptable use. They are managed by a crossbusiness Policy Review Group which co-ordinates their promotion and review. The Executive Board policies were extensively reassessed and revised during 2007 to make them simpler and more accessible for employees. We also carried out a major communication exercise to ensure everyone was aware of their responsibilities under these policies.