We’re united in our passion and commitment to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas. We carry out a wide variety of essential services from responding to coal mining hazards, to keeping people and the environment safe from mine water pollution. We are excited about what our future holds. Our work is helping to develop a new sustainable source of renewable energy for the UK. By harnessing the energy from mine water heat, we hope to play a key role towards helping the UK to meet net-zero emissions by 2050. We truly are a supportive organisation where we all live and breathe our values. We are inclusive, trusted and progressive in everything that we do.
In 2022:
Over the past year we have made positive progress on our commitments to improve ethnic diversity within the environment and sustainability sector by;
• Creating and publishing an Antiracism Plan 2022 -25 with our Race Equality Network, People Team and Executive Leadership Team to help us address racial equality, diversity and inclusion issues and become an employer of choice for people from ethnically diverse groups.
• Reviewing our recruitment processes and taking steps to remove opportunities for bias and actively attracting candidates from underrepresented groups. This has included anonymising all CVs and application forms during the shortlisting process, ensuring inclusive language in our job adverts, promoting family friendly and flexible working and expanding where we advertise our jobs to more targeted media to reach a wider pool of candidates e.g. Race Equality Matters jobs board.
• Supporting the development of our Race Equality Network which has continued to evolve and held variety of events throughout the year to support education and engagement of colleagues and leaders on race equality issues, including a number of inspirational keynote speakers, hosting the ‘Digging Deeper’ Black Miners Exhibition showcasing the history of Black miners and connecting colleagues through food and culture 'fuddle' events.
• Introducing voluntary Pay Gap reporting for ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation to help us better understand, measure and address inequality where it exists in our workforce.
• Introducing an Executive Race Sponsor to support strategies for success in delivering our vision for becoming an actively antiracist organisation.
In 2023:
The Coal Authority make a public commitment to work towards improving diversity within the environment and sustainability sector by;
Implementing our Antiracism Plan 2022 – 2025 to help us achieve our long term vision of being an antiracist organisation, where people from ethnically diverse backgrounds feel psychologically safe, are represented across our organisation and we are seen as a leader by our communities, partners and contractors.
During 2023 we will;
• Introduce antiracism and race equality training for all colleagues to help us better understand and address the impacts of racial inequality and have more courageous conversations about racism.
• Introduce a guaranteed interview scheme for ethnically diverse candidates who meet the minimum criteria for a vacancy.
• Pilot a reverse mentoring scheme to help build awareness of barriers faced by ethnically diverse colleagues, build inclusive leadership capabilities and approaches and empower diverse talent.