Celebrating Pride month
Pride is incredibly important to us at Good Energy. In this article we explain about the history of Pride month, share the exciting news that we are the headline sponsor of Chippenham Pride, and we explain how we make Good Energy a welcoming and inclusive place to work.
What’s the history of Pride month and why is it important?
Pride Month is celebrated in June, to coincide with the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising in 1969. The Stonewall Inn was one of the most popular LGBT friendly venues in New York city. At this time, police raids on gay bars were very common, but in June 1969, a violent raid led to six days of riots and protests; and it became a catalyst for LGBT political activism around the world.
Pride provides a safe space for members of the LGBT community and their allies to come together to celebrate love in all its forms. It’s also a stark reminder that there’s still work to be done to make the world fairer for everyone. In the UK at the moment, the trans community is particularly vulnerable, with mainstream political lobbying against trans rights and still no ban on conversion therapy for trans people.
We’re the headline sponsor of Chippenham Pride 2024
When: 12pm Saturday 15th June 2024
Where: Monkton Park, Chippenham
What: A colourful march through the town at 12pm, followed by 10 hours of main stage entertainment, as well as cabaret and education stages, a bar, and a wide range of stalls offering food and drinks.
“We are proud to support such an important event in the town’s calendar and hope it will be a tremendous success.
“We’re committed to building a business that attracts and retains talented people from all walks of life and reflects modern society. This means valuing people’s differences and recognising the strength that they give us, allowing them to bring their true selves to work. We look forward to working with the organisers to celebrate everyone in our community and will be encouraging other local businesses to lend their support too.” Mair Horscroft, Good Energy Inclusion Champion Co-chair
What do we do to make Good Energy an inclusive workplace?
We understand that diversity and inclusion isn’t just for June. One of our core values is inclusion, and we’re committed to making sure Good Energy is a diverse and welcoming place to work.
Some of our projects include:
- Setting up our Inclusion Champions – this working group is made up of volunteers from around Good Energy who are passionate about diversity and inclusion. As well as organising activities and learning opportunities for events like Pride, Black History Month and International Women’s Day, they’re helping drive forward our diversity and inclusion plan, and the actions from it.
- Improving our diversity data – to know how we can improve, we need to understand where we’re starting from. We encourage our people to share information related to gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, religion or belief, disability, neurodiversity, if they feel comfortable to. This information is kept secure and anonymised, so that we can understand more about who makes up Good Energy and develop our policies to support everyone.
- Making changes to our workplace – such as providing a gender-neutral bathroom.
- Celebrating LGBT History month and Pride month – and sharing our people’s stories about why it is important to them.
- Promoting learning and development – all our people are supported to develop their careers within Good Energy, with a wide range of learning resources, training and development support – as well as an annual development allowance of £500 per person. In 2024, we launched an inclusive working course for every person in the business to help us all to learn more about unconscious bias and build the awareness, skills and confidence to challenge it.
This is just a small sample of how we’re making Good Energy more inclusive. And we know there are always ways we can improve. To find out more about how we work, read our latest Purpose Report – or check out our careers page.
Why is climate breakdown an LGBT+ issue?
People in the LGBT+ community are more likely than the general population to have less secure housing and employment. These conditions, and the risk of discrimination when trying to access support services, makes people more vulnerable during emergencies such as wars, natural disasters, and extreme weather.
