Contact Energy | About Us

Positively part of our communities

We live, work and operate in communities throughout the country, and we know that our every action has an impact on the people and the environment around us.

We are a New Zealand business.

Our philosophy is to ‘be the neighbour you’d want to have’. To us, this means respecting the rights of others, ensuring the safe and best practice operation of our sites, and making a positive contribution to the communities we call home.

It’s an approach that works, and in 2016 we were the proud recipient of a BACS Good Business Egg Award for Community Empowerment. To celebrate our win, we donated $20,000 to the Women’s Refuge to support the work they’re doing with families across New Zealand.

Community partnerships

At Contact we like to keep things local. We have a diversity of communities we connect with and to help us deliver on their needs our approach is to understand the nitty gritty of their needs and aspirations so we can create true meaningful partnerships into the future. It’s not only rewarding, it’s vital to the ongoing success of our business.

Contact Epic

First raced in 2008, the 125 kilometre Contact Epic is a rare opportunity to ride around the Lake Hawea. The event starts on top of our Hawea Dam and takes riders over Department of Conservation and private land in one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand. We have been principle partner since the Epic's inception and we are proud to support a major highlight on the local calendar and the locals who help make it happen. A Community Fund has been to “pay forward” a percentage of funds raised by rider entry fees to help support the Hawea District community.

Swimwell Taupo

We've been a proud member of the Taupō community for decades. So in 2010, we decided to ask the people of Taupō what organisation in the community they thought needed our support. Swim Well Taupō was the winner and we've continued to support it ever since. The programme provides free swimming and water safety lessons to around 3,000 students aged 5-18yr in the Taupō area each year. To date we’ve supported 150,000 swimming lessons for 20,000 kids.

Alexandra Blossom Festival

Contact has been a major sponsor of the colourful Alexandra Blossom Festival since 2004. In 2008 we became “Principle Partner” of the Festival and Grand Procession, a street parade of locally built floats, traditionally covered with thousands of carefully applied individual blossoms. This family-friendly event is now over 60 years old and takes place close to the Clyde Dam.

Kids Greening Taupo

Kids Greening Taupō is an education and environmental programme which aims to increase the native flora and fauna of the district for the benefit of its people, businesses and natural environment. Kids Greening Taupō provides the link between local schools and Greening Taupō getting students actively involved with projects to increase biodiversity and solve environmental problems. In 2017 Contact is sponsoring the “Take Action Fund” for this programme, providing valuable funding to enable kids to get out there planting.

Reporoa College CACTUS

CACTUS is an eight-week long, youth development programme run by the police and school. The symbol of the cactus relates to the determination of the trainers to get to the good on the inside of each and every student. There is a strong focus on physical training, team building and problem solving during the programme and the school has noted that for many students this course will be a life changing achievement. 2017 marks the third year that Contact has been involved with this programme, which this year includes our employees and students joining with local iwi, Ngati Tahu to share experiences and stories during the course.

Lake Dunstan

To help the recreational users of Lake Dunstan to gauge weather conditions before heading off on their trips to the Lake, we installed a webcam at the top of Clyde Dam. It came after a suggestion from local users of the lake wanting up-to-date information before they started their journey.

The webcam provides a panoramic view over the lake from the top of Clyde Dam. And it's updated every 15 minutes, ensuring an accurate take on current conditions. Click here to view the webcam of Lake Dunstan.

Webcam supplied by Snowgrass Solutions.

Kiwi Contact

Contact is celebrating the birth of a new company initiative that gives staff the opportunity to help save New Zealand’s endangered national bird – the humble kiwi.

‘Kiwi Contact’ provides support for Kiwi Forever, an educational programme focused on kiwi conservation run by the Department of Conservation (DOC) and independent charity Kiwis for Kiwi. This initiative is new pilot programme involving local Taupo schools and staff.

Being a good neighbour

We have around 45 sites across New Zealand, including 11 power stations. We work hard to make sure our operations are safe, and to reduce and mitigate any issues that may impact on our neighbours.

Backing our people to do good

In addition to our regional partnerships we have an employee volunteer programme which enables our people across Contact to contribute part of their time to good causes. We call this Community Contact and each year we have 8,000 hours available to help causes all over the country.

Got a project you’d like some help with? Get in touch here on 0800 000 458.

We love supporting the good work happening in our communities. While we can’t always support we’d love to hear about the good work you’re doing, and if we can help we will.

For sponsorship, community investment and other enquires contact: sponsorships@contactenergy.co.nz

If you live around one of our power stations or offices and want to get in touch, give us a shout on 0800 000 458 (North Island) or 0800 66 33 35 (South Island).