Ethics pay at firm rooted in miners' strike

Jul 20 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

Long before the world’s leaders drew up the Kyoto Protocol to battle climate change, a small firm in Newcastle devised its own plan to help save the planet. The firm quickly became an international empire with a staff of thousands. Andrew Mernin speaks to Eaga's new chief executive Drew Johnson to find out more.

FROM the wreckage of a coal industry crushed under the wheels of change emerged an organisation offering hope to downhearted mine workers.

Years of pit closures and strikes had left the region’s mining community at its lowest ebb by the late 1980s as anger gave way to acceptance of the fall of King Coal’s empire.

But as many mourned the passing of a once great industry and nursed their anger at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as the cause, a new business was formed, driven by a need to fill the jobs void left behind.

Less than two decades later that Newcastle company employs close to 5,000 people – 1,500 in the North East – and has enjoyed exponential growth in the past few years.

Eaga’s first chief executive John Clough helped lay the foundations of the business after leaving the helm of British Coal’s Monkton cokeworks on its closure in 1990.

Three months later, following the same path, came his British Coal colleague and ultimate successor Drew Johnson, who today is modest about the firm’s achievements. “We are doing OK, especially compared to the rest of the world, but you can’t take anything for granted,” he says.

In fact, in recent years the firm has seen 25% year-on-year expansion and it is on target this year to beat annual revenue forecasts of £700m.

The green support services firm is perhaps best known for its work on the Government’s Warm Front scheme, which aims to eliminate fuel poverty by helping vulnerable and hard-up people save energy.

Alongside 150 commercial contracts, it is also charged with implementing the BBC’s digital switchover from an analogue to a digital TV signal.

Mr Johnson, who served for some time as commercial director, assumed the chief executive’s mantle this month after Mr Clough stepped down because of ill health. He has already made plain his intention to make his mark on the company, although he believes this will be through evolution rather than revolution. “It’s a competitive world and we need to maintain our focus on the current markets,” he says. “The two new markets that people are starting to recognise are in the area of renewables and we will be looking to drive that in terms of managing and delivering the services for renewable energy.”

The Seaham-born executive admits to being amazed by the transformation of Eaga from a fledgling into a behemoth.

However, he enjoys little nostalgic pleasure when he looks back to the bleak circumstances which led to the birth of the business.

“In the year of the miners’ strike I wasn’t working. I was on strike. It’s not something I look back on with a great deal of pleasure because it was tough times. But that’s when you saw families and communities pull together and you saw a lot of support from other industries like shipbuilding and the steel industry, which were very supportive of us.

“I learned one or two things then in terms of how important communities and families can be and that you get a lot further if you work with people and support them. The country needed a change: it was just a tough change that Mrs Thatcher introduced.”