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Why Social Value Can and Should be Measured

Business value is a term that’s widely used to indicate the long-term health of an organisation. There’s no precise definition of what it means or what it includes but – because it takes a long-term view – it goes beyond measuring economic value, profit and other financial considerations.

A more rounded picture of company wellbeing includes employee value, customer value and supply chain value. An organisation needs to deliver value through these streams if it is to be sustainable.

Social value has recently become much more significant and is rightly part of business value. Apart from anything else it’s an expectation in publicly funded procurement. Increasingly it has a discrete value in the bid scoring criteria so any company that isn’t embracing social value is going to struggle.

Companies have started to quantify and report on social value in financial terms in their annual reports. Unlike financial statements, there are no commonly agreed rules for quantifying social value so it’s not always easy to know exactly what the figures mean. But it’s fair to say that in any business you tend to measure what you value.

The Project and the Legacy

Social value has two aspects. There is the value delivered during the build programme and there is the project legacy. Delivering social value during the build programme is intrinsically linked to supplier value. Our local supply chain partners are essential as they often have roots in local communities that are needed for social value actions to be meaningful.

Helping our suppliers become more successful and resilient is also part of the legacy. This is alongside the work we do in the community, the employment and training opportunities we create and the benefits to people who will use, work or live in the assets we create.

Measuring all of this across multiple projects and supplier partnerships is far from easy. As a family-owned business that recognises its key role in helping to shape places and spaces, we have always aimed to give something back to local communities on every project. And because it’s important to us, we are becoming better at measuring it right across our organisation.

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