Social value: What is it? 

Increasingly, non-financial considerations such as social and environmental impacts, are being evaluated alongside traditional financial criteria to establish the merits and disadvantages of new construction projects. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are being assessed in a local context to understand their contribution to and value for the affected community. 

Key stakeholders, for example a local authority or investor, are using social value measures to enforce their desired project outcomes. Applying financial (proxy) values to social measures enables alternative approaches and priorities to be compared. When combined with traditional financial criteria the output is a social return or investment (SROI) or social cost benefit analysis (SCBA) that can be used to determine whether a project meets the stakeholders’ needs and warrants investment and granting of planning permission. 

The social value measures and desired targets determined during the planning and design stages of a project may be unique to the project, a uniform stakeholder requirement, or a combination of both. It is then typically the main contractor and their supply chain that records actual performance. 

How can SmartWaste help achieve social value? 

SmartWaste is BRE’s environmental and sustainability monitoring and management solution. It provides centralised data collection and validation capabilities that help construction, refurbishment and demolition companies deliver on their ESG reporting needs. Our solution delivers the following social value functionality: 

Select measures – at project or company level select the appropriate social value measures. 

Set and manage targets –establish your social value ambitions for the project and set applicable targets. 

Connect with your value chain – engage your project supply chains so that they can automatically provide you with their project data. 

Set proxy values– input the values that you want to use to translate social value performance into an equivalent financial measure.  

Record performance– using SmartWaste’s data capture tools, e.g. direct input, application programming interface (API) or bulk upload functionality capture and collate social value data accurately and reliably.  

Performance measurement and insight – SmartWaste provides extensive reporting capabilities, performance indicators and benchmarks to help your organisation manage its social value obligations and ESG reporting needs.

What social value benefits does SmartWaste deliver? 

Delivering on social value commitments using SmartWaste can help a customer realise several benefits: 

Enhance their reputation, brand and stakeholder relationships

Demonstrate how their actions are positively impacting the local community and recognise who in the supply chain contributes towards social value objectives.

Increase sales and inspire customer loyalty 

Evidence socially aware construction practices that win business and encourage repeat stakeholder engagement. 

Lower costs

Improve data capture accuracy and reliability and reduce complexity and process inefficiencies. 

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