We want to make a lasting impact and strive to support our clients to be more sustainable and focus on their social value.
This is increasingly being required as part of the tendering process and over the last few years we have had countless conversations with our clients, old and new, where we have discussed the initiatives and actions that they can take to ensure sustainability and social value are integrated into their business strategy.
Many of those we talk to are often surprised to hear that they are already doing a number of things to support social value but hadn’t realised as for them, it was part of business as usual. For others, they are unsure where to start and what’s achievable.
Below we share a number of initiatives our winning clients have committed to over the last 12 months which we hope will inspire you!
Social value commitments
Social value is split into key theme so we will begin by looking at what you can do to tackle economic inequality.
Economic inequality is all about the unequal distribution of income and opportunities and our clients have committed to:
- Ensuring all staff are, at a minimum, on the national living wage
- Paying equally irrelevant of gender
- Recruiting locally
We also saw commitments from previous years come to fruition including for a stairlift company, who have an installation, repairs and servicing contract as they employed 2 local people, one of whom also met their commitment to be NEET/disabled/long term unemployed.
Fighting climate change continues to be an important theme, especially with an increasing requirement for Carbon Reduction Plans within tenders. Over the last 12 months our clients have committed to a number of outcomes including:
- 42% reduction target in absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 2030, Net-Zero by 2050 and they also committed to neutralise any unabated emissions
- encouraging active travel and public transport as a means to travel to and from work by sharing resources in their practice
- providing changing facilities, lockers and access to secure cycle parking to encouraging employees to cycle to work
- participating in the Government’s ‘Cycle to Work Scheme’
- combining patient appointments – this medical practice introduced family appointments to reduce the number of visits and travel journeys made by their patients
- reducing the number of delivery days with suppliers e.g. Amazon Days
- promoting access to nearby electric charging points and bicycle ramps for patients and staff
- cleaning all equipment, machinery and facilities in -situ after maintenance operations to prevent any microplastics residue from being transferred to other sites or into the wider environment
Moving on to the theme of equal opportunity, we have discussed a breadth of actions that could be taken and here’s just a handful of the commitments made from our clients in the last 12 months:
- we will provide 7 work experience places over a 3-year period
- we will create at least 1 traineeship for a local resident across the lifespan of the contract
- we will attend 8 career days at local educational facilities
- we will employ 1 graduate through our apprenticeship scheme
- we will hire 1 ex-service member
- we will provide time and equipment to the value of £1000 to a local charity who assist local BAMER women work in wider communities
And finally, looking at health and wellbeing we have had a number of conversations around how our clients do and can support their workforce and the commitments confirmed and submitted into their winning bids included:
- training 9 mental health first aiders over the period of the contract
- ensuring 95% of managers have received Suicide Prevention Training by year 3 of the contract
- 3 years of funding for a Menopause Support Plan
- ensuring 75% of colleagues attend wellbeing assessments each year
The examples shared are by no means exhaustive but are shared to help stimulate ideas for you and your business. If you want to find out more about social value click here. Alternatively give us a call on 01707 244713 and we can talk through the social value ideas for your next tender.
