Social value: why your choices matter
Who are you building for? What is the wider impact of your work?
These were the questions I put to over 300 engineers at the Institution of Civil Engineers, in the final session of a five-week sustainability course. They came back to me with an even better one: “why do big infrastructure projects get such a bad rap with the public?”
My subject was social value: the wider economic, social and environmental impact a project has on people, communities and place, beyond financial returns. Our discussion uncovered the tension, which is often ignored, between the benefits critical infrastructure bring to the country as a whole, and the downsides experienced by local communities who live next door to the disruption but get none of the advantages.
I see that friction across in all kinds of projects which are essential to national growth. Grid upgrades, utility-scale renewables such as massive offshore wind farms, data centres and urban regeneration don’t always benefit the communities where they are based. Why should locals suffer the burdens when the profits are enjoyed elsewhere?
Social and community impact strategies focused on local priorities help address this fundamental imbalance. Done properly, it should trigger action around employment and skills training, social inequalities, benefit sharing and community wealth building.
The same station, road upgrade or real estate development can widen opportunity or pass a community by. The choices that decide which way it goes are made early by the people investing, developing, designing, procuring and delivering a scheme.
It’s not easy. Projects from Thames Tideway and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park show what can be achieved and where we could go further.
If you are shaping a scheme and want to make its social value count, get in touch. We help developers, public bodies and their delivery partners identify where genuine social value lies and how to deliver it. Good growth depends on getting this right.
