The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has published fresh guidance to demystify the practice of measuring the social value of buildings and places.
After the world recovers from the current crisis, social value is a topic that is likely to become even more important, says the organisation.
For the built environment sector, the measurement of social value is already a critical part of the commitment to creating social value across the supply chain, and a rapidly evolving area of practice.
The guide, Delivering Social Value: Measurement, helps to make the practice of measuring the social value of buildings and places easier to understand and considers the relevance of social value metrics to practitioners acting at each stage of the project life cycle. It explores social value measurement principles and methodologies and presents a series of best-practice case studies.
In developing the guide, UKGBC convened a panel of industry experts, drawing together insight on the application of established and emerging measurement approaches.
UKGBC hopes that its guide will encourage more organisations to measure social value, and understand which approach is most suitable for their circumstances.
John Alker, director of policy and places at UKGBC, said: “Social value has rightly become one of the cornerstones of responsible business within the built environment industry, and it has been encouraging to see a growth in the number of businesses focusing on the benefits delivered to local communities through the design, development and operation of high quality, sustainable places.
“However, measuring these benefits is complicated. This guide is designed to cut through the noise around social value measurement and help practitioners find the right approach for their project or organisation.”
UKGBC’s Social Value programme is set to continue during 2020 and beyond – the team will next focus on an industry wide common language for social value, through what it terms a ‘framework definition’.
This work was carried out with UKGBC’s Social Value programme partners – Argent, Avison Young, Buro Happold, Federated Hermes, Rockwool and TFT.