SERVICES
Social value consultancy
Driving positive impact in the built environment.
Social value is created when buildings, places, and infrastructure support environmental, economic, and social wellbeing.
Our Social Value consultancy enables building owners, property managers, and occupiers to understand and improve the impact of their buildings and activities. By making smart decisions about the acquisition, design, and operation of real estate, owners, developers, and occupiers can mitigate future risks, deliver positive change, and achieve sustainable growth beyond financial return.
Why social value matters
Buildings have the potential to make a positive impact within local communities.
Occupiers want
- To move their organisation to green, high-spec office space.
- Accommodation that attracts and retains top talent.
- Building amenities that help measure staff wellbeing.
Landlords and owners want
- The security of income achievable from compliant buildings.
- The potential for shorter marketing periods and stronger yields.
- To fulfil their own ESG goals.
Social value's performance-enhancing potential
- Increases asset value
- Strengthens community relationships
- Boosts employee wellbeing and retention
- Creates positive marketing opportunities
- Increases likelihood of planning approval
- Makes a positive contribution to society
- Attracts occupiers and aids leasing
- Increases footfall in the area
- Provides a differentiator in a competitive market
Maximising social value in real estate can lead to a 5% uplift in the market value of an asset.
The Social Market Foundation
Our social value services
Gap analysis
This assessment evaluates a property’s impact on its local community, environment and society, and identifies any areas that can potentially be improved. It:
- Highlights opportunities to create social value at an asset or portfolio level.
- Benchmarks existing initiatives to show where value can be added.
- Facilitates engagement with key stakeholders, like service providers and occupants.
- Promotes targeted initiatives to enhance social impact over time.
Local needs analysis
We deliver an in-depth, data-rich understanding of the social, economic, and environmental dynamics affecting your site’s local community. By combining our market knowledge with powerful analytics, we help you:
- Map critical socio-economic factors, like income distribution, unemployment, and access to green infrastructure.
- Identify inequalities, service deficits, and areas of highest local demand.
- Inform planning, ESG reporting, and stakeholder engagement.
Our Social Needs Snapshot Tool — a geospatial analysis platform integrating local and national datasets — gives us the ability to pinpoint priority social issues and calibrate interventions to meet real-time needs.
ESG asset positioning
Our consultants ensure your asset holds value against competing assets and the broader market by achieving credible and valuable standards. We:
- Analyse your existing strategies, policies, and risk factors.
- Create approaches that ensure your asset achieves notable ethical standards.
Strategy development
Embedding social considerations into your corporate values contributes to long-term success and sustainability. We:
- Identify actions and opportunities, creating practical strategies.
- Help set attainable goals to prioritise.
- Collaborate to build your social value or impact policy, strategy and statements.
Our social needs snapshot tool
This insightful analysis tool ensures transformation is intentional and measurable. Our data-led approach looks at economic, social, and environmental factors to identify critical needs, address inequalities, and highlight service gaps. We evaluate 3 key areas to gain a holistic view:
- Jobs and growth: Insights on economic development, local employment, and skills advancement.
- Social: Data on crime rates, public health, housing accessibility, and community services.
- Environment: Information on decarbonisation efforts, air quality, and environmental sustainability.
Our track record
Estate in Westminster
Project: Our ESG Consultancy conducted a social value gap analysis for a directly managed portfolio.
Objective: To highlight opportunities to amplify the delivery of social value, helping to understand the potential social value of real assets, report key information to stakeholders and take steps to deliver greater value to communities.
Outcome: We defined a clear social value purpose and conducted stakeholder identification, addressing material issues. A local needs analysis revealed pressing social needs and opportunities for impact.
We reviewed current initiatives to establish a baseline for social value maturity, highlighting key areas for targeted community impact in a detailed report.
Portsoken, City of London
Project: Our ESG consultancy delivered a comprehensive social needs assessment using its proprietary Social Needs Snapshot Tool to pinpoint priority community requirements for a multi-let building in the City of London.
Objective: The assessment involved a deep analysis of social, economic, and environmental indicators, including unemployment levels, health provision, and access to green space.
Outcome: Based on these insights, we recommended targeted initiatives such as employment and skills programmes, mobile health services, and community greening projects.
These recommendations were integrated into the client’s ESG strategy, ensuring measurable improvements in local wellbeing and long-term social impact.
Industrial site
Project: We crafted an all-inclusive ESG strategy, analysing the site’s recent five-year performance.
Objective: This strategy, along with a plan to enhance asset performance over the next two years, will be positioned as transferable to potential investors.
Outcome: Our consultants undertook a social value maturity assessment, outlining how the asset provides social impact via different initiatives. This allowed us to provide a snapshot of impact areas in business as usual for the asset, outlining key recommendations and target areas to enhance social, economic and environmental impact and wellbeing.
Mental health charity
Project: We guided a mental health charity in developing its ESG strategy for 2023 – 2028.
Objective: Our team undertook a thorough assessment of the organisations corporate values and initiatives to gauge its social impact maturity, aiming to understand the integration of its social mission. The methodology included competitor analysis, a double materiality assessment, stakeholder engagement across teams, along with a review of impact and strategy reports.
Outcome: Our strategy emphasised short, medium, and long-term goals aligned with the charity’s values, focusing on social issues, inclusivity, and community benefits. By integrating these principles, the charity can pursue purpose-driven strategies, sustainability practices, and stakeholder involvement for sustained success.
