How do you embed Social Value and social sustainability across a major organisation – and measure it meaningfully at scale?
That’s the challenge STRABAG UK has taken on. And the results speak volumes: nearly £1 billion in Social Value generated between 2019 and 2024, a goal of £3 billion by 2030, and a structured governance model in place to track and improve performance.
We sat down with not one but three of the people leading this transformation to understand how they’ve made it happen:
Scroll down to watch their interviews or read the highlights 👇
James Keegan told us about the strategic goals underpinning STRABAG’s strategy, and discussed the sector’s maturing approach to sustainability.
🎥 Watch the interview below:
👇 Or read the highlights:
In 2022, STRABAG launched its Work on Progress campaign, based around carbon neutrality by 2040. Then in 2023, People, Planet, Progress – focusing on creating value for people, communities, and society; reducing carbon emissions and enhancing biodiversity; and driving innovation and digitisation.
Social Value is a mechanism to achieve these strategic ambitions. In the UK we've defined clear, time-bound aspirations:
We've taken Social Value and the TOM System™ methodology as a means of understanding where we're doing well and not so well. So far, we’ve generated almost £1 billion of Social Value between 2019 and 2024.
15 years ago, Social Value wasn't a common term. The Equality Act 2010 and the Social Value Act 2012 created a leap forward and EU directives like CSRD and CSDDD increased the prominence of Social Value and social sustainability.
I'm seeing the integration of Social Value metrics within contracts with the public sector, but also the private sector. Investment institutes and organisations need to report in line with European directives, but equally from an ESG perspective.
I see Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) and social sustainability becoming core values, and key metrics to determine success.
We understand where we are now, and through Social Value Portal we understand what we need to do to improve. We're taking a top-down and bottom-up approach, with individual action plans, clear levels of responsibility and accountability, and Key Performance Indicators.
What we do needs to be more than building and logistics – we're supporting national aspirations, but equally supporting individuals that work with us, for us, and in the locality of our projects.
Break it down into what is important for your business. When you go through that process, you'll realise that people, reputations, and retention of talent are all really important – and Social Value lies at the crux of that.
Then get the right people together, with similar points of view, as well as diversity. Develop a team, get buy-in from senior management, put in place a plan.
That would be my simplistic approach: just give it a go!
Mandy McGregor explored the challenge of transforming five years of Social Value activity into actionable data, and how that process has laid the foundation for credible, transparent reporting.
🎥 Watch the interview below:
👇 Or read the highlights:
Last year we undertook a huge task of retrospectively gathering five years of data, and we were amazed with the result. Our colleagues across our projects had been out there supporting their communities – because it was the right thing to do, not because they were told to.
We understood how our activities day-to-day translate to Social Value and social impact, as well as where we expected to be delivering but weren't. We have to take note of that, because the Social Value Portal quantification process isn’t just about quantifying what we’re doing: its full benefit is using it as a tool for change.
On the back of that first report, we’ve established a network of support across all functions so we can use Social Value within STRABAG UK as a shared service.
Social Value Portal and the TOM System is very much aligned with our approach to Social Value. We didn’t just want to look good – we really looked for our strengths and weaknesses.
The rule of additionality is a big one. Anything that we offer in our core services can't be accounted for – it's only what is above our contractual requirements. That drives performance above and beyond what is already expected of us and ultimately maximises output.
We are committed to supporting Armed Forces veterans and the Armed Forces community. We have signed a pledge for the Armed Forces Covenant and this year we achieved the Bronze Award for the employee recognition scheme. We do specific recruitment drives, as well as mentoring programs for personal and career growth.
We have colleagues who have been part of that community, and we are proud that we've been able to bring them into our construction family. The direct impact is from offering career opportunities to Armed Forces veterans, but we're also impacting preventable homelessness as well.
Luke Collier explained how Social Value is being embedded across day-to-day operations through workforce training and cross-team engagement.
🎥 Watch the interview below:
👇 Or read the highlights:
We in the construction industry have an important role to play in social sustainability, and there's so much that we can do.
For the workplace, we can foster diversity and inclusive cultures, promote health, safety and wellbeing, upskill our workforce, and provide real paid job opportunities. We can measure social impact through conducting Local Needs Analysis and respond to local challenges.
We need to steer away from a business-as-usual mindset and turn to innovative solutions to protect the environment – that could be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, net gain, ecological protection.
All these points are interlocked with one another, showing that we are united as one team. That's how you work more successfully, more efficiently, and better.
We've created a network of data contributors across the organisation and trained them on what Social Value is and how they can help us in quantifying evidence and data.
We’ve created department-specific trackers and manuals for them to look back on when quantifying the data. We're embedding Social Value into the day-to-day activities of the workforce to create a true understanding that Social Value is really just quantifying the actions we've already achieved.
We learned early on that Social Value does not live separately from the rest of the organisation, but is a shared responsibility for everyone. That is what brings people into it: realising that're already doing good, already achieving Social Value. It's just quantifying data and evidence so it's all solidified.
Last year I was a data contributor, and now I’m training data contributors, so I can see the weight of the task from both ends – and understand that it's a big task. Training employees to be Social Value data contributors is key to a successful business.
I think there's two key things to keep in consideration.
First, make sure that the people working in Social Value are passionate about the subject, who will be transparent and honest with the data, and who want to be trained.
Second, remember that it can be overwhelming. It's a brand-new topic and there's a lot to learn. You need to go through it bit-by-bit with the individual, and make sure they have a clear understanding on every single subject to understand the broader Social Value ideology.