Social Value: from tick box to golden thread

Over the last couple of months it seems like every day brings a more devastating headline about climate change. Earlier this week it was the BBC alert I got on my phone: IPCC report is ‘code red for humanity’. This follows a summer of extremes around the world: 46 degree plus heat-waves, raging wildfires, widespread storms and catastrophic flooding. As the New York Times put it, this summer of climate horror feels like ‘the first vertiginous 15 minutes of a disaster movie.’

In the face of such terrifying reality, it’s tempting to bury your head firmly in the sand. Or, in actual fact, to quickly swipe over to something anodyne, like how many medals we’ve won at the Olympics, or the line up for this year’s celebrity Master Chef. I think part of this reaction is the sense of powerlessness. How much as individual citizens can we really do to stop the Armageddon that is being predicted? Is spending 10 minutes painstakingly scrubbing the remnants of peanut butter out of the plastic jar (a thankless task) really going to make a difference when China is opening new coal-fired power stations at the rate of one a week?

But the bombardment of climatic events has got me thinking about what more I can do. And aside from using my car less and keeping on recycling those condiment jars, it strikes me that there is in fact something larger that I already do as part of the 50 Degrees team. This comes in the form of Social Value bid sections.

The companies we work with are increasingly engaged in Social Value requirements. It is built into every UK procurement, with the bidding organisation required to demonstrate the positive impact on society that their operations will have in delivering the contract. Since the introduction of the Cabinet Office’s Procurement Policy Note 06/20 demonstrating how your organisation will help the government’s drive to fight climate change is an integral part of this. 

I’ll admit, as a seasoned bidder, I’ve been known to get frustrated with the Social Value sections of a bid. Particularly on those bids where the score and page count for Social Value is the same or comparable to the delivery model section. It can seem an irritating distraction from the core solutioning and bid writing. But Social Value does in fact present a real opportunity for 50 Degrees – via the companies we support – to have a tangible impact. 

Over the years we’ve seen an evolution of Social Value, from a mere tick box exercise to a vital part of bid strategy. Partly driven by the high scores attached, (of course) bidders in the UK are now motivated to make ambitious commitments on operating responsibly and reducing carbon footprint. Like procuring 100% renewable energy for all operating sites, for example, or reducing food waste by 50%. On a contract worth hundreds of millions, these commitments can equate to a LOT of peanut butter jars. It also covers the organisation’s approach to recruiting a diverse workforce, helping tackle economic inequality and increasing supply chain resilience, which can only be a good thing. 

But, like the commentary over the UK’s ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035, it’s all very well having a target. The devil, as they say, is in the detail of how you will achieve it though. At 50 Degrees we see it as part of our job to support and challenge our client in coming up with meaningful Social Value commitments, then identifying the actions required to achieve it, how it will be resourced and how success will be measured. And rather than tacking Social Value onto the end of bid as a stand alone, rather unloved section, we help our clients to see how it can be one of the key design principles underpinning every aspect of delivery. The golden thread of the bid, if you will.  Not only does this contribute to a coherent bid narrative – something that makes the bid writing geeks among us very happy – but it actually makes for a greater impact in delivery. 

So the next time I moan about a Social Value section (as I inevitably will), my colleagues have free rein to tell me to pipe down and get on with helping the client develop ambitious, achievable commitments.

In the meantime, I’ll keep on scrubbing.