This year, the social sustainability team has worked on a number of exciting projects, embedding social value into development and helping to enhance the wellbeing of communities.
Health impact assessments
We’ve seen an increased demand for health impact assessments across the country, which is a positive move in designing communities for everyone that are supported with good social infrastructure.
When working on St George’s Leisure Centre in London for example, from our socio-economic baseline, we could see that nearly half the local population was Muslim and the designs did not reflect their needs, such as specific designs for changing rooms. Similarly, in Beresford Street, Woolwich, our health impact assessment highlighted the need for better wheelchair access and provision of suitable rooms in accordance with local policy.
Our workshops with design teams on health impacts at the start of a project really help guide the designs to have positive impacts rather than retrofit negative ones.
Social value assessment for new student development
This year we provided a social value assessment of a new student development with Cubex in Bristol, within the wider St Philips Masterplan. With the design team, we looked at how to embed social value into the early designs for health and wellbeing outcomes. We assessed the employment and training outcomes, how the development could better cater to the need for more affordable workspace (and so is), and which local groups to target. The site with over 50% public use will benefit the community, as well as the residents.
Credit: Avison Young
Social value in Ireland
Measuring social impact in Ireland is relatively new. We had the opportunity to work with Hibernia Real Estate Group, a developer in Dublin, at a corporate level in developing a social value framework for the business. We also worked at an asset level, developing assessment templates for projects in design, construction and occupation. For the occupation assessment, Greengage sent a survey to office workers via an app to gauge the sense of pride and wellbeing from the the design and activities in the office cluster. We also led workshops with the whole company, design teams, and sent Contractor Guidelines for construction partners.
As a result, we were invited to speak with both the Irish Institute for Property and to Irish Green Building Council members on delivering and measuring local impact, referencing our work with Hibernia. This is a setting a benchmark for social value in the built environment in Ireland.
Looking ahead
In the UK, we eagerly await the National Public Procurement Statement in February 2025 from the Labour Government that prioritises social value and will hopefully provide policy standards.
Finally, we are working increasingly closely with our colleagues in green infrastructure and biodiversity on the public benefits of good quality green spaces, with clients such as National Trust. We look forward to working on more of these projects in the new year.
