Social Value in Practice

Understanding social value is often somewhat complicated, and this can leave many people feeling a little unsure about what social value is, why it’s important, and how to implement social value in practice. Fortunately, our expert team is on hand today to help you find out a little more about implementing social value in practice – because every business needs to consider how they can implement social value in practice for their operations.

What is Social Value in Practice?

What is social value in practice? Social value is a term used to define the level of value a business brings to the community. It often relates to activities such as offering new opportunities for communities or providing additional facilities that will bolster the local or national community.

Social value is typically measured locally; however, some business decisions may have social value on a national scale, especially for larger corporations.

Social value in practice relates to the role of social value in business operations, ensuring that you’re able to keep up with your social value requirements while also obtaining the maximum benefits. Indeed, many businesses consider their social value to be a tie or yet another legislation to meet; however, social value in practice can offer numerous benefits for your firm accordingly.

Can Social Value be Quantified?

Assessing the level of value that an individual brings to their community can (understandably) be a difficult task. After all, social value is often subjective, and what one person perceives to be a good change may differ from the next person.

With that being said, social value can readily be quantified, allowing a business an easy metric to assess their current social value policies. In doing so, this should enable the business to continue working towards social value – a requirement by law for many businesses after the Public Services (Social Value) Act of 2012.

How to Implement Social Value in Practice?

If you’ve been looking for ways to implement social value in practice for your business, there are numerous options you could consider. This could relate to charitable activities; alternatively, you could simply focus on projects that bring both commercial benefits to the business and social benefits to the community.

Some examples of social value include:

• Investing in local or national schemes to bring social value to a wider number of people
• Minimising the impacts of business activities on the local community, such as reducing traffic flows to prevent congestion within towns due to the business itself
• Promoting the use of locally sourced materials and tools to give communities a boost during times when foreign-made products are often cheaper to buy
• Supporting new, small businesses rather than large, pre-established multinationals

These are just a handful of potential examples of how businesses can promote their social value in practice. For example, for firms struggling to promote social value within their day-to-day activities, investing in good local causes that support the community may often be the most attainable social value option in practice.

Final Thoughts

If you’d like to find out more about social value and the benefits that social value can offer for your business, it’s vital to consider some of the different features of social value.

Of course, the social value will vary from business to business, and if operating on a local basis, the exact type of social value you bring to your community will vary significantly depending on the requirements of your business.

With that being said, understanding social value in practice is integral – which is why it’s so important to spend a little time researching how you could implement social value in practice, too.