Social value presents a chance for any organisation to use resources in a more impactful way, and think more clearly about how wider social, environmental and economic benefits can be achieved through the day to day activities of our work.

But much more can be achieved if the same principles are applied to your purchasing, your trading and supply chains. As well as improving wellbeing directly through your own actions, your organisation can act indirectly through its supply chain, influencing others, as well as through collaborative work with partners.

By adopting this approach, you can play a vital part in ensuring economic resilience and sustained local investment. Put simply, buying locally, ethically and sustainably will improve our chances of recovering from the current Covid-driven recession. Your purchasing decisions can influence the success of your suppliers’ businesses and impact on the lives of their employees.

This can also make good ‘business sense’ - social value will provide greater value for money and can help to mitigate the impact of negative external factors – if we all work together. By putting greater emphasis on social value there is sometimes a misconception that this increases costs. However, this ignores the broader, medium to longer term outcome benefits that social value can bring. For example, employment of people who have been long term unemployed leads to a reduction in the cost of welfare benefits and an increase in their personal spending power. It could also have a beneficial effect on health services, strengthen community cohesion and foster a greater sense of happiness and wellbeing.

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