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Social Impact Reporting Platform

Rebecca Vowles, Head of Social Impact - Sodexo Agencies & Property Professional Services

Social Impact
Published on Mar. 05, 2025

Organisations are maturing in social value

The profile of social value is continuing to gather momentum. Increasingly, our clients are maturing when it comes to social impact; whilst requirements around social value are mandated in large public sector bids, and we are seeing the contractual social value requirements expanding.

We looked to develop a tool for our Government business that responded directly to the need to accurately track our activity; to demonstrate to our public sector clients that we are not only keeping to our promises and meeting contractual and bid commitments, but adding additional value when it comes to benefitting local communities, our suppliers, our people and the environment.

The Social Impact Reporting Platform

And so the Social Impact Reporting Platform (SIRP) was born – initially starting life as a simple activity tracker, primarily focussed on sustainability, and now expanded into a custom-designed software-driven tool to embrace all the wider themes around social value.

The headline benefit of the SIRP is that it allows us to define and agree social value obligations with each individual client, so that KPIs and actions are targeted, always relevant, and allow us to demonstrate the social return on investment of our activities. We’ve adapted nationally recognised proxy values to report against, further reassurance for our clients that our methodology is tested and comparable.

The design of the dashboard is client-focussed too, giving a clear summary index; a chain of evidence showing progress against our commitments. It’s a snapshot that clients can log into, in real time, to see updated stats and overall percentage progress against our key themes, specific to their contract.

The SIRP is completely future-fit. The dashboard can be amended and updated as contracts flex and change, so continuous improvement is built in. It can provide a view beyond individual contracts, so sites can benchmark against others’ performances. This gives clients a full holistic view of their contract’s performance around social value, enabling them to validate their procurement decisions.

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Social impact reporting trial

Prior to launch, we used the dashboard with one of our clients to conduct a trial , and their feedback was really positive. The reporting platform brought the amount of good work we’re doing around social value into sharper focus for them, as well as the many areas in which we’re going above and beyond what is required. For example, Sodexo allows all employees three paid days’ volunteering a year, and although this was not a contractual requirement on this particular contract, it's a huge contributor to our social value impact in communities.

Similarly, we hold DE&I training for our people, not a contractual requirement, yet adds tangible value. So the SIRP provides a much broader ‘good news’ feed that clients can cascade down to their own key stakeholders, and shows how their collaboration with Sodexo is adding value directly to their local communities and creating lasting social impact.

Making a commitment to social value isn’t just about paying lip service to a set of ambitions. We are dedicated to making a lasting positive impact to the communities we live and work in.

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Sodexo's social impact commitments

Our social impact commitments