Measuring and reporting on social impact 

Social value is part of the DNA of Sodexo. The benefits we bring to our local communities, the positive impact we make on the planet, and how we help people progress – there is an important level of activity going on in all these areas. 

We see evidence of it every day, and we talk about the culture of the business and the good work we’re doing. There are hundreds of inspiring activities happening, yet while these are positive actions, we want to be able to understand and capture the scale and impact of these activities. 

This is true for our clients too, and particularly relevant to Sodexo’s Government segment. In January 2021, a new procurement model launched, and a minimum of 10% weighting was placed on social value, to formally assess suppliers’ social value impact when bidding for central government contracts. 

Without doubt, more onus is being placed on transparency and visibility. We should operate in full view and show how we’re applying our social value work in a way that’s meaningful for our clients. This has prompted us to develop a smart new data-driven tool for Government clients, the Social Impact Reporting Platform (SIRP). 

We developed the SIRP as a bespoke platform that allows us to feed in all activity to a central point, giving us a rich data profile and lens through which to examine what we do, and then measure it, audit it, and share it. Where the requirements have become more nuanced; this tool gives us a simple-to-view dashboard to reflect our response, contract by contract. It’s a tool we’ll continue to refine; working collaboratively with clients to keep pace with each of the social value ‘must haves’ in their communities. 

We share our clients’ desire to affect change in local communities, and rather than see this as a challenge, we grasped it as an opportunity to differentiate ourselves in our bid proposals. The SIRP allows us to showcase an extra layer to our social value activity, anchoring it to our company-wide framework yet pinpointing exactly how and where we can have a direct local impact, and add value beyond what the contract demands. Whether that’s how we manage our apprenticeships or our drive to engage with SMEs who might usually be excluded from large contracts, we always look to take the local community on that journey with us. 

Setting clear targets, recording, and reporting the impact we’re making in this space has become essential.

Sodexo launched its Social Impact Pledge in the UK & Ireland in 2015 to do just that. Every year since, we’ve published a progress report and 2024’s Social Impact summary has now been released, following how the business is performing against key strategic targets, including our journey to net zero, responsible sourcing, and job creation for marginalised groups. It’s impressive to see how collectively driven we are, and how deeply ingrained social value has become within our organisation.