By its very nature, infrastructure supports the basic needs of society. A primary social need is usually central to the business case for infrastructure projects – think: clean and reliable water supply, public health, road safety, community connectivity, energy security, or decarbonisation to help tackle climate change.

Infrastructure projects are hosted by communities, for societal benefit – so for the business case to stack up, by definition our projects need to deliver not just economic value, but social value too.

So, I have to ask – is your infrastructure project really realising its greatest social potential?

Regulators, investors, communities – and even our own employees – expect and demand that governments and companies prioritise people and planet in their decisions and actions, and you can bet that they’ll hold you to account.

If our projects fail to deliver on their social potential, the opportunity for social value creation is lost and the fallout can cost us time and money and affect our reputation and relationships.

Indeed, community opposition has resulted in the delay or cancellation of roughly $20 billion of infrastructure projects over the past decade, according to the Infrastructure Australia’s 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit. Not keeping pace with changing community expectations and poor engagement practices were identified as the most significant issues facing the sector.

COMMON SOCIAL AND STAKEHOLDER PITFALLS

All too often, here in Western Australia, I’ve seen the approach to managing the social aspects of projects fall down as a result of:

• Bring driven by compliance, rather than leading international practices
• Prioritising the management of risks, issues and negative impacts of projects on surrounding communities and the environment, over the opportunities
• Locking in the major project decisions and firming up the scope and concept before engaging with stakeholders and communities, missing the opportunity to meaningfully engage to co-design solutions that offer greater social value
• Focussing on manage stakeholder relationships and rolling out a project communication, as opposed to meaningful engagement for better project decision making
• Reactive approaches that respond to the issue or initiative of the moment, but fail to holistically and equitability consider all possibilities.

FOCUSING ON SOCIAL VALUE

Simply focusing on social license to operate and building community tolerance for infrastructure projects is no longer enough. If you are after project acceptance or support, you must deliver social value.

Social value is the positive worth that your project creates for the economy, communities, and society. It broadly considers and encompasses all the interdependencies between the project and people – and as such transects many of aspects of Infrastructure Australia’s Sustainability Principals (2021) in the areas of social, economic, environmental and governance.

A focus on social value calls for understanding the social impact of your project, maximising the positive impact that you have and quantifying the outcomes. This requires systematic analysis of every aspect of your project to understand the change that it creates for people, and ensure the change creates lasting positive consequences for people.

Make no mistake: delivering social value is not a lofty, intangible ambition – it can be planned, measured, monitored and managed to great effect.

It is however a journey that requires ongoing and widespread organisational commitment. The best time to start social value creation is early (cue: business case), reviewing and adjusting as needed across the project/asset lifecycle.

GETTING STARTED ON YOUR SOCIAL VALUE STRATEGY?

There are other countries much more mature in their approach to social value creation in infrastructure – so draw on their approaches, frameworks and lessons learned when designing your social value strategy. For example, the United Kingdom’s Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 provides a legislative imperative for wider social, economic and environmental benefits to be secured through the public procurement process.

If you’re looking for inspiration, the UKGBC’s Framework for Defining Social Value (2021) is a great starting point for thinking around defining and delivering social value for infrastructure projects.

You might also like to map social value outcomes against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and consider which outcomes materially contribute to the achievement of relevant SDGs, and assess where there may be other sustainable development issues that could influence value creation.

But whatever your approach – be sure to work closely with the people you are trying to deliver social value for. The more the community is involved in the process the greater the likelihood of creating positive social value – not only are their contributions are very valuable, but also because involving communities in decision making has a direct impact on wellbeing.

If you’re taking steps to enhance the social value of your project, I’d love to hear about them.