Understanding Social Return on Investment (SROI): 
Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) Get Expert Support
To find out more about social value in procurement and how we can support you, please click below to contact the procurement specialists at Quantum360.
Building sustainable communities: how your strategic procurement decisions can contribute positively to society
The procurement decisions you make have the transformative potential to drive social change, cultivate sustainable growth, and create a more equitable and prosperous value chain.
What is Social Value in Procurement?
Social value recognises that procurement decisions have an economic, environmental, and social impact that goes beyond the immediate financial value of the transaction. Social benefit can be maximised by evaluating how the services, goods, and works you procure contribute positively to your local community, and the wider environment and economy.
The consultants at Quantum 360 can support you to achieve a more holistic approach to procurement that aligns with your organisational goals and responsibilities.
- Economic value – supporting local businesses and supply partners, creating jobs, and encouraging economic growth in your area.
- Social value – promoting greater inclusion, diversity, and equality in your value chain, while encouraging community well-being and quality of life
- Environmental value – increasing sustainable and net carbon zero supply chain management practices, regenerating local ecosystems, and reducing waste.
How to calculate your social value impact:
Understanding Social Return on Investment (SROI):
Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a method used to measure and communicate the broader social, economic, and environmental value created by your organisation’s activities. Unlike traditional financial metrics, SROI focuses on the tangible and intangible benefits that arise from your procurement decisions and strategic actions.
SROI captures outcomes rather than outputs, emphasising the real, measurable changes that result from your work. For example, instead of merely counting the number of people who attend a training session (an output), SROI examines the long-term benefits, such as increased employment opportunities or improved quality of life for participants (outcomes).
By assigning a monetary value to these outcomes—whether they are reduced unemployment, improved community health, or environmental restoration—you can quantify the positive changes generated. This approach helps you understand the social value created relative to the resources invested, offering a clear way to assess and demonstrate your organisation’s impact on stakeholders and society.
Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA)
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is another good way of measuring social value. Conducting a CBA for social value involves evaluating the costs associated with a project or procurement initiative against the net social benefits it generates.
Similar to SROI, CBA applies an estimated monetary value to impacts from an activity. This requires a more nuanced approach than a strictly financial CBA, as it requires you to use financial proxies to estimate the value of non-monetary outcomes. For instance, the value of improved health in your community might be estimated on reduced healthcare costs, or increased productivity through fewer sick days.
Goal setting
Goal setting There are a wide range of outcomes from social value targets, from increasing recycling rates and hitting net zero carbon emissions to improving employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups in your local area. We can help you determine the right strategic goals for your business and operations/projects, and prioritise your efforts to maximise social value.
Why it matters: The importance of social value for your business
Implementing a social value model of procurement has important benefits for your business as well as wider society. Some of the key advantages include:
- Economic and community development: by prioritising local businesses and supply partners, social value initiatives can help stimulate your local economy and community, increasing business opportunities and reciprocal benefit.
- Sustainability and net zero: encouraging environmentally-friendly procurement practices helps reduce your carbon footprint and those of your supply partners, and promotes a more sustainable approach to resource use.
- Diversity and opportunity: social value can help drive initiatives that promote greater diversity, inclusion, and equity within your value chain, helping to address social inequalities and strengthen community cohesion.
- Professional reputation and trust: businesses that demonstrate a commitment to social value often enhance their professional credibility and reputation, cultivating greater trust with stakeholders and customers
- Efficiency and innovation: focusing on social value can stimulate more innovative and efficient processes and solutions to your supply issues, as suppliers and customers work together to achieve broader goals.
- Risk mitigation: by considering the social and environmental impacts of their procurement decisions, businesses can strategically manage risks related to compliance and public perception.
Ultimately, calculating and understanding your social value can help your organisation save money, and can also support you to achieve carbon credits and obtain and maintain important accreditations.
How Quantum 360 can help you
At Quantum 360, we support businesses to increase social value across all elements of the commercial life-cycle, from developing strategic plans, to procuring services, leading negotiations, and ensuring that your contracts and services are managed to maximise value for money and social benefit.
Our goal is to help you drive value for money outcomes by improving your strategic capabilities, processes, and technologies. So, whether you wish to inject more social value into large infrastructure projects, implement long-term cost improvements or adopt a more sustainable approach to supply chain management, we provide the tools, knowledge, and skills to deliver improved performance at all levels.
Net Zero Carbon Consultancy
As part of our social value consultancy service, we offer net zero carbon consultancy to public organisations and businesses looking to achieve net zero carbon emissions. Our expert team can help you restructure your procurement practices and supplier relationships to keep your carbon footprint as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions being balanced by carbon offsetting measures.
As part of this, we can conduct a carbon footprint assessment to analyse your current carbon emissions, establishing a baseline for improvement and identifying major sources of emissions. To make value-driven improvements, it is essential to understand what processes within your operations and infrastructure are most responsible for your omissions.
Building on this, we can develop a personalised carbon reduction strategy to improve energy efficiency, maximise renewable energy adoption, and encourage sustainable procurement practices across your value chain.
Working with Quantum 360 – What to expect
At the heart of our social value procurement methodology is a structured process that includes three critical stages:
- Discovery
- Analysis & development
- Delivery and transformation.
During the discovery phase, our consultants will work with you to understand your business objectives and future goals, helping to align your procurement strategy in a way that maximises social value.
In the analysis and development stage, we will help you implement practical social value initiatives that align with your company objectives and procurement requirements, focusing on sustainable transformation.
The final stage involves hands-on support to help implement your social value strategy, developing new ways of working and ensuring effective skills transfer, while helping you to continuously monitor and report on progress.