Hello, Sara. How are you doing? 

 

Hi, I'm very well, thank you.

 

Good. I wanted to talk about your roadmap that you've just produced: the Social Value Roadmap for Real Estate. Just from an easy way-in point of view, what would you say would be the one big takeaway for people from this report? What's its biggest nugget?

 

I think the biggest nugget for me from this report is that the real estate industry needs to embrace social value but is unsure quite how to do that. There's no one way at the moment; there's no one way of measuring it. There is a lot of goodwill out there. But actually finding ways of measuring, and ways of actually developing that social value, is clearly quite difficult.

 

It's a very slippery customer, isn't it, social value? It's almost impossible to measure and codify and standardize, as an issue from company to company, project to project, isn’t it?

 

 I completely agree; I think it's very difficult to have one way of measuring social value. And the danger is by having just one measurement, it could become a tick-box exercise.  Because people try and squeeze it in rather than actually looking genuinely at what social value or social impact, whatever you want to call it, actually is.  I wouldn't say it is a slippery customer, I would say that it is nebulous. It's quite tricky to pin down exactly what it is, in clear, legal terms. But actually, when you think about what social value, social capital, social impact is, it is the impact on people's lives. It's how you're changing, how you're improving people's lives. And there's so many different ways you could do that. It's getting the industry to embrace how they can do that.

 

How do you think the industry compares to other industries in this area?

 

 I mean, I'm predominately real estate – I have to be honest that I don't work as closely with other industries as I do the real estate industry. But I'd say the real estate industry has some catching up to do in some areas. However, having said that, 12 years ago, when I first started out, looking at social value, I would have turned up to speak about it and one man and his dog would have been there. Now, at the London Real Estate forum there we were on the main stage talking about this very topic. So in actual fact, I think where the industry has come to is quite a massive step forward. We've still got a long way to go. But it's genuinely trying to embrace it.

 

And why do you think there has been that change?

 

I think the change partly comes from consumers. I think the COVID pandemic really did concentrate people's minds on understanding that we needed to look at buildings in a different way. That we needed to actually genuinely look at people's lives and what was happening to them. So, I think your consumer, your purchaser - be it of an office, be it of a residential unit, be it rented - are actually thinking quite differently, which means that the industry has to think differently as well. We're not obviously talking here about the 'E', but in a sense the 'E' was more measurable. So they were already further ahead. They're having to think much more about that social impact now, because people are asking those questions.

 

On a scan-read of the document one of the things that jumped out at me was the 5% uplift in market value piece of research. When it actually makes money, that's when people start to take notice as well, isn't it? I mean, that's a key thing to push, presumably?

 

Yes. I think is, and people shouldn't be shy of it. You know, things change when people can see the value that's delivered. And while we can't necessarily measure accurately and absolutely what that financial benefit is, putting it bottom line is: people aren't going to invest in something or buy something that they don't want, they don't see that value. So, it is really important, I think, to see that actually by doing developments in this way, you're creating what I call real financial value out of this, not just the social, or the nice-to-have.

 

And what are some of the examples, for our readers, that you've come across, of really good social value moves?

 

I've just come from a meeting just now where we were talking very much about the high street, and the impact that actually just looking at certain retail units, and using those in a very different way, with social impact. So: say, the morning will be used by the community; the afternoon will be used by a start-up or a coffee shop. Then the evening is another startup. That is creating social value, because it's actually getting people into work, it's helping support small businesses, but it's also helping kickstart regeneration of an area. And I think that's really exciting. There are some real examples out there now where what might have been perceived as being sort of a 'well, it's nice to have that so I'll put that in that box', actually is now being perceived as something that will genuinely kickstart a bigger wave of regeneration, a bigger wave of actually looking at how we can re-engineer or re-revitalize our high streets and town centres.

 

And just on the Kitemark idea that's one of the recommendations in the report, how do you foresee that working? Would it be that central government would be the overseer of that regime and therefore the masters of looking at who's ticked what box?

 

I think so, ideally. The idea of the Kitemark is for the industry to still have a quality standard, so that developments that do meet certain criteria have this quality standard, which allows investors, for example, to look at where they would put their investments in social impact funds. And I think, ideally, it would be central government, because it has to come from the top. If the top isn't actually helping promote this and believing in this, then it is very difficult for everyone else to do it. So ideally, I would like to see central government playing a major role in looking at what those criteria are. And again, I'm not saying those criteria should be fixed, so that everyone has to fit the same criteria. But I think there's ways of doing the criteria, which means you fall within that banner.

 

So, lastly, in terms of a roadmap, where is the road leading? What needs to happen in this area?

 

I think what needs to happen now is we do need central government to engage and at the moment that I know is tricky. But we do need central government to engage; we need central government to actually help think about how that roadmap can actually be articulated. But we also need the industry to take some self-responsibility as well and help promote it and help them work out what they want to see from that roadmap so that it actually is something that they own. It's not just dictated to the industry, something that the industry actually owns. I think that's equally important. You know, we all are much better with things that we feel that we understand that we brought along with and not something that we should be forced to do.

 

Yeah, brilliant. Well, thank you very much for talking through the roadmap, and let's hope it drives somewhere better for everybody concerned! 

 

Pleasure. Thank you for your time. 

 

Thank you.