Social Value Impact Report

Since 2021, AWW has been on a journey of discovery to determine a clear strategy for how Social Value is represented, implemented and reported company-wide.

The following pages celebrate our Social Value Impact over the last year (May 2022-23) reporting against the eight pledges we set ourselves as part of our Social Value Quality Mark Level 1 accreditation. This is only the start of our journey as we seek to challenge the way we positively contribute to society through our actions and operations.

Our goal is to deliver quality architecture and interior design. Achieving this through;

(E) Creating a net-gain environmental impact

(S) Enhancing people’s quality of life

(G) Fostering relationships and developing partnerships for delivery that support our core values and improve our ability as designers and advocators to effect positive change

Our Impact

Human-centric Buildings

We pledge to place people at the heart of our design process so that the buildings we design become a means of enhancing quality of life for all.

‘Quality of life’ Design Reviews have begun on a select number of projects this year. All staff are now engaged in the strategy to implement these social value focused reviews on relevant projects at key stages, and to capture, monitor and improve a project’s impact through this process.

The sample included key live projects at various RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) stages and totals over 15% of projects (by project cost). We look to continue to monitor these projects to understand the relative impact that the design reviews contributed to.

15.5% projects undertaken

5 Sensory audits conducted:

Vassall Centre - community/residential

Newport Civic Centre - community/public

Hengrove Park - residential (left)

Gas Lane - student accommodation

Confidential Project - office/defence

Health and Wellbeing

We pledge to prioritise wellbeing and inspire connection, through providing empowering and inclusive environments that stimulate physical and mental health.

60.5%

89.6% of building users surveyed identified an improvement in wellbeing

= £4,809.21

staff participation in available wellbeing activities in 2022 per person improvement in life satisfaction

* *

social value impact = £8,208.27

100% Health and Wellbeing

87% of staff surveyed said they were satisfied with their role!

of staff live within 20 miles of AWW offices

*scoring 5 or above in satisfaction (5= satisfied, 10 = very satisfied)

Social and Community

We pledge to work collaboratively with community partners to understand and design for the whole life cycle of a building to develop resilient communities.

45 hours

51 hours

50 hours

225 hours

of our pledged voluntary hours donated to support VCSEs

133% = £863.43

annual social value impact

450% = £22,725

* *

of our pledged staff hours of business advice to VCSEs and MSMEs annual social value impact

Social and Community

97.34% of those who completed Post Occupancy Evaluations (76) identified that the building supported social engagement

£2,293.36

donated/fundraised annually for local and national community projects

“We are delighted to have received a unanimous approval of our application by the committee. Our hope is that the development of the entire site will generate significant benefits and impacts both locally and across the city, transforming lives, families and neighbourhoods, challenging deprivation, injustice and inequality."

As part of our resilient communities pledge, we've committed to doing more work with VCSE's (Voluntary Charity Social Enterprise). This year projects for VCSE's accounted to 4.75%, including:

The Mary Ward Centre

The Park Community Centre

equips people to learn, enrich and transform their lives to support the wider community provides rentable spaces to deliver education and community support programmes

The Vassall Centre

promotes a healthy and enriched community through affordable, high-quality homes for both the elderly and families

- Julian Miles CEO of Bristol Charities, on The Vassall Centre

Designing Out Crime

We pledge to design and create built environments that reduce risk and vulnerability for users.

Fairmead School:

100%

of Fairmead School staff agreed that there was a reduction in disruptive incidents as a consequence of the new building

The school provides 100 SEN students places for Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD) & Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) students, for both secondary & primary age *

98.69%

of those surveyed in Post Occupancy Evaluations across all projects reported a sense of safety following use of the building = £4,789.41

uplift in Social Value Impact per person relative to existing building

* Source : AWW Social Value Impact Calculator aligned to HACT, Wellby and National TOMS

We pledge to build a sustainable future by embedding a circular economy into our design and build processes.

ISO 14001 audited and maintained

A Circular Economy toolkit has been created

34.2%

reduction in CO2 emissions since 2020-2021

Our Carbon Footprint has been calculated and offset of our education projects are now Net Zero Operational Carbon ready

Our 2024-25 target is 32.58 tonnes (down from 65.15 in 2020-21)

Over 60%

We are targeting Net Zero Carbon in operation for all projects by 2025

Environment

£12,040 invested in sustainable corporate travel schemes

2

96.6% of responding staff are aware of the sustainable initiatives offered participants in the Cycle to Work scheme

2 suppliers substituted due to reported mistreatment of staff and/or because a more local supplier could be procured

7 contracts that include commitments to ethical employment practices

9 suppliers that include sustainable procurement commitments

68%

office purchasing spent with SMEs

£600 annual commitment donated to TEMWA to support sustainable tree planting reforestation and afforestation

Education and Skills

We pledge to continually develop our thinking, invest in our team and inspire the next generation of innovators to always raise standards of the industry.

6 hours Fire Air Training

3 staff x 2 hours

8 hours Fire Aid Training

2 staff x 4 hours

= 237.5% provision on our annual target

24 hours CPD Training

(Continued Professional Development) provided per member of staff to develop our workforce

66 staff x 24 hours

3

Pin-ups per month

from both AWW employees and external consultants

Education and Skills

13 weeks student placement = £2,528.50 annual social value impact

8

30

students undertaken work experience at AWW Bristol and London students participated in Shape My City workshop at AWW Bristol

30

students participated in Bristol WORKS workshop at St Bernadettes, BS14 9LS

Case Studies

Shape My City:

In December 2022, we hosted our first Shape My City event in collaboration with Design West. This event comprises a series of workshops held over the course of the year and is an award winning accelerator programme for 15-18 year olds that seeks to change the future workforce of the built environment from a diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities perspective.

30 talented and keen to learn teenagers descended on AWW on the night to learn a little about the industry and inner workings of an Interior Design team in an Architecture Practice.

We conducted a workshop which split into small groups, encouraging the students to respond creatively to a ‘client brief’ for a workplace fitout. We used our AWW fitout and pivot + mark refurbishment as a case study and ‘site visit’ for this workshop. The key skills the students were exposed to were: responding to a client brief, developing ideas through sketches and sample boards and pitching their ideas. The briefs encouraged the students to consider the space with reference to colours, texture, lighting, spatial and furniture layouts, planting and acoustics.

Case Studies

Easton Primary School:

We have been busy volunteering our time to educate Easton Primary School pupils on the important roles architects and interior designers play on the development of the built environment.

After a presentation to 16 Year 6 students on the pathways to these careers the workshop, hosted by Rob Griffiths and Alice Ravenhill, moved on to challenging pupils to work in teams to build the tallest free standing structure they could out of clothes pegs and craft sticks.

This took place alongside Burges Salmon’s Joe Bowden (Burges salmon project manager), Sarah Hamnett (Corporate Responsibility Specialist) and Louie Thomas (Head of Transformations and Projects) who gave a presentation on departments and job roles within a law firm.

“ Thank you very much for accommodation us. The kids had a great time and hopefully one day one of them could be working for you."

- David Kooyman, Assistant Headteacher at Easton CE Academy

BristolWORKS:

We teamed up with Hoare Lea and Currie & Brown in conjunction with BristolWORKS to carry out a series of workshops for local schools and young offenders. The schools are often located in disadvantaged areas of Bristol where a history of unemployment exists. The idea behind BristolWORKS is to raise aspirations and create more opportunities. If students are in touch with people in the work place just 3 times they are more likely to go on to further their careers.

Case Studies

Rosa Simpson and Gemma Coe-Tucker attended our first session at St Bernadette Secondary School where pupils were recruited as either an Architect, Cost Consultant, Engineer or Project Manager to build a bridge across the harbour in Bristol. We have had some great feedback from this session and have been asked to participate in further activities across the city.

We pledge to conduct our business and projects in an equitable, accountable and inclusive way, and through our actions we aim to be recognised within our industry as social value leaders.

100%

of clients surveyed acknowledged that by working with AWW social value has been created through the relationships, processes and projects

11 meetings of the Social Value Team since May 2022

7,935 hours of research carried out by AWW team

Governance

3 hours mental health training for directors by Mind = £7,272 annual social value impact

7 new starters

April - May 2023

The induction highlights all policies including Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

We are accredited by Constructionline which includes EDI policies and procedures documented and passed

Check-in sessions on offer to all staff with Wellbeing Consultant, Rebecca Lightfoot

Partnerships

We pledge to increase positive impact by building relationships and promoting ethics, transparency and social value within our partnerships.

We communicate our ESG commitment with 100% of partners and stakeholders

We have partnered with an external consultant who will assist with reporting and communicating Social Value Impact.

Ways we are advocating and promoting Social Value in our communications and partnerships:

Social Value page in the internal newsletter each month

Our ESG policy and Social Value strategy is incorporated into our external communications and to key stakeholders

New partnerships formed with LHC and Goram Homes with Social Value commitments

We have partnered with other consultants to measure, record and communicate Social Value

Featured website articles and social media posts

All presentations to stakeholders now include an overview of our Social Value targets, pledges and KVIs

Case Studies

University of Bath School of Management:

The 13,000m2 building has collaboration at the heart of its teaching, learning and wider engagement programme.

The multi-functional Pavilion space affords fantastic views to the University Park whilst providing multi-level space to exchange ideas and learning or make use of the dedicated study facilities. The naturally ventilated environment boasts 8 new lecture theatres and a 250 seater conference lecture theatre to support a range of teaching methods and promote engagement between staff and students at all levels.

“ The building integrates beautifully with the rest of the campus and the amount of light is incredible! The working space is inspiring for creativity, the openness will help us think outside the box."

- Natasha Birk BSc International Management student

CLIENT: UNIVERSITY OF BATH

LOCATION: BATH

Case Studies

The Park Community Centre:

AWW worked closely with the centre to achieve their aspiration to build upon its successes and secure its home. Our vision was to make the design inclusive, welcoming and well connected; sustainable and ecological; inspirational and creative.

Through listening and learning we were able to establish key drivers and form a concise brief; to create a new identity and to deliver a purpose-built, inclusive facility, a building which could comfortably accommodate the range of organisations currently located on the site, engage learners and users, whilst being flexible enough to meet the changing community needs.

CLIENT: THE PARK

LOCATION: KNOWLE, BRISTOL

CLIENT: THE PARK

LOCATION: KNOWLE, BRISTOL

Reflections and Learning

Social Value is about delivering long lasting positive impact. We are committed to continually seeking to improve for the benefit of our clients, stakeholders and employees to deliver projects that promote resilient and sustainable communities.

Some of our key targets for next year include:

Social:

Increase the number of building users identifying an improvement in wellbeing and social engagement

Develop partnerships with local VCSEs to increase our voluntary and expert business advice commitment

Partner with local organisations to create safer spaces for all

Environmental:

Maintain the net zero carbon action plan and achieve net zero carbon as a business annually (Scope 1 and 2) and improve upon this to include Scope 3

Promote the use of sustainable travel methods

Target net zero carbon in operation across all projects by 2025

Continue to apply the Circular Economy Action Plan

Continue to engage in Circular Economy research

Governance:

Review current pledges and KVIs to ensure their relevance and maximum impact

Increase our Social Value training within the office

Partner with organisations to increase inclusivity both within AWW and in the projects we deliver

Collaborate with other organisations committed to Social Value

Proactive recording through projects, using bespoke systems to record and monitor our impact through projects

Develop Social Value design metrics toolkit in collaboration with our industry peers