Why does social value matter in commercial decision-making?

As a business, British Land needs to generate strong returns for our investors and JV partners. So why does social impact matter in our decision-making? Because it helps us manage risk and strengthen commercial performance. It’s also about culture. British Land is an organisation that’s full of people who want to do the right thing.

Enhancing long term value

Every successful development balances risks and returns. Across the three key risk areas – securing planning consent, delivering the project and ultimately leasing or selling the asset – embedding social impact into decision-making can strengthen outcomes.

This is well illustrated at Canada Water, where we’re creating a major new neighbourhood for London in partnership with AustralianSuper and Southwark Council. I’m convinced we would not have secured Section 73 approval for our revised masterplan – and certainly not at the pace we did – without the strong local reputation and relationships we’ve built over time.

This is about more than meeting planning obligations. The revised masterplan gives us the flexibility needed to deliver future homes, jobs and infrastructure investment, in the face of regulatory change and sector-wide pressures on cost and viability. This reflects the trust we’ve grown as a long-standing partner that makes decisions in the interests of both the market and the borough.

As we partner with local authorities and communities to shape successful places, our approach works because we consider social and commercial objectives together, not separately, and because we take a long term view. This builds goodwill which helps us deliver our business plans. I often think about this in terms of half-life: while the length of this varies between places and organisations, one thing remains constant – trust, goodwill and shared understanding take time to build. Lasting value cannot be switched on overnight

Then there are aspects that we dial up and down as appropriate. In naming streets and public spaces across Canada Water, we turned to the local community. Over 700 people shared what the area means to them through workshops, surveys and school projects. Their insights fed into a framework that now guides all naming decisions so that they genuinely reflect the area’s heritage, identity and future aspirations.

Far from producing ‘Boaty McBoatface’-style suggestions, this community-led process led to more authentic and meaningful names than a conventional consultancy approach – delivering better outcomes at lower cost. Marker Way honours the dock workers who marked up timber and cargo from around the world; Rafter Walk commemorates the rafters who assembled and guided floating timber rafts through the docks; while Evergreen Walk references both nature and the area’s printworks heritage. Bringing in diverse voices also reduces the reputational risk of inappropriate name choices – an increasingly visible issue in recent years.

Integrating social impact into operational decision-making also continues to add value for our customers and communities. At Fort Kinnaird Shopping Park, 128 local people benefited from our recruitment and skills partnership this year – generating £400,000 of social value – while our retail customers filled nearly 80 vacancies, saving an estimated £65,000 in recruitment costs.

With British Land’s acquisition of Life Science REIT and opportunities for our assets in the Golden Triangle of Cambridge, Oxford and London, I am excited about the significant potential for social value to support our long term strategy, deliver local benefits and contribute to national priorities around growth, housing and jobs. 

Local authorities have a crucial role to play, both as regulators and as service providers in shaping places that deliver lasting benefits for generations to come. At the same time, developers need confidence in commercial viability to keep investing in the UK and delivering the growth communities need.