map marker United Kingdom | 29 September 2025

Social Value: Three years in the making – £344m social value enabled during 2022-24

Social value is a measure of the positive difference that organisations like WSP make to the economy, our communities, the environment and society. It’s about creating broader value as we work – beyond financial and economic gains – particularly for those often overlooked in traditional decision-making. In the UK, it’s driven by legislation including the UK Government’s new Procurement Act, new Procurement Policy Note (PPN 002) and the Social Value Model.

James-Peet-wsp
James Peet
Head of Corporate Sustainability
United Kingdom
Contact

WSP have measured £344m of social value created by our UK&I business in the last three years, against a goal of £120m.

GDM-01804 Social Value Pie Charts-05

A large proportion of our social value comes from working with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across our UK & Ireland supply chain, with over 60% of our supply chain consisting of SMEs. Spending with SMEs stimulates regional growth, supports local employment and can help to reduce geographic inequalities. 

By using Social Value Portal’s standard methodology for calculating this and applying it to reflect our national footprint, we calculated £325m of social value generated via spend with SMEs. This reflects the highly specialised services we often buy to help deliver projects for our clients, where our offices work with SMEs across the country. More detail is included in the notes section below. 

Social value remains a crucial part of our delivery strategy in the UK & Ireland. Our ability to commit to – and then evidence – social value as we work with our clients is a longstanding legal requirement in all UK public sector procurement and a growing proportion of our major private sector contracts. It is about the behaviours of WSP UK&I and our teams to embed and create additional social value while we deliver, not the inherent and very large social value of our projects once delivered. 

We generated £116m of embedded and additional social value in the UK & Ireland in 2024 alone, to take our three-year measurement of social value to £344m between 2022-24*.  
*This figure has been verified with Social Value Portal where possible (and acknowledged where not). 

GDM-01815 Bar charts_social value activities_low res 8 (1)

Social Value is here to stay

We continue to challenge ourselves, we’ve set an ambitious new target across our next three-year cycle to generate £500m of embedded and additional social value in our local communities across the UK & Ireland between 2025 and 2027. 

We’ll also be working harder to measure and understand our reach, in terms of the number of people we positively impact through our social value efforts, and the outcomes we help to achieve. 

The social value we measure comes from the way we choose to work, and the dedication of teams delivering a blend of corporate sustainability programmes that improve our social impact. This includes choosing local suppliers and SMEs in our supply chain, delivering training and building capacity, volunteering and donating to support charities and communities, caring for our people, improving access to opportunities via apprenticeships, work experience and school STEM visits, and mentoring and offering careers advice.

It’s time for the industry to take social value seriously as an integral part of corporate sustainability strategy. This is why we’re leading the way with our ambitious commitment to create £500m of additional social value in our communities, in our 2025-27 strategy.

When it comes to social value, measurement matters

Our goal of creating £500m additional social value has focused our UK & Ireland business on making a measurable contribution to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

The value comes from a blend of corporate sustainability programmes. It gives us a lens to measure our impact more meaningfully. No fluff, everything is carefully evidenced. We work closely with the Social Value Portal to verify this data where possible (and acknowledge where not possible), to show the tangible impact we’ve committed to make for our communities, and our own people. Our approach to social value is constantly maturing. 

Fostering joined up thinking

We see social value generation as the thread that combines so much of the full ESG spectrum – it fosters joined up thinking to create bigger impact. Our goal is that social value becomes business norm – we believe we can play a big part in influencing and educating ourselves and our industry at large, collaborating and thinking bigger than ourselves by sharing best practice and what we learn as we go.

Sustainability at WSP

Our teams around the world are motivated by a common mission: to find sustainable solutions that help our clients and communities take on future challenges. At the same time, we aim to be an exemplary corporate citizen, continuously working towards our own sustainability ambitions and targets. 

Sustainability at WSP

Social value policy

Delivering real social value is integral to our work - nurturing sustainable societies, connecting communities and seizing opportunities - is enriched in our manifesto as a guiding principle of our business. Download our UK Policy from our policies page.

Social value policy

Corporate Responsibility

We have an empowering culture and hold ourselves accountable, which means acting responsibly in all areas of our business and managing it as if it were our own.

Corporate Responsibility

The Social Value Portal uses proxy values to translate non-financial benefits into financial terms. These are derived from:

  • Government data (ONS, HM Treasury Green Book, NHS, Unit Cost Database)
  • Academic research

Proxy values combine:

  • Fiscal value (e.g. reduced public sector costs from employment)
  • Economic value (e.g. local spending from employed individuals)
  • Societal value (e.g. wellbeing from volunteering or fair employment)

More information about Social Value Portal and the National TOMs Framework can be found on their website: https://www.socialvalueportal.com/measurement 

Our measured SME spend of £325m is made up of:

  • £133,999,826 verified by Social Value Portal using their standard methodology, which includes a geographical boundary around our offices.
  • £191,100,431 calculated using the same SVP proxy method but applied across our full UK-wide SME spend, without the geographical restriction. The spend reflects the highly specialist services we often buy to help deliver projects for clients.

Certain information contained in this page is not based on historical facts or current facts, and may constitute forward-looking statements or forward-looking information (collectively, “forward-looking statements”) under applicable securities legislation. 

These forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and may include, but are not limited to, estimates, plans, strategic ambitions, objectives, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, guidance, outlook, or other statements that are not statements of fact, and reflect the expectations of management of the Corporation regarding, without limitation, its long-term social value ambitions and targets which include, without limitation, its objectives concerning measuring and disclosing its social value performance (including with respect to the objectives and targets described in its 2025-2027 UK&I Strategic Activation Plan); to create £500m of embedded and additional social value in our local communities across the UK between 2025 and 2027; and aiming to making a measurable contribution to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

These forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are based on several assumptions, both general and specific, which give rise to the possibility that actual results or events could differ materially from the expectations expressed in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements and that the business outlook, objectives, plans and strategic priorities may not be achieved. Forward-looking statements contained in this page for periods beyond 2025 involve longer-term assumptions and estimates than forward-looking statements for 2025 and are consequently subject to greater uncertainty, including assumptions about our ability to develop and implement various corporate and business initiatives, including new procedures, policies and targets; the state of the global economy and the economies of the regions in which the Corporation operates; and sufficiency of internal and external resources, as well as those described in the “Forward-Looking Statements” section of our latest Global Sustainability Report, which section is incorporated herein by reference into this cautionary statement and which document is available on our website. If any of our assumptions prove to be inaccurate, actual results or events could differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements.

In evaluating these forward-looking statements, readers should specifically consider various risk factors, which, if realised, could cause WSP’s actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, but are not limited to, the rising complexity of the geopolitical landscape and macro-economic developments; the failure to effectively adopt, integrate, and leverage existing and emerging technologies in our operations; the failure to implement sufficient corporate and business initiatives; difficulty in accurately measuring, evaluating and disclosing our social value performance; failure to accurately estimate the social value benefits of our project work; negative stakeholder perception or reaction to our social value performance or initiatives, as well as other risks detailed from time to time in reports filed by WSP Global Inc. with securities regulators or securities commissions or other documents that WSP Global Inc. makes public, which are available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and may cause events or results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement.

These and other risk factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from our expectations expressed in, or implied by, our forward-looking statements are discussed in greater detail under the section titled “Risk Factors” of WSP Global Inc.’s most recent annual management’s discussion and analysis, which is available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and which section is hereby incorporated herein by reference into this cautionary statement.

The forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this page describe our expectations as of 12 September 2025 and, accordingly, are subject to change after such date. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, we do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or to revise any forward-looking statements contained in this page or otherwise, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Examples of our ESG work