Practice News

Measuring the impact of our social value activities in 2023

Name: One Darnley Road
Price range: $

Min Read

by AHR

Our commitment to social value runs through everything we do and as a socially responsible company, we embed a culture of positive impact in all that we do.

By connecting with the communities in which we work, we prioritise actions which will be valued the most by these communities, as well as by our team. We have put in place three objectives to guide our social value actions, ensuring that what we do has the greatest impact:

We champion a fair right to education for all
We foster inclusive, accessible communities
We support improved health and wellbeing

Through a variety of activities, including the delivery of our project work, within our role as an employer, our internal initiatives and external partnerships, we focus on how we can make a difference through our actions. We are proud of the progress we have made together in 2023. Having had a busy year across the UK, we have created social value in many different ways. You can see some of our highlights below.

Activity highlights

Inspiring future generations

A presentation from a student during their work experience in the Midlands. Every year, we provide work experience placements for students aged 15 and above, across the country.

Championing a fair right to education

We have been running the RIBA AHR Scholarship programme since 2008. Director David de Sousa was a mentor to our RIBA AHR Scholarship 2022 recipient.

Knowledge sharing and creating accessible communities

We presented at the UK Passivhaus Conference 2023, sharing lessons learnt from designing and delivering the largest Passivhaus education building in the UK. We also conducted a site visit to this education building, the Replacement Woodmill and St Columba’s High School.

Creating a sustainable future through knowledge sharing

Throughout the year, we ran series of knowledge sharing events, in Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Liverpool, Achieving decarbonisation: The challenges and opportunities in retrofit.

Creating a more inclusive profession

Through our ongoing partnership with Speakers for Schools we have reached young people at schools across the country, leading Discovery Workshops in a range of topics across architecture and building consultancy, for students aged 14-19. Architects Sara Burgess and Iulia Nazarin, gave an afternoon talk to Year 7 and 10 students at Dixon’s Unity Academy about a career in architecture.

Nurturing healthy communities

Director Andrew France volunteered with Uniform Exchange to sort through the donated clothes, folding and tagging them ready for drivers to collect and deliver to families across the Kirklees.

Fostering inclusive and accessible communities

Smart Works are a UK charity that supports unemployed women from a range of backgrounds and age groups. We provided pro-bono architectural services to the charity to help them establish a location in Manchester City Centre.

Supporting improved health and wellbeing

In July we enjoyed a company-wide away day at the University of Warwick, with colleagues from across our nine UK offices.

Creating sustainable communities

Our building consultancy team in Bristol took part in a Stand Up For Safe Water Paddleboarding event in support of Frank Water Projects, a charity dedicated to providing safe water sources and tackling the impact of the climate crisis.

Inspiring future generations

Championing a fair right to education

Knowledge sharing and creating accessible communities

Creating a sustainable future through knowledge sharing

Creating a more inclusive profession

Nurturing healthy communities

Fostering inclusive and accessible communities

Supporting improved health and wellbeing

Creating sustainable communities

As passionate supporters of equal rights to education, we strive to inspire future generations and are committed to providing better opportunities to those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Every year, we provide work experience placements for students aged 15 and above, and last year was no different, having supported 47 students over 86 weeks of work experience.

We also engaged with 29 schools and 15 universities, providing mentoring sessions, site visits, workshops, presentations and guest lectures. We also embrace an internal culture that values knowledge sharing, consistently supporting our colleagues with life-long learning, progression and collaboration and are proud to support routes to employment via different routes.

Our robust methodology which defines our approach and gives us an achievable and measurable way to deliver social value. We are delighted to share our journey towards positive change in our latest social value impact report highlighting our achievements in 2023 and the progress we have made in areas including: sustainability, diversity and inclusion, employee wellbeing, and within communities through our projects. We look forward to continuing to build upon our three objectives, through 2024.