Editorial's Welcome - 2023 winter Edition of our Education Bulletin

Hello and welcome to our winter newsletter for 2023

We have a lot of exciting contributors including Dr Gina Al-Talal who is in the spotlight for this newsletter. Gina manages our Knowledge Hub and her work is critical to our Royal Charter Objectives to advance the science and practice of Construction for public benefit. Gina produces all our learning materials many of which are free to anyone anywhere in the world. Her recent work on improving building safety is gaining much attention and traction across government and in the industry. Please check out the Guide below which is free to anyone, anywhere in the world. 

A Guide to Managing Safety-Critical Elements in Building Construction - CIOB Academy

This brings me to the subject of this editorial, social value which plays such an important role in our industry and in shaping our world and our future. Through social value, we bring benefit to communities and society, and we can attract a new more diverse generation of constructors. 

Social value is sometimes very narrowly defined as outreach work in the construction phase of a project and more thought needs to be given to the value of the delivered asset and what can be done to enhance that and improve its performance and life value. If we put social value first in all our work, we will be happier ourselves and will deliver safer, healthier, and more comfortable buildings. 

Smaller companies may struggle with more prescribed social value measures such as taking on local apprentices which may not be sustainable for them longer term. The CIOB has produced a report that highlights the issues smaller companies face and also looks at the opportunities missed. You can read about that at the link below and please do bring this to your learners’ attention. It is a great way to reinforce just how critical the built environment disciplines are to our lives and communities. 

Embrace social value or get left behind warns CIOB | CIOB

As a public benefit body, the CIOB is also committed to measuring our own social value and the last benchmarking we did showed that for every £1 we spend, £2.84 of social value was delivered, meaning that our expenditure of £12m in 2021 generated just over £34m in social value. We are carrying out this exercise again in 2023, and looking to include all our regional activities across the world so we anticipate that this number will rise significantly. 

We also have learning materials that you and your learners can access on our Academy website which is free to CIOB members and will help learners take a more strategic view of social value and the benefits it brings to professionals in the built environment, to communities and to society.

Strategic and Social Value from Project Delivery - CIOB Academy

Happy New year to you all and when you relax and enjoy yourselves over this festive period, do take a moment to appreciate our great built and natural environment.