Social Value

Helping young people to follow their ambitions is vital to social progress; to support this we form partnerships with schools, colleges and other education providers to deliver our Careers in the Built Environment Programme. We focus on providing diverse students with an insight into architecture, planning and BIM as well as other areas of our work such as marketing and HR. We achieve this through career talks, curriculum-matched workshops, work experience and social action.

Through our Giving Something Back initiative, we donate a percentage of our profits to support charities and community organisations local to us and have done for many years. Currently, we are assisting homelessness charities the Greenwich Winter Night Shelter and the 999 Club along with The AHOY Centre, a charity for at-risk young people, and the Trussell Trust in the continuation of their valuable work.

We believe architecture can bring lasting positive impacts. Through our well-considered community engagement, we talk with local people to understand what matters to them most and build this into our designs and social value programmes. From establishing community design hubs to cleaning local parks, we strive to expand the benefits of our work to build stronger, more resilient communities.

We recognise the important work needed to strengthen equality, diversity and inclusion in architecture. Our partnerships with charities including WISH (Women in Social Housing) and the EY Foundation facilitate positive change to increase diversity in our industry. We have also established an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Group that helps to evolve our business operations and change our practice for the better.

We set high standards in our financial and employment practices to strengthen local economic resilience. BPTW was one of the first London Living Wage employers in Greenwich and we require all our suppliers to also pay the LLW. We also work with Greenwich Local Labour and Business to increase the reach of our employment opportunities.

We are committed to supporting our clients in their social value aspirations. Our dedicated Social Value Lead collaborates with client representatives to create tailored social value programmes that deliver initiatives that matter. We are experienced in many social value methodologies, including TOMS, HACT and the Social Value Portal, and have established processes for measuring and recording our social value work.