Our purpose is to deliver brilliant buildings, transform lives, strengthen communities, and enhance the environment so our world is fit for future generations. Since 1852, social value - or the conduct, principles and support given by our company and our people to the societies in which we work, has been part of our culture.
In 2011, we established the Willmott Dixon Foundation to guide and monitor our social value activities. The work we do through the Foundation gives us the opportunity to have a positive impact on people’s lives.
Between 2011-2020, we achieved our target to enhance the life chances of 10,000 young people, 19 months early. To accomplish this, we developed tools and processes to make our social value activities more strategic across the business. Our experience put us in a position of strength, enabling us to respond to this year’s extraordinary events.
Covid-19 presented unprecedented challenges for our business. Firstly, we had to adapt to new ways of working safely and securely on projects, many of us had to adopt home working, whilst at all times navigating ‘business as usual’ with some of our teams on furlough.
Secondly, there was the challenge of delivering social value in a safe way. We had to think differently. Our people innovated, finding ways to reach communities – from donating IT equipment to individuals and organisations without access to digital, to creating virtual programmes to reach young people, through to finding accommodation for the homeless during the lockdown.
Our Annual Review celebrates what we achieved over 2020 and I am delighted to share with you the stories which celebrate what our people accomplished and highlight some of the individuals we worked with – many of whom have shown considerable courage and perseverance to overcome personal challenges.
2020 also saw us launch our new 2030 sustainability strategy, Now or Never, Our decisive decade. One-third of this strategy is Building Lives. Led through the Willmott Dixon Foundation, the aim of Building Lives is to support the people and businesses in our communities to thrive.
We will do this by striving for three ambitions that focus on the community, the power of business and supporting the people that face the biggest challenges:
- Understanding community: Ensuring that we always deliver high-impact social value which we can demonstrate meets the real needs of our communities is essential. With the Government’s budget deficit expected to reach a peacetime record in 2020/21, superfluous ‘do-gooding’ is a luxury that cannot be afforded. We are working with our customers, public sector organisations and directly with the community to understand where we can have the most impact.
- Business leverage: Increasing our social impact by making sure that all our business processes have social value at their heart – from supporting and spending with social enterprises to paying the real Living Wage.
- People: According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, those on low incomes faced the largest cut in hours and pay during the pandemic. At Willmott Dixon, we have always maintained that the best way to improve a person’s life chances is by enabling them to access good quality work. Having a job can provide purpose, skills, a sense of achievement and increased self-esteem – as well as an income. This belief is what led us to create our Careers Target.
You can see some of the things that we are doing to achieve these 10-year goals here.