Social value & improving our communities

Steer values all efforts to positively add social value by contributing to the long-term wellbeing and resilience of individuals, communities and society in general. Our focus on social value can be categorised into four key themes:

• Jobs, skills and employment.
• Healthier, safer and more resilient communities.
• Cleaner, greener and sustainable environmental solutions.
• Economic and social innovation.

Not only do we actively encourage our employees to engage in activities that address these four themes, we also advise clients on projects that ultimately aim to have a positive social value effect.

In support of adding social value, employees benefit from five days of volunteering leave each year, plus we have a donation-matching initiative available for those who undertake fundraising activity.

Across the globe, our employees have been involved in charitable and volunteering projects of social value, such as:

• Preparing meals for homeless people in San Diego with the Urban Angels charity.
• Volunteering at St. Francis House in Boston, the largest day shelter in Massachusetts.
• Teaching children as part of a social support project for PANN Foundation in Bogotá.
• Collecting rubbish in Vancouver as part of the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean Up.
• Educating Londoners on health and environmental effects on Anti-Idling Action Day.
• Generating funding for new affordable housing for Habitat for Humanity.
• Supporting the elderly at the North London Cares social club to tackle loneliness.

We have undertaken hundreds of projects that address social value issues in some form, a small snapshot of client projects includes:

• Measuring and influencing economic prosperity in Bolton, UK
• Developing a mobility master plan for Manizales, Colombia
• Drafting a skills strategy for the life sciences industry
• Advising on India’s prosperity fund to reduce poverty
• Reviewing the effectiveness of behaviour change programmes in the USA
• Implementing clean bus technology in Latin America
• Improving local transit in Canada’s smaller municipalities
• Exploring the role of arts and culture in the creative industries
• Transforming Ealing into a Liveable Neighbourhood, UK
• Developing bike and train options for low income communities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil