The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
By The Purpose Coalition and Rt Hon Justine Greening
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
0. Foreword
Foreword, Rt Hon Justine Greening, Chair of the Purpose Coalition and Former Secretary of State for Education
What gets measured gets done. It’s something we all know and yet when it comes to the most profound social issue facing Britain – unequal access to opportunity – we don’t systematically measure outcomes anywhere near as much as we could or should.
There are some positive areas. Upstream in the education system as Education Secretary I had huge amounts of data and information to draw on – for schools’ performance, pupil outcomes, subjects, attainment gaps – a whole wealth of data. On top of that it was contextualised data –we tracked the outcomes for pupils on Free School Meals, for children with special education needs, for those outside the mainstream school system in alternative provision.
This data and the ongoing insights it produced was absolutely crucial. Without knowing the outcomes, and how they differed for different groups, particularly for the most disadvantaged children and young people in our society, how
could I possibly have understood the situation on the ground and then designed policy to try to address the challenges? It would have been so much harder to work out how to target our efforts to the right place.
We simply cannot improve equality of access to opportunity if we have no insights on what is happening on the ground
In 2024, Britain spent around £63bn on the schools’ system alone. In addition to this, we invest in Further and Higher Education, and in skills more broadly. It’s because of how important developing our talent is for not only individuals but also in tackling Britain’s skills crisis. Our economic growth is being impeded because employers can’t find enough talented people with the right skills.
We are a country investing billions in developing our nation’s talent and, as we do so, we are overtly using that investment to try to close the gaps that otherwise open up in our education system. We track those outcomes to huge detail and we develop policy to help address those education inequality gaps.
But when all that talent passes from education into employment, then what?
The reality is that we go from an information version of feast to famine. From data and information to a near total data vacuum. We don’t know what happens to our country’s talent once it gets into employment. We don’t know what happens on getting into different careers, or on progression once people are into work. We don’t know the contextualised position of employment outcomes for those like myself, from working class backgrounds. Sometimes we have an insight when a one-off study is carried out, for example on access to careers, but other than that, understanding access to opportunity and progression in employment and careers is a black box – with outcomes largely hidden from sight.
So, if what gets measured gets done - but we’re not measuring social mobility and access to opportunity in employment - then this is one of the biggest barriers to delivering a Britain with equality of opportunity.
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We simply cannot improve equality of access to opportunity if we have no insights on what is happening on the ground. That has to change. We need data and insights into what those journeys are like in practice for people, why we see those outcomes, and how they are changing over time.
The Purpose Coalition set itself a challenge of finding the data that Britain needs from employerswhether large or small - to finally give us an ongoing measure of our progress on improving social mobility. This built on the crucial initial work of the Equality of Opportunity Coalition that I launched, and have led, with former Social Mobility Commission Co-Chair Steven Cooper CBE.
On this vital project, over the course of the year, working with my co-chair Angela Halliday of Sodexo UK&I, we have brought together employers from the private and public sector and across a range of different industry sectors to crack the social mobility measurement challenge. With invaluable input from our Business Leadership Advisory Council, comprised of our inspiring leaders from across the Purpose Coalition, we believe we have succeeded.
There is more work to do, but we believe we have identified a measurement standard, the ‘Social Scopes’ that can open up the employer black box on access to opportunity and provide the crucial missing piece of insight to finally shift the dial on creating a Britain with equality of opportunity.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
Angela Halliday, Director of Social Impact at Sodexo
Angela Halliday, Director of Social Impact at Sodexo, has led on the creation and progression of the new Social Scopes measurement standard with Rt Hon Justine Greening.
Reflecting on the work and Sodexo’s wider approach to social impact, Angela shares her insights:
“Sodexo is a purposeful business, built on the principles of creating a better every day for its colleagues, the people it serves and the communities in which it operates. Through its two primary activities of food and facilities management services, Sodexo meets all the challenges of everyday life with a dual goal: to improve the quality of life for our employees and those we serve, and contribute to the economic, social and environmental progress in the communities where we operate. For Sodexo, growth and social impact go hand in hand – serving the daily needs of millions of people every day.
We are concerned with not only what we do, but the way that we do it - the meaningful impact for people and the planet; demonstrated through our Social Impact Pledge that we initially published back in 2015, the first in our market to do so.
“Our partnership with The Purpose Coalition creates a wider opportunity to inform and influence
Our Pledge outlines priority commitments to People, Planet, Places and Partners. We hold ourselves accountable to achieving the desired impact for each of these commitments, publishing our progress on an annual basis.
Our partnership with The Purpose Coalition creates a wider opportunity to inform and influence the way in which business can truly be a force for good. How businesses take an impact-centric approach is crucial if we are to collectively break down barriers experienced by society, by creating opportunities for all.
This is why Sodexo is at the forefront of developing ways in which business can more effectively collaborate in bringing to life our collective purpose and strategic aims and ambitions for society. Developing a Social Scopes Standard is the first step. This framework will enable businesses to understand true societal needs. It will support how businesses develop innovative approaches for people, communities, and supply chain, and equally as important, measure our impact.”
Our Members
The development of the Social Scopes Measurement Standard was supported in a ‘Test & Learn’ phase by the following members of The Purpose Coalition, who played a vital role in refining and validating our framework. Their contributions have ensured that the standard is both practical and impactful, providing organisations with a robust tool to measure and improve their social mobility and social impact effectively.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
1. An Introduction to the Social Scopes Measurement Standard
In looking for a sensible way of measuring social mobility and the social impact of employers, firstly, we needed to have an approach that was holistic. It had to look inside a business and how it used its own opportunities for driving social mobility, as well as outside a business at its work supporting communities or customers.
Secondly, any approach had to be simple, so that a wider public can understand which employers are playing their role and to what extent. If this is about social impact then society has to be able to understand and use this data. That is crucial.
Thirdly, it had to be relative to the employer’s size – giving a fair sense of relative effort whatever the size of the organisation. It can’t just be about the total ‘quantum’ of activity, because that means larger companies are always going to be able to do more than smaller companies. We need a measurement approach that can show the effort in relation to the size of the business, truly giving a sense of those doing more and those doing less, however big or small they are. And finally, it had to be accessible to all companies whatever their size, large or small. We had to have an inclusive approach, one that ‘democratised’ measuring social mobility and social impact so that any employer could calculate and show their impact for themselves
without the use of expensive consultants. For our approach, we chose to align with an approach that businesses and employers are already familiar with for measuring climate emissions – a scopes 1, 2 and 3 framework. It makes sense because we can then align social impact performance alongside climate impact –people and planet. Importantly, as with climate, this approach shows that holistic perspective of a company, what it is positively doing internally and externally to drive improved access to opportunity. It’s a shift away from traditional corporate social responsibility where companies could support charity work in communities even though they were making little effort internally to widen out their own opportunities.
A ‘Social’ Scopes measurement standard , as we have designed it, is simple for the public to understand. It doesn’t present a figure out of context that is complex to understand and impossible to judge relative to the company’s size. We hope that the straightforward numbers and measurement that the ‘Social Scopes’ standard creates will not only drive the muchneeded transparency on the overall social mobility ‘footprint’ of an employer but will also lead to innovations in insight and reporting as different businesses seek to explain their positions and how they are working to improve.
So, what are the ‘Social Scopes’ 1, 2 and 3 measures we are now trialling with Purpose Coalition employers?
In summary:
Scope 1 is the socio-economic background (SEB) tracking of employees. In the end, these are the outcomes we want to see – people from all backgrounds able to get in and get on in any organisation. Any work in communities ultimately comes down to this, so tracking socio-economic background is the way we can get data on whether or not those outcomes are happening. This report showcases how Purpose Coalition employers are tracking their own performance on the socio-economic background of employees and steadily working to get ever better data from their employees, taking different approaches to engage them and new approaches to understanding the data being provided.
“ The involvement of supply chains in driving social mobility is obviously of paramount importance for public sector
Scope 2 relates to an employer’s supply chain, ensuring that their top suppliers also track socio-economic background. For the many businesses that work through their supply chains, having sight of their wider footprint is crucial if we are to understand whether their business drives wider opportunities that are open or closed to all.
Companies working through supply chains to drive more positive environmental outcomes have been crucial in shifting the dial on addressing climate change. We believe an employer working to drive social mobility change through their supply chain will be equally, if not more, important for delivering progress in social mobility. Doing so will cascade impact throughout British business, across employers more widely, enabling a supply chain to easily be part of the change Britain needs. The involvement of supply chains is obviously of paramount importance for the public sector. Taxpayer spend must drive the maximum social impact and for those businesses delivering our public services it is crucial they can transparently show their progress. It’s not enough to simply deliver good public services and supply products, Britain needs every single taxpayer pound to demonstrably drive social mobility too. And that means measurement of its effectiveness through measurement of the Social Scopes performance of the business it goes to.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
Scope 3 relates to that external world, of community and customers, that businesses are part of and the wider impact. We have taken a simple, straightforward approach on measurement of the wider contribution to social impact and social mobility because we believe that unnecessary complexity on any social value calculation simply leads to a more costly, exclusive process that smaller and medium sized companies cannot be part of. Ever more detailed calculations fail to add sufficient additional insight, and can even give a false sense of accuracy, particularly when it relates to long-term
outcomes that are inherently hard to measure. Instead, The Purpose Coalition Social Scopes Measurement Standard is underpinned by the belief that it is more effective to empower businesses to display their real-world relative performance compared to size, and one another. In relation to accuracy, drawing on my work in international development and how the measurement of the impact of long-term projects is approached in that arena, we have concluded that there are better ways to assess the underlying value and effectiveness of interventions.
The second, key piece of measurement progress we recommend that employers work towards is to not only get the core social mobility data for Social Scopes 1, 2 and 3 but also to take further steps to provide insight on what is driving those results. By using the Purpose Goals framework, they can identify what the barriers are that lie behind the Social Scope scores that have been achieved.
“ Drawing on my work in international development, we have concluded that there are better ways to assess the underlying value and effectiveness of interventions
In a trailblazing step, The Purpose Coalition employers will be using a Purpose Goals survey with their employees to directly identify where their employees see the biggest barriers to progression that they face within their businesses. Employees will be identifying which Purpose Goals are the most challenging for them and, armed with this insight, the Purpose Coalition businesses will then be designing their internal social mobility strategies to directly address - and ideally remove - those barriers for their employees. Of course, over time they can regularly repeat those Purpose Goals employee surveys to actively check that they are moving in the right direction and the evidence shows that employees believe those barriers to progression are declining.
“ Tailoring social mobility and social impact interventions to different places matters
Other Purpose Coalition employers will be trailblazing by using the Purpose Goals survey for their customers as well as their employees – directly asking customer groups where they see their own barriers to progress. They plan to weave that fresh insight into how they design their products and services to be able to take purposeful decisions on whether and how they can bring forward more tailored offers to support customer social mobility. We believe this will be a crucial, new insight. For those businesses with significant consumer reach, particularly in social mobility coldspots, this is potentially a vital step forward in helping them design their social impact work taking place and a far more powerful way of measuring progress outcomes over time.
Finally, The Purpose Coalition businesses will similarly be trailblazing using the Purpose Goals survey with the communities where they are most present to help shape their community social impact work. Tailoring social mobility and social impact interventions to different places matters. Purpose Goals community surveys will provide employers with the evidence they need to take a local community’s priorities on breaking down barriers and make them their own.
Using the Social Scopes measurement combined with Purpose Goals surveys insight, we are moving from a world of no data to a world with information and insight. At last. What gets measured gets done. Now we can finally have common measurement that opens up the black box of social mobility and employment. This must become the norm. Only when that happens will Britain change for the better, for good. And most importantly, we will have the data to prove it and to keep achieving evermore progress.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
2. Delivering Against the Social Scopes Standard
For each Social Scope, we have identified a ‘good’, ‘better’ and ‘best’ position that a company can be in. We think it is vital to recognise that all employers are on a journey. For some employers it is about making a powerful commitment to start that journey, for others, already at ‘good’ or beyond, it’s about what the next steps are to develop their social mobility impact. To show exactly what this means, for Social Scopes 1, 2, and 3, we have set
out that maturity path of ‘good’, ‘better’ and ‘best’, to show where employers should make a start, but also where they can and should develop their measurement next.
The following sections will cover each of the 3 Social Scopes and explain what the measurement standard is in more detail, and then what ‘good’, ‘better’ and ‘best’ mean.
2.1. Social Scope 1: Explainer
2.1.1. Good
In the end, all the effort on breaking down barriers is with the purpose of delivering equality of opportunity. As a result, measuring what employers do with their opportunities is in effect the ultimate outcome of all that effort. For any business, are their opportunities open to a wide spectrum of talent from all backgrounds or are
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they only accessible to a narrower subsection of the population? Scope 1 is the ultimate outcome measure on access to opportunity because it measures the socio-economic background of employees within the business. These employee roles are the opportunities the business has, and this data tells us whether they are populated by those from diverse backgrounds or not. Socioeconomic background tracking1 can give us the data that shows whether a business is an engine of social mobility. Purpose Coalition companies are already tracking the SEB of their employees. It is giving them fresh insight into the talent coming into, and flowing through and up, their organisation.
Some businesses are getting the data through employee surveys, whilst others have added the social mobility background questions into their employee profile systems and run internal campaigns to ask employees to provide this additional data. Businesses with these insights are now able to look at the data crossovers with diversity data, such as gender or race and gain further understanding of the current position within their business.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
2.1.2. Better
SEB tracking tells us the outcome and current situation for a business, but we believe that employers should go further to understand what that data means. Using the Purpose Goals employee survey, they can get ongoing trackable evidence about where different employees in different parts of the business, at different stages in their careers and from different backgrounds see the barriers to progression. Purpose Coalition companies are trialling a Purpose Goals Employee Survey to really understand where staff see progression and wider barriers in their lives. Employers can then add to that hard data and evidence with employee assemblies to further gain qualitative insight into the Purpose Goals employee survey outcomes. Most businesses routinely do employee satisfaction surveys (E-sat), but we believe it is now crucial for employers to also focus on their employees’ perception of barriers to progress. This is a powerful way for an employer to track the perceived barriers, target its internal work to reduce those barriers and then, through regular surveying, see whether that work is achieving successful results. Britain has never had any systematic way of looking at our nation’s talent when it gets into employment and assessing what the barriers are for it to flow into better opportunities. It’s crucial that this becomes the norm, not the exception. Socio-economic background data plus the insight on where employees perceive their barriers to progression to be is vital measurement for employers to transparently track progress.
2.1.3.
Best
Purpose Coalition companies are going to use the SEB data and Purpose Goals Employee Survey data and employee assemblies to redesign and adapt their internal social mobility plans. Data combined with understanding then needs to lead to action and an evidence-driven plan. At that point, there is a clear process and feedback loop in place that means an employer is steadily tracking, assessing and acting to improve its performance on being open to talent from all backgrounds getting in and getting on in the organisation. It is also understanding what the wider barriers are for employees, beyond the workplace, to potentially design plans and actions to help address those too.
“ Purpose Coalition companies are trialling a Purpose Goals Employee Survey to really understand where staff see progression and wider barriers in their lives
2.1.4. Leading Case Study: Aldermore Bank
Aldermore Bank stands out as a leader in its work against Social Scope 1 –Colleagues. It prioritises a workplace culture that champions inclusion, career mobility, and social mobility. Through innovative programmes and partnerships, Aldermore has embedded an environment where colleagues are empowered to develop professionally, irrespective of background.
Driving opportunity for all Aldermore’s approach to inclusion is comprehensive, highlighted by its work on the 10,000 Black Interns programme and the Change 100 Disability Graduate Scheme. These efforts bring talented individuals from underrepresented groups into the financial sector, addressing systemic barriers to entry. Focusing internal opportunity generation, Aldermore Bank’s Women in Leadership Programme and EmbRace Your Future Programme offer structured pathways for female colleagues and employees from ethnic minorities to develop in their careers, ensuring diverse representation across leadership roles.
Career mobility
Aldermore’s commitment to social mobility is highlighted by the Career Pathways programme, which provides colleagues with clear visibility into available roles and the resources to progress. This is supported by the Aldermore Tech Academy, enabling employees to reskill and transition into high-demand roles in technology.
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Empowering colleagues through data and engagement
The bank actively captures SEB data through its Count Me In campaign, doubling participation rates over the past year. This data allows Aldermore to identify and address representation gaps, creating equitable opportunities across all levels. These insights are further complemented by internal networks like DAWN (Disability Awareness Network) and VETNET (Veterans Network), which provide targeted support and resources to diverse groups.
Nurturing future talent
Aldermore’s apprenticeship programme exemplifies its focus on fostering skills for the future. With nearly £330,000 invested in the past year, the initiative supports colleagues across levels, from entry roles to leadership development.
Delivering broader impact
Aldermore’s inclusive culture has earned recognition, including its placement in the Sunday Times Top 10 Best Places to Work in 2024. This achievement highlights the bank’s dedication to creating a workplace where colleagues feel valued and empowered to thrive.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
Case Study
2.1.5. Wider Purpose Coalition Best Practice
Purpose Coalition businesses are driving meaningful internal change by prioritising inclusive workplace cultures and providing opportunities for personal and professional growth for all. These organisations exemplify how empowering colleagues contributes to social mobility and long-term success through a focus on Social Scope 1 – Colleagues.
bp has implemented a global ‘Self ID’ programme, which in the UK includes asking employees four Social Mobility Commission questions in its annual engagement survey, Pulse, and through its HR system, Workday.
Insights from this data are guiding efforts to understand both social mobility representation, including by geography and business area, and levels of employee engagement at bp.
“ Insights from this data are guiding efforts to understand social mobility representation.
Reed in Partnership is focused on innovative strategies to develop and progress underrepresented colleague talent.
The Springboard Mentoring Scheme connects women and ethnic minority employees with experienced mentors to prepare them for leadership roles. The Future Manager Academy also provides targeted training to help employees develop the skills needed for management positions.
Reed’s Inclusion & Belonging Steering Committee conducts quarterly reviews of diversity data to identify gaps and inform strategies. Through socio-economic data collection, with 90% workforce participation, the organisation tracks representation across all levels, ensuring initiatives are data-driven and effective.
Shoosmiths has embedded a focus on opportunity for all into its business strategy, ensuring accountability at all levels. The firm’s Understanding Racial Equity (SURE) Project identifies barriers faced by colleagues from ethnic minorities and provides actionable solutions. Similarly, the High Performing Women Programme supports women in reaching their career potential through mentoring and leadership training.
Employee networks like Embrace (for racial equity) and Proud (for LGBTQ+ inclusion) uphold a culture of belonging. The firm’s Social Mobility Action Plan and recently published Updated Impact Report –produced in partnership with The Purpose Coalition - benchmarks its progress in key areas against Social Scope 1 - creating a roadmap for continued improvements in representation, inclusion, and opportunity for all.
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As part of its leadership in the Breaking Down Barriers to Law project, Fletchers Group is driving progress on equity, diversity, and inclusion through its Accelerate 2028 strategy, focusing on increasing representation of women, minority ethnic groups, and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. In the first year, it has hit three of five targets, including an early success in boosting underrepresented leaders, with two Executive Team members rising from junior roles.
To address gaps, particularly in socioeconomic representation, Fletchers is expanding recruitment channels, tracking diversity data to reduce bias, and launching an outreach strategy in 2025. Initiatives like the Fletchers Academy and Vacation Scheme provide accessible pathways into law, while outreach with schools and universities inspires future talent.
Recognised with the 2024 Employer Accreditation Award, Fletchers champions diversity as a moral and business imperative, fostering inclusion and social mobility to build a workforce that reflects the communities it serves.
“ Outreach with schools and universities inspires future talent
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
Advancing Transparency and Inclusion
The Co-op has set a groundbreaking precedent by becoming the first UK retailer to publish a socioeconomic pay gap report. This report identified a 5.2% mean pay gap between colleagues from lower and higher socioeconomic backgrounds, primarily due to underrepresentation in senior positions.
To address this, the Co-op launched initiatives like:
• Socioeconomic Pay Gap Reporting: Collecting and analysing detailed workforce data to identify disparities and establish benchmarks.
• Social Mobility Taskforce: Driving organisational strategies to eliminate barriers faced by employees from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Mentoring and Development Programmes: Introducing targeted development for colleagues facing intersectional challenges, such as women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
These actions reflect the Co-op’s commitment to fostering an inclusive workplace where talent from all backgrounds can thrive.
Fostering Inclusivity and Social Mobility
Ramsay Healthcare UK is committed to fostering an inclusive environment where colleagues from all backgrounds can thrive. This commitment is realised through its Social Impact People Resource Group (PRG), which empowers colleagues and addresses barriers to social mobility. The PRG leverages personal stories of social mobility to inspire change and actively supports the Purpose Coalition’s People Scope initiatives.
Future Vision and Goals
• Good: By 2025, Ramsay will actively track the socioeconomic backgrounds of its workforce through the “This is Me” campaign, encouraging transparency and inclusivity.
• Better: The PRG will analyse annual survey insights to understand and address barriers to social mobility, using this data to develop targeted interventions.
• Best: With executive-level sponsorship, Ramsay will establish feedback loops and implement action plans to eliminate barriers, fostering continuous progress in creating equal opportunities.
2.2. Social Scope 2: Explainer
2.2.1. Good
It’s important that employers also drive change through their supply chains. Social Scope 2 is simple. It means employers asking their top suppliers, either by value or number, to also carry out socio-economic background tracking. It means an employer can see its whole impact, not just
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part of it. We want that supplier data to be shared so that a business can pull together its overall social mobility footprint of the opportunities it is supporting to be able to see whether all its wider opportunities are open to all. This is crucial, as it has been with climate change, to see that direct and indirect footprint that the business has on social mobility. An employer would be able to add its supplier SEB data, particularly at similar employee levels or for similar roles and evaluate what the data looks like in total when added to its own. It will be helpful in understanding where both parties can go further, as well as being a good way for an employer to galvanise their supply chain to do better through adding this into procurement approaches. There is extensive knowledge on how to mobilise supply chains on environment and The Purpose Coalition believes there is a similar, if not greater, potential when it comes to driving social mobility using a supply chain. It’s why we also believe Social Scope 2 is the way that we can use measurement to drive change ever more widely through Britain’s businesses.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
2.2.2.
Similar to Social Scope 1, ‘better’ would see an employer using its key suppliers to gain additional insight into their employee socioeconomic background data through carrying out Purpose Goals Employee Surveys and employees assemblies. This would produce the quantitative and qualitative information to identify where barriers to progression are and understand how these differ for different groups of employees. Again, this evidence can provide vital insights that can be shared with the employer for both themselves and their supply base to identify best practice and work collectively to reduce barriers to progression more broadly.
Case Study
2.2.5.
Leading Purpose Coalition businesses are demonstrating innovative approaches to embedding sustainability, inclusion, and resilience within supply chains. Through focusing on measurement, transparency, ethical practices, and environmental stewardship, these organisations are setting new benchmarks for responsible procurement, aligned with Social Scope 2 –Supply Chain.
Again, as with Social Scope 1, for Social Scope 2 key suppliers should be taking that core socio-economic background data, the Purpose Goals Employee Survey insights, and then actively weaving that into an action plan to break down barriers to progress for their employees. This would provide the ultimate and transparent assurance that the employer’s supply chain is acting to collect social mobility data at scale for the first time across its supply chain, to understand what that data is telling us about its openness to talent from all backgrounds and then to ensuring that data and insight produce a clearly articulated plan of action as to what the supply chain business can now do to enhance social mobility.
Better
2.2.3. Best
Wider Best Practice across the Purpose Coalition
2.2.4. Leading Case Study: Sodexo
As a leading provider of quality-of-life services, Sodexo integrates social impact into all that it does, and in particular, through its supply chain strategy. By prioritising partnerships with purposeful-centric suppliers, Sodexo amplifies its commitment to tackling social challenges and promoting inclusive growth. Two standout collaborations exemplify this: Change Please and Half the Story.
Sodexo’s partnership with Change Please demonstrates how aligning business needs with social purpose creates lasting impact. Change Please, a social enterprise tackling homelessness, trains individuals to become baristas. Sodexo has integrated Change Please coffee within its workplace solutions, providing employment opportunities and financial independence to vulnerable individuals.
This collaboration goes beyond transactional supply. Sodexo ensures Change Please is embedded within its client offerings, showcasing a shared commitment to tackling homelessness. With every cup of coffee served, Sodexo contributes to a virtuous cycle of employment, training, and societal reintegration. In 2023 alone, through Sodexo coffee sales, it helped 60 people through the Change Please Foundation; provided employability skills, much needed medical supplies and donations in conjunction with its Stop Hunger Foundation. This partnership also bolsters Sodexo’s ability to support its clients’ own corporate social responsibility goals, delivering both measurable impact and exceptional service quality.
Through its engagement with Half the Story, Sodexo channels its supply chain resources to provide avenues for the sale of Half the Story’s “Life Changing Biscuits” - a social enterprise who employs people facing major barriers to work,
including homelessness. In doing so, the biscuit sales enable jobs paying the real living wage or above to be created.
These partnerships reflect Sodexo’s holistic approach to Social Impact, addressing critical societal challenges while enhancing employee awareness and engagement. This creates a ripple effect of positive change through its supply chain by delivering economic empowerment and social inclusion. Sodexo proves that purpose-driven collaboration is essential for creating a better tomorrow for all.
Curtins has set a powerful precedent and future commitment in addressing challenges for women within the construction industry through collaboration and leadership across its supply chain.
The organisation’s work so far includes:
> Providing sanitary products at offices and sites.
> Upgrading external site facilities to accommodate women’s health needs.
> Offering training to construction companies to promote awareness of menstrual and menopause health.
Critically, through its work with the Purpose Coalition, Curtins is advocating for industry-wide policy changes to include menstrual health in health and safety standards, ensuring long-term workplace inclusion for women in a traditionally male-dominated industry.
Through sharing best practices and collaborating with across its supply chain and industry partners, Curtins is fostering a more equitable construction sector.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
Driving Community Wellbeing and Customer-Centric Impact
Southeastern Railway’s commitment to enhancing social value is evident in its transformative work within local communities and its dedication to delivering a safe, inclusive, and sustainable rail network. By prioritising partnerships, innovative initiatives, and customer-focused improvements, Southeastern is redefining its role as more than just a transport operator.
Southeastern’s extensive network, serving London, Kent, and East Sussex, connects diverse communities and enables access to education, employment, and leisure opportunities. Through partnerships with organisations like The Prince’s Trust, Samaritans, and local schools, Southeastern supports vulnerable groups, fosters skill development, and promotes rail safety education. Over 86,000 students benefited from Southeastern’s school engagement programmes in 2022-23, showcasing its commitment to the next generation.
Community Rail Partnerships (CRPs) have been pivotal in Southeastern’s outreach efforts, with £200,000 invested in five CRPs. These partnerships focus on local initiatives, such as guided walks and sustainable travel campaigns, which enhance health outcomes and promote active lifestyles. Southeastern’s collaboration with Kent CRP also funded cycle rail installations, improving accessibility for cyclists across the network.
“Southeastern’s customer-first approach includes rolling out innovative solutions like e-Tickets and s-Tickets for seamless travel experiences. By addressing safety concerns through initiatives like the Joint Safeguarding Strategy and the Eyewitness Information System, Southeastern ensures a safer journey for all passengers. These measures have resulted in a 44% reduction in antisocial behaviour and a 25% decrease in sexual offences at key hotspots.
In 2022-23, Southeastern directed over £274 million to local suppliers, including £14 million to micro and small enterprises. By prioritising ethical and sustainable procurement, Southeastern has achieved ISO20400 certification and launched a Procurement Social Value Charter to embed social impact into its supply chain.
bp works with its supply chain on education and skills development - including embedding requirements into tendering processes for Engineering, Procurement, and Construction contractors. This approach, as exemplified in Teesside, includes plans to collaborate to invest in the education system and scale apprenticeship opportunities in the region (as part of bp’s wider ambition to double their apprenticeship opportunities by 2030).
These measures have resulted in a 44% reduction in antisocial behaviour and a 25% decrease in sexual offences at key hotspots.
NGN is boosting its supply chain resilience through varied and wide-ranging Procurement Sustainability Strategy that is underpinned by four key objectives:
Resilient Supply Chains - NGN ensures sustainability is prioritised at every level, extending beyond Tier 1 contractors. Pre-qualification requirements and a supplier data portal help map critical supply chains, enabling NGN to identify risks and opportunities while beginning to track socio-economic data for key suppliers.
Social Sustainability - With over 60% of contracts awarded to SMEs, NGN actively supports local businesses. Compliance with a Supplier Code of Conduct and sustainability risk assessments ensures all suppliers adhere to ethical labour and human rights standards.
Environmental Sustainability - NGN integrates environmental policies into supplier criteria, with a focus on reducing, reusing, and recycling. Sustainable risk assessments help evaluate product lifecycles and mitigate environmental impacts across procurement activities.
Internal Culture - NGN embeds sustainability into its culture, with procurement staff maintaining ethical accreditations and undergoing ESG training. Sustainability is also now a core evaluation criterion during tenders - ensuring alignment right across the organisation.
These initiatives are guided by NGN's participation in the Business in the Community Responsible Business Tracker, which highlights its leading role in aligning procurement strategies with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a key link into the Purpose Coalition’s UK-focused Purpose Goals.
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As part of its commitment to ESG, the Clyde & Co has implemented a strategic supplier engagement workstream. This focuses on working closely with its principal supplier to achieve three core goals: obtaining accurate data to better understand the company's Scope 3 emissions footprint, aligning the supplier’s sustainability priorities with its own, and supporting efforts to reduce the supplier’s environmental impact.
To reinforce sustainable practices across its supply chain, the business requires all suppliers to adhere to its Supplier Code of Conduct. This document explicitly encourages suppliers to integrate considerations of inclusion and diversity within their own supply chains. Additionally, the company incorporates standard diversity, equity, and inclusion questions into its tender documentation. These questions are applied selectively, particularly in market inquiries involving suppliers with a significant reliance on labour, ensuring these factors influence supplier selection and contract renewal processes.
Through this wide-ranging approach, the Clyde & Co fosters collaboration with suppliers, driving progress toward shared ESG goals while promoting inclusive and sustainable practices across its supply chain.
“ the company incorporates standard diversity, equity, and inclusion questions into
its tender documentation.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
2.3. Social Scope 3: Explainer
2.3.1. Good
For the significant work that employers do in communities and with their customers, we have identified a simple way to calculate a business’s ‘social impact contribution’. This approach is simple enough for any business, including an SME, to be able to calculate. That is because we believe
any measurement approach must be inclusive so that it can be used by any business or employer, not just those who are large enough or have the resources to be able to hire external consultants to do a more complex social value calculation. To understand and convey the wider community and customer impact, a comparatively simple calculation can be directionally correct and still give a relative sense of effort in relation to the size of the business.
The box opposite shows the basic ‘social impact contribution’. This is the amount of direct financial resource put into that external social impact effort (for example, resources on social impact projects, or charity donations raised), plus the value of the staff time and volunteering also contributed by its people. This calculation is straightforward for the public to understand and is easy for any employer to calculate or estimate.
For simplicity, we can show the external social impact contribution in relation to the employer’s net payroll cost. This makes sense because an
employer’s net payroll cost gives a relative sense of size, the ‘opportunity power’, depending on how many employees it has and how much they are paid. The bigger a net payroll is, the more we could expect the employer to proportionately invest in external skills and talent. The simplified social impact contribution shown as a percentage of net payroll is a straightforward way for businesses to place a value on their wider community efforts, and with customers, and to relate that back to their own size. It allows comparisons between very different businesses for the first time. We believe this simple transparency of the social impact contribution will be hugely powerful in helping society understand how much effort and resource businesses put into their wider social impact work and how that relatively adds up compared to other organisations, whether similar or otherwise.
This approach also means that now we can see a business’s percentage social impact contribution externally in relation to net payroll cost, alongside its apprenticeship levy investment internally. For the first time we can see the two together as a whole - investment in both internal and external talent and how that stacks up as a percentage s net payroll cost.
NB: the traditional ‘social value’ calculation may remain important for deeper dive, project based and procurement-driven calculations in relation to a specific project or contract. However, the purpose of the Social Scopes 1, 2 and 3 measurement standard is different. Its objective is to provide ‘whole company’ transparency for a wide set of stakeholders across society – communities, employees, customers, policymakers and investors – so they can understand the overall total social mobility and social impact footprint of the whole company,
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far beyond just specific individual projects which may or may not be representative of its wider approach and impact. We believe what matters is a consistent measurement approach that demonstrates relative effort, shows outcomes and can be easily understood. We believe that the qualitative assessment of social impact work by a business can be more effectively shown by the ‘better’ and ‘best’ approaches outlined below.
2.3.2. Better
Employers need to show their social impact work in communities and with customers is targeted to the right people and places to drive equality of opportunity. For targeting social mobility coldspots, there are ONS-produced deprivation indices to guide employers. In relation to groups of people, there are those we know find it hard to connect to opportunities for varied reasons: those who are care-experienced, ex-offenders and veterans, for example. Additionally, the protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act also formally identify which groups of people face additional disadvantage. These are simple ways for businesses to check whether their efforts are targeted to people and places that can close opportunity gaps. The ‘better’ level of Scope 3 involves a business doing an assessment of how targeted its efforts are. For those efforts less than 50% targeted, they have a red rating for their Social Scope 3 work, for those 50-75% targeted it gains an amber rating, whilst those over 75% targeted have a green rating. This is a simple approach that makes it transparent how well-targeted social impact efforts are. The use of this approach by Purpose Coalition companies is already driving a shift to more accurate targeting of disadvantage, as businesses seek to better target their efforts to improve to a ‘green’ rating.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
2.3.3.
Best
Impact for the long-term is what Purpose Coalition businesses want from their Social Scope 3 investment in communities and with customers. For The Purpose Coalition, this will mean measurement but also being clear on the underlying social impact rationale for the interventions pursued by a business. This means having a valid confidence that the interventions being undertaken can work and have genuine impact for the longer term.
Case Study
We want to see businesses being clear about not just what they are doing, and measuring progress, but also that they have properly asked themselves the ‘so what?’ question on whether the actions they are taking will drive long-term change. Doing so would be a final ‘best’ step to underwriting long-term impact.
2.3.4. Leading Case Study: Anchor
Anchor, England’s largest not-for-profit provider of housing and care for people in later life, is leading the way in digital transformation through its partnership with Plentific, a provider of real-time property solutions. The partnership aims to improve the living experience for over 65,000 residents across Anchor’s 54,000 homes, using cutting-edge technology to streamline operations and improve service delivery.
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Delivering a resident-first experience
Anchor’s partnership with Plentific focuses on digitalising property operations to create a more efficient, resident-focused service. Plentific’s platform will serve as a central hub for managing Anchor’s 200,000 annual work orders, integrating with existing systems to improve communication between colleagues, residents, and contractors.
Through simplifying workflows and automating processes, the platform ensures proactive and reactive maintenance is delivered seamlessly. Residents benefit from quicker response times, improved repair standards, and transparent communication about property services.
“ Integrating with existing systems to improve communication
Supporting
communities and SMEs
Anchor’s work with Plentific also contributes to local economic growth. The platform includes a marketplace of local SME contractors, giving small businesses greater visibility and access to Anchor’s supply chain. This approach ensures that the benefits of digital transformation extend beyond residents to the wider community.
Setting
a blueprint for the sector
The partnership aims to create a digital blueprint that can be replicated across the British housing sector. Through sharing insights from their transformation journey, Anchor and Plentific hope to encourage other organisations to adopt similar innovations, contributing to a collective shift toward digitalisation in the residential sector.
Looking ahead
The rollout of the new platform is planned for early 2025, with a focus on validation and optimisation. As the initiative progresses, it is expected to deliver long-term benefits, not only for Anchor’s residents but also for the housing industry as a whole.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
Case Study
2.3.5. Wider Best Practice across the Purpose Coalition
Leonardo is dedicated to uplifting local communities through a wide range of partnerships and programmes. Its STEM activities are central to its community efforts, including initiatives like Cool Aeronautics, Girls Into Engineering, and the Flying Start Challenge. These programmes engage young people, offering work experience, site tours, and career talks to inspire the next generation of engineers.
Beyond STEM, Leonardo supports local initiatives like Somerset Council’s Take the Pressure Off campaign, providing free blood pressure checks and internships for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The businesses’ charity committees, present at each site, drive local decision-making on community donations and support. Recent examples include donating IT equipment to Ukrainian schools and raising £50,000 for PromiseWorks, which supports vulnerable teenagers. Leonardo’s Be A Saint Day in 2024 highlights its commitment, with employees contributing 865 volunteer hours across five community projects, benefiting nearly 950 people.
Leonardo is actively measuring its impact against Social Scope 3 using tools to calculate proxy values and tailor initiatives to meet specific local needs, ensuring its efforts remain effective and targeted.
Centrica focuses on empowering communities and customers through leading schemes:
> Energy for Tomorrow (EfT), which provides grants of up to £100,000 for energy projects that support sustainability and inclusivity. Since 2010, EfT has funded 37 community projects, with measurable outcomes like 14,366 tonnes of CO2 saved annually and enhanced social impact through tailored KPIs for grant recipients.
> The British Gas Energy Trust (BGET), which has provided nearly £200 million in support to over 700,000 people since its inception, alleviating energy poverty and improving quality of life.
Centrica also engages employees in its work against Social Scope 3, supporting local community support through The Big Difference programme, offering two paid volunteer days per year. In 2023, colleagues gave 7,228 volunteering days to causes like Age UK and Groundwork, demonstrating their commitment to local impact.
Teleperformance actively supports employment and skills development in Gateshead and Glasgow through partnerships with organisations like the Newcastle United Foundation and local JobCentres. Through hosting job fairs and work experience schemes, it reduces barriers to employment for young people, ensuring accessible growth opportunities within underresourced communities.
E.ON focuses on improving quality of life through innovative programmes like the E.ON Next Energy Fund, which provided over £10 million in assistance to more than 9,300 vulnerable customers.
Energy on Prescription, a pilot initiative subsidising winter bills for households with health risks, demonstrating positive effects on mental health and hospital admissions.
E.ON also partners with Coventry City Council to deliver educational programmes and work placements for care leavers, supporting pathways to employment. Its sponsorship of Skills Street in Sheffield/Rotherham impacts 16,000 students annually, fostering education and skills development.
Chadwick Lawrence supports local communities through partnerships with schools, colleges, and universities, including pro-bono legal advice via a university clinic. The firm prioritises accessibility through inclusive work placements and mentorship schemes, while targeting charitable support to areas of greatest need using the Index of Multiple Deprivation.
In 2024, Chadwick Lawrence achieved Gold standard with Investor in Customers (ICC), recognising excellence in client and staff experience. Building on this, the firm plans to adopt the Core Social Value Calculation to better measure its CSR impact and continue enhancing its support for clients and communities.
Breaking Down Barriers and Powering Communities
UK Power Networks’ “Power Among Us” programme provides a transformative pathway for individuals not in education, employment, or training (NEET). Participants gain hands-on experience, employability skills, and mentorship, paving the way for sustainable careers.
Additionally, UK Power Networks’ apprenticeship programmes, which emphasise accessibility and inclusion, have significantly advanced social mobility by equipping underrepresented groups with essential skills.
UK Power Networks prioritises the mental and physical wellbeing of its workforce and the communities it serves. Through initiatives such as its comprehensive mental health programme and targeted public safety campaigns, UK Power Networks creates safer and more resilient environments. Partnerships with key stakeholders, like local councils and charities extend this impact, ensuring no community is left behind.
As a leader in the energy transition, UK Power Networks harnesses innovation to deliver a cleaner, greener future. The introduction of a flexibility-first policy and the development of innovative planning tools for councils demonstrates its commitment to achieving Net Zero goals. The Green Recovery Fund and Power Partners Fund have brought tangible benefits to underserved communities, demonstrating UK Power Networks’ dedication to ensuring energy equity.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
Making a Difference Locally (MADL) –Fostering Community Impact
Nisa’s charitable initiative, Making a Difference Locally (MADL), exemplifies how purpose-led organisations can break down barriers and uplift communities. Established in 2008, MADL has raised over £18 million for under-resourced communities across the UK.
The initiative empowers Nisa’s independent retailers to identify and support local causes, ensuring the funds directly address community-specific needs.
MADL operates by allocating a 0.6% donation from every Co-op own-label product sold at Nisa stores. These funds support a wide array of initiatives, including education, healthcare, social welfare, and environmental conservation. In 2023 alone, MADL contributed over £1.3 million to local causes, marking 15 years of impactful giving through its “Club 15” initiative.
One standout example of MADL’s local impact is Dallam Stores in Warrington. Led by owner Mike Sohal, this store has consistently supported its community by feeding an average of 50 homeless individuals weekly and sponsoring local initiatives such as rugby clubs. This has led to tangible improvements in community well-being, including reduced anti-social behaviour. Through MADL, Dallam Stores has raised over £45,000, doubling its turnover since joining the initiative.
Similarly, Proudfoot Supermarkets in Scarborough has contributed over £200,000 to local causes since 2008, supporting healthcare, youth engagement, and social inclusion. This commitment reflects MADL’s core value: creating positive and lasting change.
MADL also promotes mental health awareness. For example, on World Mental Health Day 2023, MADL allocated £10,000 for “Chairs for Chats,” funding buddy benches to combat loneliness. By placing community engagement at its heart, MADL is not only supporting independent retailers but also building sustainable and thriving local communities, demonstrating the transformative potential of purpose-driven business models.
bp’s global social investment spend (~£90m in 2023) supports education & skills, community development, and environment initiatives globally. This includes work on social mobility, where achievements include reaching an ambition of 500 annual work experience placements ahead of schedule.
Lumo and Hull Trains: Empowering Communities and Enhancing Customer Experience
Lumo and Hull Trains, as open access rail operators, are redefining the role of rail services in creating vibrant communities and delivering exceptional customer experiences. Their focus on breaking barriers through community engagement and customer-centric initiatives exemplifies their purposeful leadership.
Since its inception in 2021, Lumo has prioritised community connections and customer satisfaction through its affordable, all-electric rail services between London and Edinburgh. This sustainable travel option not only reduces carbon emissions by 95% compared to flying but also makes long-distance travel accessible to a broader demographic.
Lumo’s commitment to inclusivity is evident through partnerships with local organisations like Newcastle College, offering students hands-on training and career pathways in the rail industry.
Lumo’s collaboration with Big River Bakery highlights its dedication to supporting local businesses and enriching customer experience. By offering locally sourced delicacies onboard, Lumo brings regional flavours to its passengers while creating jobs and boosting the local economy. These initiatives demonstrate how Lumo integrates community-focused values into its core operations.
Hull Trains: Strengthening Local Ties and Customer Relationships
For over two decades, Hull Trains has been a cornerstone of connectivity for Hull and surrounding areas, linking the region to London. Their bi-mode fleet reduces environmental impact while ensuring reliable service. Beyond transportation, Hull Trains’ partnerships with local initiatives, such as Hull Children’s University and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, reinforce their role as a community champion.
Hull Trains also places a strong emphasis on customer care. Programmes like the Mental Health First Aiders and Excellence Awards create a supportive environment for staff, directly translating to enhanced customer service. By fostering a culture of inclusivity and recognition, Hull Trains ensures that passengers enjoy a welcoming and reliable travel experience.
“ Their focus on breaking barriers through community engagement and customercentric initiatives exemplifies their purposeful leadership
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
2.4. Sector-specific approaches to the Social Scopes Standard
The first sector specific approach to the Social Scopes measurement standard has been undertaken by the legal sector as part of the Breaking Down Barrier to Law project.
The project is a collaboration between The Purpose Coalition and a group of leading law firms who are committed to boosting social mobility and putting the legal sector at the forefront of innovation in this space.
After a successful first phase which looked at outreach, access, recruitment and progression within the sector, Phase 2 has seen the law firms focus on measurement and the wider Social Scopes standard.
A series of roundtables have taken place with the law firms to explore the Social Scopes standard and the impact that it can have within the legal sector.
The Scope 1 roundtable looked at ‘People’ and what the firms are doing to measure and support diversity within their workforce. Law firms are required to report diversity, including socio-economic background, to The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) bi-annually but many of the firms are now going further by incorporating it into their recruitment process and providing ongoing support.
The second focus area was ‘Supply Chain’ and how firms engage with their supply chain and include social value within their procurement processes. For many firms this was a new area of consideration but there were plans to go further, including introducing minimum standards on sustainability and social impact for suppliers and closer engagement with suppliers on common themes.
The third roundtable focused on ‘Community & Customers’ and how law firms are currently measuring this work. For Scope 3, the law firms had a wealth of best practice, including volunteering and partnerships with local education providers. The session explored how the participants could go further by targeting their work more closely and looked at how a core social value calculation could be created.
This collaborative approach has allowed the law firms to learn from one another, as well as have access to best practice and innovation from members of the wider Purpose Coalition.
Law firms participating in the project include FBC Manby Bowdler, Brachers, Wilsons, Chadwick Lawrence, Fletchers Solicitors, Clyde & Co, and Weil.
“ This collaborative approach has allowed the law firms to learn from one another, as well as have access to best practice and innovation from members of the wider Purpose Coalition
3. Conclusion & Next Steps
The Social Scopes measurement standard is groundbreaking. It represents the new standard for employer social mobility reporting. It finally provides a way for all employers across the country to transparently measure their social impact, show what they are doing to drive social mobility with their own opportunities, and what they are accomplishing on breaking down barriers to opportunity more widely, for their communities and customers.
We will trial this approach with as many companies and in as many places as possible. It gives more than just insights to the organisations using it. With this standardised, accessible, simple and consistent approach we can begin to have insights both within and across sectors and for communities. In using the Social Scopes standard measures we will collectively develop a better understanding of the insights this data can bring. That is crucial for driving change on the ground. We will also ensure that we share the insights and learnings from the organisations that are using it.
We are sharing this with a wider business and employer community for the Social Scopes standard to be fully adopted by others in a wholesale way. We believe this consistent transparency on social mobility and social impact must now be the focus for all employers. It has been developed by business and employers and should be used by business and employers. We hope that the wider community can now put its resources into reporting against the Social Scopes standard, rather than wasting time on reinventing the measurement wheel for the sake of it.
It is vital that businesses step forward to provide and publish their Social Scopes measures so that we can build the first consistent and comparable evidence base on equality of opportunity that Britain has ever had. The measurement solution is now in place. Now it is time for every business and employer serious about social mobility to move forward and transparently set out the Social Scopes standard measurements or their own organisation.
“ When it comes to driving social mobility and social impact, what finally gets measured will now finally get done
Finally, we also want to encourage government to step up its own efforts on data both as an employer and as a procurer, through working towards improving its own data and information sharing, in particular relating to Social Scopes 1 and 2.
In conclusion, there is much to be done, but we now have the Social Scopes standard on social mobility measurement. We can have transparency, and with transparency we can have change. When it comes to driving social mobility and social impact, what finally gets measured will now finally get done.
The Social Scopes Measurement Standard
