About This Study
Measuring the Benefits of Social Procurement in the Canadian Construction Industry
Study Detail
Principal Investigator
Supervisor
Dr. Peter Hall
Professor, Urban Studies Program
Associate Dean, FASS
Simon Fraser University
Funding Contract
Buy Social Canada
337 Gore Avenue
Vancouver, BC V6A 2Z3
Why study social procurement in labour supply?
This research promotes understanding of the social value benefits to communities where construction spending takes place. The benefit of this research to Canada’s construction industry includes better understanding the costs and benefits of diversifying work forces. This research also assists industry and government in efforts to measure the benefits of social value in construction. Special emphasis on examining how social procurement policy leverages the billions in public infrastructure projects in our communities.
Possible benefits of this research to your organization is that it will provide feedback on perceived and real productivity levels of workers sourced from different labour supply streams. This will contribute to better informed hiring practices, and increased knowledge of measuring productivity on job sites. For employment agencies, training programs and worker centres, the research can improve policies and practices with regards to workers facing barriers to securing longterm employment in construction.
Measuring the impact of social procurement policies on Canadian construction projects.
Social Enterprise labour suppliers
Completed Projects
workers placed
construction companies involved
Workers and their families
Social benefits go beyond wages with improved worker health, improved self-esteem, reducing child and family poverty, healthy communities, with wages recirculating in the local economy.
Construction Companies
Tendering & Bidding
“There appears to be an unprecedented opportunity for the built environment to leave a more positive legacy in the communities in which it operates. However, research reveals a slow uptake of the ideals and practices on social value and a whole array of barriers which prevent this from happening.”
Social Value in Construction (Routledge, 2019)
Contact Us
Build Social
c/o Urban Studies Program, Simon Fraser University
#2100 – 515 West Hastings, Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3