We are committed to making a positive contribution to the communities close to our operations and ensuring transparent communication to all our stakeholders.
Our 2030 commitments
Our progress
We will fully integrate our social value policy and practices together with social value impact measurements
Our social value policy has been updated and includes our commitment towards measuring and managing the social value we are creating.
We have generated our first social value profit report. The validated stated social profit figure using 2021 data is £144,424,642.
All employees will take advantage of one paid day per year for volunteering activities
There were an increasing number of employees taking a paid volunteering day which is an opportunity open to all employees.
Updated social value policy
Social value is our impact on, and role in, society. We have updated our social value policy, which aligns to the government’s Procurement Policy Note 06/20, and integrates our health, safety and wellbeing, and environmental commitments. It is founded on our core values and responsible leadership principles and applies to all areas of our business, our employees and all parties who undertake activity on our behalf.
Our social value policy is set out to ensure that we are accountable to our stakeholders, take responsibility for the role we are playing in their lives and manage our activities to be able to maximise the social value we are creating.
Our social value commitments
Our social value commitment
Our progress
Collaboration
We are committed to collaboration and innovation.
We are always working to improve our products and operations for the benefit of our clients, customers, local communities and future generations.
Coequality
Our people are important to us.
We want everyone to have equal opportunities to grow and improve through training and personal development.
Championing
We are committed to championing local economies and creating opportunities for small sized businesses and franchisees.
Community
We want to involve and empower the community while also supporting voluntary, charitable and social enterprise groups, to help bring people together to make a better place for everyone.
Climate
We are committed to fulfilling our share of the responsibility to the environment.
We promise to implement responsible practices to reduce our carbon footprint in our materials and delivery methods.
Communication
We promise to be transparent and clear in our communication.
We will track and share our learning and best practices to help inform decisions that could affect our business.
Social profit reported for the first time
Using the most recent data for 2021 we generated over £144 million worth of social profit in the UK, reflecting our commitment to support initiatives that benefit the lives and wellbeing of all affected by our activities, including the wider community.
The validated social profit figure using the most recent data is £144,424,642, which has been established through the delivery of a range of different performance indicators using the Loop monetisation tool.
The total includes fiscal, economic, social, and environmental value. It includes everything from savings to the government and taxpayer – for example, through an intervention that results in fewer workplace injuries therefore reducing NHS costs – to reducing waste and carbon and improving wellbeing.
For example, we:
Planted 20,253 trees
Employed 17 new apprentices
Supported 370 research projects
Protected 91,000 square metres of wetland
Trained 64 mental health champions
Social value certification first
We are the first building materials supplier to be awarded the Social Management Certificate Level 1 ‘Commit’ by Social Value UK.
The announcement recognises our commitment to implement systems and processes that will help us measure, manage and maximise our social value – our impact on, and role in, society.
It follows an assessment carried out by Social Value UK and marks the first step on our journey to increase the value we create for our stakeholders as we work to make changes to improve our work culture.
Social Value – Let’s Talk Sustainability Event
Our second free online Let’s Talk Sustainability event took place on Thursday 29 September. Over 200 participants joined the webinar-style session, which explored social value and its increasing importance in the construction sector.
The session’s aim was to demonstrate best practice examples that can be replicated across the sector and to demonstrate how to overcome the challenges associated with delivering social value. The programme included understanding what social value is, how it is determined and communicated, what it means to the supply chain and how to maximise benefits for employees, customers, and communities.
Our Let’s Talk Sustainability event, also included a panel discussion and Q&A session, showed how we can work collectively to tackle the roadblocks in delivering social value and highlighted the learnings and practices that can be applied to support social value ambitions.
The number of visitors to our sites increased significantly following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. In 2022 we welcomed 18,713 visitors – the highest for 4 years. 56.5% of our operations had some form of liaison activity to keep our local communities informed.
We continued to support communities through the donation of funds and materials along with an increased number of volunteering activities.
Volunteers from our HR department spent the day on beach cleaning activities near the Grand Pier at Weston-Super-Mare with SeaBorn design. The team collected four bags of ocean plastic and colourful nurdles (very small round pieces of plastic) that will be used for art projects with children.
A team of 18 from our sustainability department donned high viz and buoyancy aids and spent the day with charity Canal River Trust litter picking along the Birmingham canal and repainting the graffiti-covered locks.
Our Batts Combe quarry team donated 40 tonnes of stone chippings to support Axe Valley Men’s Shed in the creation of a new community shed and garden, near Axbridge in Somerset, which aims to encourage social connections and improve wellbeing.
Members of our south concrete team supported Jamie’s Farm, a charity for disadvantaged young people, with improvements its Bath site. They helped demolish walls, herd sheep and load gravel throughout the day.
A team of 39 volunteers from across our businesses in South Wales completed a week-long volunteering initiative for Girlguiding Central Glamorgan at its Gorwelion camp.
The 5.5-acre site near Porthcawl, south Wales, provides young people with the opportunity to camp and learn new skills but had fallen into some disrepair due to lack of use during the Covid pandemic and because of storm damage.
The volunteers took advantage of the one paid day a year Hanson offers its employees to support local community projects and activities and carried out a range of improvements including: resurfacing the entrance road and car park; clearing the pathway and vegetation; installing a new boundary fence; and rebuilding and stocking the woodshed.
Hanson has been a Corporate Patron of CRASH since 1999 and continue to support the charity’s work with homelessness charities and hospices by donating time and professional expertise to projects and taking part in fundraising.
We included a fundraising project within our Creating Engaging Managers (CEM) programme for a third year. The programme is tailored for a cohort of 15 employees identified as future leaders within the business. With the FIFA World Cup approaching, they developed a fantasy football competition encouraging 130 fellow colleagues to join in and raised a total of £1,908.
We donated all the aggregates and asphalt needed to build a pump track in Cheddar from our nearby Batts Combe quarry. It provides the community with a fantastic facility for riders of all ages. Read more
Support for Air Ambulance
We donated and laid asphalt to resurface the car park at Great North Air Ambulance’s (GNAA) Langwathby site near Penrith, Cumbria.
We supplied 40 tonnes of Tufflex from our nearby Shap asphalt plant which was laid by our contracting team free of charge to improve facilities for the air ambulance staff; saving them around £7,000.
The work was carried out in conjunction with Story Contracting, who are working with the GNAA team to undertake improvement works at the site, which is being refurbished and adapted to improve the facility in anticipation of service expansion.Read more
