Buy Social Canada has been leading on social procurement design, implementation, and advocacy for the past 10 years. Since 2019 we have celebrated Social Procurement Champion Awards to recognize that our leadership also comes from how we support and promote other organizations who create impact in supply chains. As Buy Social Canada’s 10^th anniversary year is in its final quarter, we’re releasing an “Updates from the Marketplace Revolution” blog series to share updates on Social Procurement Champion Award winners from years gone by. Read the other blogs in this series here and here.

More private sector companies are exploring their business purpose and mission in response to growing demands from clients, consumers, and employees to put people and planet before profit. Leveraging your supply chain is a key tactic to implement your purpose, win contracts, attract employees, and achieve ESG and CSR goals.

Private sector purchaser award winners have been recognized for creating impact in three ways: in their own supply chains, through influencing others in their sector, and by investing in the growth of the social value marketplace.

Like in the public sector, there are multiple approaches you can take to implement social procurement. It’s most important to start somewhere and commit to ongoing learning and improvement over time (a process which should be supported by measurement and reporting).

Buy Social Canada works with purchasers through Social Purchasing Partnerships. There are three ways to work with us:

• Design your custom Buy Social Journey that works for your organization’s goals, capacity and values.
• Become an Engage Member for a low cost, high value way to start your journey or take it to the next level.
• Become a Buy Social Leader to be recognized as a leader, showcase your commitment, and contribute to the strength of the social value marketplace.

The past three Social Procurement Champion Award winners we’re sharing updates from in this blog are all Buy Social Leaders, who go above and beyond their own organizational spend and commitments and work to grow the movement for social procurement and social enterprise in their sectors.

Destination Vancouver

Destination Vancouver was awarded a Social Procurement Champion Award in 2019, in recognition of their early efforts to support and engage with social enterprises in Vancouver.

There is a trend across the tourism, hospitality and events sector recognizing that tourism needs to be sustainable and give back rather than extract from local communities. As a destination management organization, Destination Vancouver has been an early leader in recognizing that social procurement is a way for the sector to support a healthy local economy and ensure visitors to an area experience socially driven or community-based organizations, which is also increasingly what travelers are looking for.

Destination Vancouver is at the forefront of the growing movement for social procurement implementation in Canada’s tourism, hospitality and events sector, alongside Social Purchasing Partner Explore Edmonton and Buy Social Canada Certified Social Enterprise 4VI (formerly Tourism Vancouver Island). Destination Vancouver has consistently invested in and advocated for this movement since attending their first social procurement roundtable in Vancouver many years ago, and more formally taking steps on their Buy Social Journey over the last 3 years. They began working with Buy Social Canada as a Social Purchasing Partner in 2021 and became a Buy Social Leader in 2024.

Internally, they have begun to develop a social procurement policy and guidelines for staff, and they are creating a process to measure their social procurement spend.

“Finding ways to systematically track progress is a valuable companion to establishing a policy with guidance for purchasing decision making.” – Gwendal Castellan, Manager, Sustainable Destination Development

As a membership organization, Destination Vancouver has invested in research and tools to support their members to learn about what social procurement is and how it can be implemented in their sector and demonstrate their own social value creation.

In 2023, Buy Social Canada and Destination Vancouver collaborated to write the Guide to Social Procurement in Tourism, Hospitality and Events. The Guide is intended for businesses, non-profits and individuals working in tourism to learn about social procurement, and how to apply social procurement in a sector where leveraging social value from purchasing can have a powerful and positive ripple effect on communities.

“Tourism, hospitality and events are a big part of the economy. A part which is incredibly diverse and dominated by small and medium enterprises, most of whom don’t have centralized procurement offices. The potential for impact is meaningful and to get there it may require a collective learning process and focus on creating positive impact. As an association we are well positioned to try to capture the collective impact and share resources that will make it easier to make informed decisions by all businesses in the sector.” – Gwendal Castellan

Since 2022, Destination Vancouver has also worked with Buy Social Canada to conduct a survey of their members and release a public annual report sharing key findings and case studies. The survey collects data on members’ knowledge of social procurement, the social value they create as suppliers, and their own social procurement implementation experiences and impacts. The accompanying annual report is shared in a webinar to members and shared publicly as an open resource. See the first report from 2022 here to learn more.

This work supports Destination Vancouver to socialize the concepts and practices behind social procurement within the tourism sector. It also helps Destination Vancouver learn about how they can better support their members to increase contributions to the local community through social procurement capacity building, training and education.

“The real significant change to creating more social value from the sector will be when the entire business community makes a few small shifts in purchasing decisions that create opportunities for social enterprises and social value businesses. I’m excited to see if we can rally around a collective objective in the next five years, maybe something like 5% of addressable spending going to social enterprises across the industry.” – Gwendal Castellan

SAP

SAP, a multinational software company, is one of two founding Buy Social Leaders, alongside Chandos Construction.

Buy Social Canada awarded SAP a Social Procurement Champion Award in 2020, in recognition of their efforts to expand on their long-term history of purchasing from local social enterprises.

As a Buy Social Leader, they have made a public commitment of 5&5 by ’25: targeting 5 percent of addressable spend with social enterprises and 5 percent with diverse businesses by 2025. In setting this target, SAP aims to inspire organizations around the world to buy more goods and services from purposeful suppliers, making a positive collective impact on the societies they operate in.

Buy Social Canada encourages purchasers to make public commitments for action with measurable targets in order to inspire others, drive action, and create accountability with internal and external stakeholders.

SAP has collaborated with Buy Social Canada and others to integrate social value criteria into their purchasing platform, SAP Ariba, which is the backend technology for Government of Canada’s CanadaBuys platform and many municipal bid platforms as well. Learn more about how purchasers are using SAP Ariba to embed social procurement data collection and criteria in this blog post.

SAP recognizes that there is an opportunity to connect their CSR activities with their procurement goals, and that strengthening their CSR activities also strengthens their social procurement activities, and vice versa. In order to meet their 5&5 by ‘25 goal, the social enterprises and diverse businesses they want to procure from need support to build capacity. To help achieve this, SAP has invested in growing the social enterprise sector in Canada and globally.

In 2024, SAP sponsored Buy Social Canada’s Guide to Social Enterprise: Plan, sustain and grow your enterprise with a social value business plan. This funding supported Buy Social Canada’s resource development to create an updated Guide to Social Enterprise for the first time in over a decade. The Guide reflects current best practices and will be a key resource for the Canadian social enterprise sector for years to come.

“The key to successful partnerships is trust. Buy Social Canada has been a trusted partner to SAP for five years, supporting us in all stages of our journey whether our focus was on transforming internal practices or investing in the Canadian market. We look forward to continuing to work together to power equitable access to economic opportunity for a more sustainable and just world.” – Jennifer Beason, Global Director, Impact Entrepreneurship, SAP Corporate Social Responsibility

Chandos Construction

Chandos Construction is the other founding Buy Social Leader. They have played a part in the early adoption and growth of social procurement and community benefits in construction, infrastructure and development in Canada, alongside Buy Social Canada Social Purchasing Partners Delnor Construction, Clark Builders, Bird Construction, Jacobs, and AtkinsRéalis.

Buy Social Canada awarded Chandos a Social Procurement Champion Award in 2020 for their amazing efforts to influence change across the entire construction industry through their advocacy and their internal steps to implement social procurement through their operational spend and on their work sites.

As a Buy Social Leader, they have committed to continuously evaluate how they can use their business to “make a positive impact on the world.”

Chandos Construction was willing to be an early adopter of social procurement and community benefits in construction; to test, iterate and share learnings that help the sector evolve. In the years since winning a Social Procurement Champion Award, they have hosted events for the construction sector that featured social procurement and Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs). They also sponsored and contributed to the original Guide to Social Procurement in Construction and Infrastructure and have advocated for social procurement and CBAs to all levels of government.

Chandos also continues to take steps to advance their own social procurement journey.

“By 2025, at least 5 percent of our purchasing will be spent with social impact organizations.” – Chandos Construction Buy Social Leader commitment

They have identified areas of opportunity to purchase from social enterprise in their operational spend, such as catering and corporate gifts. They have developed and nurtured a long-term relationship with Certified Social Enterprise EMBERS Staffing, which provides day and short-term labour on construction projects in Vancouver and Edmonton.

Chandos Construction is an early adopter of the voluntary CBA model in Vancouver. They have signed on to do a voluntary CBA on the 1^st and Clark project and have already begun early engagement with local and social suppliers, set targets and committed to measurement and reporting on outcomes.

Chandos also shows leadership in measurement and reporting on social procurement and social value outcomes in their own procurement. They track key metrics which are shared on a public webpage. As of December 2023, Chandos Construction reported that they had spent over $4 million on social procurement and sourced 68% of their costs from local and independent suppliers.

Take action to achieve strategic goals

As private-sector leaders for social procurement, each of the three past award winners recognize that there is a business case for them to implement social procurement in their own practices, and they recognize that this is bigger than just their organization. Each of these leaders works to support their whole sector to join the growing movement through events, networking, and supporting the release of Buy Social Canada’s sector guides, reports, and other tools.

We look forward to continued collaboration with our Buy Social Leaders and other private sector purchasers to advance social procurement and social enterprise in key industries to create healthy, vibrant communities across the country.

Work with us

Purchasers can customize your social procurement journey to meet your strategic goals and values. Clients and consumers are increasingly looking for these kinds of commitments and actions when choosing to contract with you or buy your products or services. Buy Social Canada is ready to partner with you to provide custom consulting and support to advance social procurement in your organization.

Contact us to discuss how you can engage, explore or lead on social procurement in your organization.