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 enters 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.

In this second instalment, we’re highlighting past municipal Social Procurement Champion Award winners.

Across Canada, social procurement innovation has been led at the municipal level. There are multiple approaches for social procurement innovation in municipalities, but no matter the approach taken, it’s important to just start somewhere and then engage in an ongoing process of learning and iteration. To continue this journey of learning and iteration, municipalities need to do more to measure and report on the outcomes and impacts of implementation.

The following municipalities are organizations who have taken their own approaches, and who use measurement and reporting to track outcomes and successes and identify areas for improvement.

City of Calgary

At the 2021 Buy Social Canada Symposium, we gave a Social Procurement Champion Award to the City of Calgary for their recently adopted Public Value through Procurement Policy and their Social Procurement Questionnaire (previously called the Benefit Driven Procurement Questionnaire). One of three winners that year who was advancing social procurement in their community, City of Calgary received recognition for how they “set the bar high for all purchasers.”

In the blog post celebrating Social Procurement Champion Award winners that year, we shared that:

“Calgary is using a comprehensive approach that includes a three-year pilot/implementation strategy, evolving metrics, multi-stakeholder engagement, training, and intentional change management, culminating in a recommended policy.”

The City of Calgary’s social procurement journey began with community advocacy. Buy Social Canada supported local community groups, including Community Champion Momentum, to send a letter to the City advocating for social value in the City’s procurement process. Once the City was on board, Buy Social Canada bid on, and won, a contract to conduct a feasibility study.

Following the feasibility study, Buy Social Canada, through a competitive process, was selected to be a consultant to the city on the social procurement process. Procurement staff and Buy Social Canada developed a Social Procurement Questionnaire to score the social value of bidders. The questionnaire was added into RFx’s in a large pilot program from 2020-2021.

Based on promising data collected from 50 pilots that showed how social procurement can assist the City of Calgary in fulfilling its vision of a more diverse, more resilient, and more socially inclusive city, on September 13th, 2021, the City of Calgary Council officially voted to adopt the Public Value through Procurement Policy.

Since the pilot stage, City of Calgary has collected data and reported publicly to Council on the outcomes and impacts of social procurement implementation. They also use this measurement to iterate their approach.

Because they apply the same questionnaire on all competitive bids, the City is able to track metrics over time, creating consistency in their measurement and analysis. The most recent report to council shows that of the contracts awarded in 2023 to suppliers and businesses, 86% were awarded to suppliers who provide work experience, 73% were awarded to small- or medium-sized businesses, and 56.8% of all contracts were awarded to the proponent with the top social procurement score.

Four years into implementation, the City has updated their questionnaire twice based on learnings from measurement. They’ve removed some questions and edited or added others, all with a focus on differentiating bidders. They also digitized the questionnaire and built it into their online bid platform to streamline data collection and evaluation.

As they continue to implement and learn from measurement, the City expects to see additional impacts and improvements in the future.

City of Vancouver

In 2020 we awarded City of Vancouver for their Community Benefit Agreements Policy. They were one of four winners chosen that year for their achievements in demonstrating and encouraging social procurement best practices.

Buy Social Canada chose to award the City of Vancouver’s Community Benefit Agreements (CBA) Policy because it was an important model to leverage and ensure private development creates community value in targeted employment, social procurement, and local procurement.

CBA policies are a way for municipalities and other purchasers to leverage community benefits from construction and infrastructure projects. In recent years Buy Social Canada has seen growth and opportunity for community benefits in construction as the practice grows across Canada.

To support further growth, Buy Social Canada released a Community Benefits in Construction Guide in summer 2024, which supports community advocates, policy makers and project owners who want to create community benefits in construction, infrastructure, and development projects.

Like the City of Calgary’s Social Procurement Policy, the City of Vancouver’s CBA Policy was a result of community advocacy that Buy Social Canada participated in, after early pilots and examples of success were seen in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and the PARQ Casino project.

Buy Social Canada was contracted to work with City of Vancouver to engage stakeholders and develop the compliance toolkit. Since the CBA Policy was passed in 2018, it has been applied to three active projects, and is expected to come into effect on at least 11 more in the near future.

A key component of the CBA Policy is the Independent Third-Party Monitor role. This role liaises between project stakeholders and ensures the project team has the support and expertise needed to achieve the community benefits targets.

Currently, Buy Social Canada is the Independent Third-Party Monitor on two of the three current CBA projects: New St. Paul’s Hospital and 150 West Georgia. In this role, Buy Social Canada facilitates relationships and connections between the construction industry, local social enterprises and other social value suppliers, community employment resources, and local businesses. We also support data collection and outcomes reporting towards the three CBA targets:

• Local, inclusive employment: A minimum 10% of all people working on the project will self-identify as equity-seeking groups and local residents, prioritizing new entry-level hires.
• Social procurement: Source a minimum of 10% of material goods and services from third party certified social impact or diverse or equity-seeking owned businesses, with a priority on Vancouver businesses.
• Local procurement: Source a minimum of 10% of materials, goods, and services from Vancouver companies or companies located in Metro Vancouver or British Columbia. These may or may not also be equity-seeking third party certified businesses.

Reporting and measurement are built into the CBA Policy as contract requirements. As of Fall 2024, New St. Paul’s Hospital is meeting and exceeding the local inclusive employment and local procurement targets, and only one percent short of the 10% social procurement target. 150 West Georgia, which is still in the first phase of development, has not yet met targets, but project managers expect increases as the project advances.

In addition to the metrics, both projects are creating tangible positive impacts for local employees, and local social enterprises. Read this blog post to learn more about how the City of Vancouver CBA Policy boosts construction sector impact on local projects.

Looking ahead, City staff have committed to continue to evaluate the CBA Policy through engagement with key stakeholders, including City employees, contractors, employment agencies, and businesses. Data gathered in the evaluation will enable deeper analysis on the potential economic impacts of the CBA Policy on the broader economy in Vancouver.

British Columbia Social Procurement Initiative (BCSPI)

Also in 2020, we chose British Columbia Social Procurement Initiative (BCSPI) as a Social Procurement Champion Award winner for the unique collaborative membership-based model designed to support access to social procurement for local governments, particularly small and rural communities.

At the time, BCSPI was CCSPI – the Coastal Communities Social Procurement Initiative. It was regionally focused on BC’s south coast. The founding member governments included City of Victoria, Village of Cumberland, and District of Tofino. In 2021, CCSPI received funding from the Government of British Columbia to expand the initiative across the rest of BC, becoming BCSPI.

Buy Social Canada has been a delivery partner with BCSPI since the beginning. Now, BCSPI is fully delivered by Buy Social Canada and available to local governments, institutions and crown corporations across BC.

BCSPI has always advocated for measurement and reporting to members. In 2022 BCSPI took this a step further and partnered with Royal Roads University to create an impact measurement framework and tools for members. BCSPI also began to conduct our own survey and reporting on member implementation and outcomes.

The BCSPI Annual Impact Report for 2022-2023 shows the power of public sector purchasing, and the BCSPI collaborative model. Since 2021, Members have reported over $471 Million in verified social procurement spend, and over 1000 projects and pilots that included social procurement.

The BCSPI Member journey emphasizes learning and iteration. Like its members, BCSPI continues to learn and evolve from a data-informed position, working with members to deliver the tools and training needed to advance social procurement across local governments and institutions in the province.

2024 winners: City of Winnipeg and City of Edmonton

In May 2024, we chose City of Winnipeg and City of Edmonton as two of the three Social Procurement Champion Award winners who were “taking real strides forward to get things done in the social procurement ecosystem.”

City of Edmonton

The City of Edmonton first adopted a purchasing policy with ethical and environmental considerations in 2010, and then added social value in their policy in 2019 with support from Buy Social Canada. In 2022, they added Indigenous procurement into their sustainable procurement program.

Now, the City’s Sustainable Procurement Policy has four guiding principles: Ethical Standards, Environmental Sustainability, Indigenous Procurement, and Social Value Considerations.

In 2022, the City began an action-focussed implementation project supported by Buy Social Canada, with an ambitions and impressive suite of tools and resources. They have also been leading the way on tracking and sharing transparent progress of their implementation with a Measurement and Reporting Framework and a Diversity Spend Reporting Framework.

Through their many initiatives and frameworks, they are taking social procurement from policy to action and learning and improving each year.

City of Winnipeg

The City of Winnipeg officially adopted a Sustainable Procurement Action Plan (SPAP) in 2022, following extensive stakeholder engagement with community, industry, and internal staff.

The City’s framework has a four-pillar model which promotes a comprehensive approach to sustainable procurement that addresses supply chain opportunities across four pillars: Environmental, Ethical, Social, and Indigenous.

The City of Winnipeg is committed to continuously showing up and taking steps to create opportunities for social value suppliers in their procurement practices.

Conclusion

There is immense opportunity for impact in public sector spending, and municipalities across Canada are leading this movement.

In addition to the previous award winners mentioned above, Buy Social Canada has worked with many other municipalities to design and implement social procurement through consulting contracts or Social Purchasing Partnerships.

We look forward to continued advocacy for and delivery on social procurement implementation programs, policies and processes across Canadian municipalities to create healthy, vibrant communities.

Take the next step

Work with Buy Social Canada to take the next step on your social procurement journey through:

• Contract us for Consulting services or Community Benefits in Construction design and implementation services
• Become a BCSPI Member
• Become a Social Purchasing Partner with the low-cost, high value Engage Package