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 comes to the end of its last quarter, we’re sharing the final instalment of our “Updates from the Marketplace Revolution” blog series with updates from past Social Procurement Champion Award winners.

Social enterprise is core to Buy Social Canada’s work. Our purpose is to build healthy communities that are rich in human, social, cultural, physical and economic capital by redefining how goods and services are bought and sold in the marketplace. To achieve this purpose, we use social procurement and community benefits consulting, education and advocacy to create demand for social enterprises and other social value suppliers.

Buy Social Canada also launched Canada’s first social enterprise certification over a decade ago to:

• Verify organizations that are social enterprises (and avoid social washing).
• Open up market opportunities for social enterprises by helping purchasers find them in our Certified Social Enterprise Directory and through a detailed database we send to our Social Purchasing Partners.
• Share the impacts of social enterprises through storytelling and research, as in our annual Sell with Impact reports.
• Amplify the voice of the sector through advocacy to all levels of government in collaboration with our social enterprise network.
• Build a network of social enterprises who gain access to capacity building supports from Buy Social Canada and from each other.

Social Enterprises, like all other businesses, require access to capacity-building supports, and access to finance. Over the last decade we have created free resources to support social enterprise development, sustainability and growth, including the Supplier Guide to Social Procurement and the recently released Guide to Social Enterprise. We have also piloted access to finance initiatives such as Seal the Deal, and we continue to advocate for and with the social enterprise sector for equitable access to business capacity supports and finance.

As the supply side of the social value marketplace, social enterprises are vital to social procurement success and impacts – making them important social procurement champions.

The following social enterprise winners of the Social Procurement Champion Award create impacts in communities across Canada through their work, and many have leveraged long-term contracts to create inclusive employment and training opportunities, while also offering wraparound supports for their employees.

CleanStart Property Services

Buy Social Canada awarded CleanStart Property Services a Social Procurement Champion Award in 2022, in recognition of their social and environmental impacts.

CleanStart is an employment social enterprise leading the way on doing work at the intersection of social and environmental value outcomes. They provide a range of services including junk removal, pest control, cleaning and moving, while employing persons facing barriers to employment. To help shape a greener future, CleanStart diverts waste from landfills, tracks their vehicles to maximize fuel efficiency, and works with partners to increase recycling and reusing.

CleanStart is an example of a social enterprise that was created to take advantage of a social procurement opportunity area in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and which has continued to pivot and grow to respond to market demand. To the marketplace they offer cleaning services at a good price with high quality, while their core social mission is to create supportive employment for their employees.

In the past few years, thanks to their high-quality services, supportive employment practices and their commitment to pay a living wage, they’ve become a key supplier for numerous public and non-profit housing providers who are seeking cleaning services while also looking to contribute to their organization’s own social objectives, including BC Housing, Atira Property Management, and Portland Housing Society.

CleanStart have also continued to respond to market demand, evolving their services to respond to the demand created by the City of Vancouver’s CBA Policy on the New St Paul’s Hospital project. They now hold multiple contracts with sub-contractors on site to do trailer and site cleanups.

 “One of the key lessons we’ve learned in social procurement over the years is that the social aspects of the project must be a primary focus, not an afterthought. For efforts to truly stick and have a lasting impact, social good should ideally drive the initiative. At the very least, a concerted effort must be made to achieve socially positive results. This can be challenging, requiring tough decisions, but maintaining this focus is essential. It’s the only way to ensure the spirit of social procurement lives on throughout project execution. It can’t be just ticking a box – you have to genuinely want to affect change.” – Kurt Johnston, CleanStart Property Services CEO

Looking ahead, CleanStart plans to continue their growth, always with the focus on supportive employment.

 “At CleanStart, we’re committed to ensuring that expansions in our services and/or geographic reach don’t dilute our social mission. Our primary focus remains on our employees. As we expand CleanStart to other cities within BC, we are dedicated to maintaining this focus. This includes collaborating with like-minded enterprises across the province, and we are very excited to embark on some great projects with them.” – Kurt Johnston

Construction Social Enterprises

In 2021, Buy Social Canada chose four construction social enterprises as joint Social Procurement Champion Award winners: EMBERS Staffing, BUILD, Building Up and Impact Construction.

With the growing trend of Community Benefits Agreements (CBA) and Infrastructure Canada’s Community Employment Benefit Initiative (CEB) across Canada, the construction supply chain for labour and sub-contractors offers tremendous opportunities, and these social enterprises, as well as many others across the country, have found ways to respond.

The social enterprises who collectively won this award have been providing their services on construction projects across Canada, growing their revenues and their impact. They have also been countering the preconceptions and myths that using social enterprise suppliers results in higher costs and lower quality. In fact, with their competitive pricing and quality work, these social enterprises are creating pathways to skilled, meaningful, and well-paying jobs for youth and equity-seeking individuals, while also filling critical labour gaps in the construction industry.

In 2024, construction remains a significant area of opportunity and growth for community benefit agreements, social procurement and social enterprise. Social enterprises are continuing to advocate for and respond to this demand, building relationships with purchasers across the country, identifying opportunities for collaboration and partnership, and delivering high-quality services on projects across Canada.

The four winners from 2021 continue to do take advantage of these opportunities in different ways.

BUILD is a Winnipeg-based Indigenous social enterprise non-profit contractor and a training program that hires, trains, empowers, and launches individuals facing barriers into long, meaningful careers. They provide apartment turnover maintenance and renovations for landlords.

Building Up is a non-profit social enterprise improving Toronto’s environmental efficiency and affordable housing stock to give people experiencing barriers to employment paths to successful careers in the trades.

Like CleanStart, Building Up has core, ongoing contracts with non-profit housing providers. They also work with employers and trade unions to refer employees, helping their participants secure stable work opportunities. In 2023, they started a new insulation business as one way to meet the growing demand they see for inclusive employment.

Impact Construction is a social enterprise of Choices for Youth, based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. They provide expertise in energy retrofits, property maintenance, remediation, demolition, and renovations for residential and commercial properties, while employing youth and people facing barriers to employment.

EMBERS Staffing is a temporary staffing agency owned and operated by the EMBERS Charity. They provide companies with a socially responsible staffing solution while providing workers with a ladder of opportunities to improve their skills and advance their careers.

Since 2021, EMBERS Staffing has placed over 3,800 people on job sites and paid $20 million in wages and benefits. They also developed two new youth training programs to support more employees to join the workforce and develop skills.

EMBERS Staffing has taken advantage of Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) project opportunities since they were first piloted by the City of Vancouver on the Parq Casino project in 2015. Now, they have employees on site at the New St. Paul’s Hospital and 150 West Georgia projects – two of the three CBA projects currently active in the city.

In 2023, EMBERS Staffing expanded to open a second location in Edmonton, Alberta after over a decade of operations and impact in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

The number of social enterprises working in construction continues to expand. Explore the Buy Social Canada Social Enterprise Directory to find social enterprises that can service construction projects across the country, and filter by location, good or service, and social value to find the best fit for your needs.

Collaborate for Success

CleanStart, BUILD, Building Up, Impact Construction and EMBERS Staffing have all responded to the growing social procurement and community benefits movements in Canada. They, along with other construction social enterprises in Canada, frequently collaborate and share learnings and opportunities with each other.

Social enterprises gather regularly at Buy Social Canada roundtables in Vancouver, Toronto, and Winnipeg. At these roundtables they also meet purchasers to build relationships, partner, and identify marketplace opportunities. Buy Social Canada also convenes social enterprise breakfasts to discuss shared advocacy opportunities to amplify their collective voice, share learnings, and identify ways they can support each other’s work.

Support a Sustainable Social Enterprise Ecosystem

Social enterprises provide the goods and services that the marketplace needs, while also providing immense social and environmental value. Many employment social enterprises provide additional wrap around supports which enable individuals with barriers to participate in the workplace. These supports often have additional “social costs” which are not faced by other businesses. Recent research by Social Traders in Australia found that 27% of revenue generated by certified social enterprise respondents is spent on “generating impact” including inclusive employment efforts such as training and wrap around supports.

For social enterprises in Canada to continue to respond to the growth of CBAs and social procurement demand, they need to be given opportunities in the marketplace to sell goods and services. They also need sustainable government funding to support the training and wrap around supports which contribute to government objectives including reducing poverty, increasing employment and ensuring a just transition in sectors across Canada.

As social procurement and CBA opportunities grow, social enterprises continue to identify innovative ways to respond, including growing their enterprises into new locations, social franchising, and acquiring existing businesses through social acquisition. Sustaining and growing a business requires access to business capacity supports and finance, and Buy Social Canada continues to work with the social enterprise sector to advocate for access to existing programs and funding streams, and to produce tools which support the sustainability and growth of the sector in the next decade.

Take Action

For social enterprise suppliers:

• Become Certified.
• Join roundtables to connect with purchasers and peers.
• Download the Guide to Social Enterprise.

For purchasers:

• Find and purchase from suppliers in our Certified Social Enterprise Directory.
• Become an Engage Member, and get access to a database of social enterprise suppliers along with custom support to design and implement social procurement to achieve your strategic goals.
• Commit to championing social enterprise and social procurement in your organization and community.

For governments:

• Provide ongoing, sustainable ecosystem support for the social enterprise sector, including capacity building, procurement readiness supports, and access to finance.

For everyone:

• Read Marketplace Revolution to learn more about social procurement, social enterprise and social finance.
• Subscribe to our newsletter and stay tuned to get involved in the nomination process for our social procurement champion award winners in 2025.