Social Enterprise

Supporting growing businesses to create even more social value

Complete a Social Enterprise form

What is a Social Enterprise?

A social enterprise is a business that delivers goods and services in exchange for income, like any other business, but also does social or environmental good as part of its core mission. It is not a strictly defined legal structure but to gain a credible social enterprise accreditation businesses are often required to:

  • invest 50% or more of profits into a social or environmental mission
  • derive 50% more of its income from trading

 

In short, a social enterprise does good whilst doing business. The way they achieve this can vary but examples include:

Employing and training people who face barriers to work like Recycling Lives, a waste services company employing ex-offenders and people affected by homelessness

Donating profits to charitable causes like Blue Bear Coffee, a coffee producer who donate profits to charities fighting human trafficking

Ensuring sustainable and ethical supply chains like Ethstat Ethical Stationery who provide office and printing supplies that are made ethically and sustainably

Making a product or service accessible to the people who need it like Greenstream Flooring, a recycled flooring supplier who give people free flooring materials if they can’t afford them

Benefits of Social Enterprises with Constructionline

We know that many of our buyers and suppliers are striving to work with more social enterprises, as they recognise that doing so is a great way to provide social value.

So we have added a new filter to our search function to enable buyers and suppliers to find and reach out to social enterprises more easily within our platform, which means our members can now search specifically for social enterprises in Constructionline.

FREE Gold Level Constructionline Supplier membership

  • Verifying that your organisation meets PAS91 and the Common Assessment Standard
  • Providing you with a searchable profile, so the thousands of public and private buyers on our platform can find and contact your organisation
  • Inviting you to our in-person and virtual Meet the Buyer events, so you can discuss upcoming projects directly with buyers
  • Giving you access to Marketplace, a single platform that enables you to find public and planning projects in minutes

FREE SSIP accreditation

  • Once you have been assessed by one SSIP scheme, you have satisfied the criteria for all other SSIP members’ schemes, so you can save time and money
  • Applications are typically processed in just two business days, so you can prove you’re compliant quickly
  • SSIP is universally accepted in both public and private sector procurement
  • You can easily manage your SSIP within the Constructionline platform

Are you a Social Enterprise or planning on using Social Enterprises in your supply chain?

About Supply Change

Supply Change helps organisations create more impactful supply chains for business, people and planet. For 3 years the women-led team has been generating impact by redirecting procurement spend to social enterprises. Supply Change has generated £300k+ of income for social enterprises who use that revenue to create social and environmental value.

Supply Change works with a community of buyers across sectors including construction, housing, professional services and the public sector. They support buyers to procure from social enterprises providing cleaning, building materials, waste services, signage, catering, energy services, digital services, marketing services, corporate gifts and much more.

 

Supply Change in partnership with Constructionline

We have partnered with Supply Change, an organisation dedicated to making social procurement easier, faster and more impactful for businesses, to deliver our new social enterprise service. Constructionline will provide free membership and Acclaim accreditation, and Supply Change will be helping us to verify businesses’ eligibility to receive this support. By working together, we’re making it easier than ever for Main contractors and Social Enterprises to join together to deliver projects.

Constructionline accreditation gives suppliers access to more contract opportunities but the cost can be a barrier for social enterprises. Constructionline is providing Supply Change’s community of social enterprise suppliers with free accreditation so that they can access more contracts and create more impact.

If your business is a social enterprise, then we want to support you to grow your business, so you can create even more social value.

Are you ready to help a Social Enterprise or to get your free membership?

If you think your organisation or an organisation on your supply chain is a Social Enterprise and qualifies for our FREE Constructionline membership up to the Gold level, and FREE Acclaim Accreditation, we want to hear from you!