The Buy Social Movement

Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) launched the Buy Social Corporate Challenge in 2016, a key moment in the development of the broader “buy social” movement in the UK.

In this article we review the journey that Buy Social Corporate Challenge buyers and suppliers have taken over the course of the last six years, tracing the growth of social procurement and highlighting key lessons learned for corporate buyers and social enterprise suppliers.

The development of this movement can be seen in three stages:

Create

The initial stage in the development of the Buy Social movement sees a narrative around shared benefits and the shaping of a culture which creates demand for, and shared intention towards, social procurement.

Build

As the Buy Social movement develops, corporate buyers and social enterprise suppliers build systems and processes to place their social procurement activity on a more formal footing.

Grow

In the third stage in the development of the Buy Social movement, corporate buyers and social enterprise suppliers work together to ensure that the social procurement market grows, through building capacity and driving innovation.

CASE STUDY: NEMI Teas

Social enterprises may adopt a combination of commercial first and social first strategies, depending on the audience. An example is NEMI Teas, a social enterprise which works with refugees and offers a range of tea products.

When approaching CSR functions, they focus on their positive impact on refugee lives. The focus is more on commercial benefits when they engage with procurement professionals. Communication around their environmentally-friendly product features works equally well with both CSR functions and procurement functions.

The Future

We have seen strong growth in the size of the social procurement marketplace during the first six years of the Buy Social Corporate Challenge. If we are to contribute to building a post-COVID economy that works for all, we need to work together to grow this market further still. The programme’s ambition is to see £1 billion spent with social enterprise suppliers, and we would like to support the group of businesses to achieve this by 2026. This equates to an average of £100 million spent with social enterprises per year between 2016 and 2026. We are not yet at the required run rate so work is needed to raise the level of trade. Below we present some of the key areas we would like to focus on to achieve this:

• Development of new supply-side capacity

• Facilitating increased collaboration between corporate buyers and Tier 1 providers

• Engaging the wider business community

• Expanding social procurement to different national markets

• New partnerships

Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) has recently released their Year 6 Impact Report which can be accessed here: Impact Report