Amey reports to have spent almost £1m with social enterprises in 2017, after joining the ‘Buy Social Corporate Challenge’ last year. The company is part of the services division of Ferrovia and has a number of waste management contracts in the UK.
The Challenge is an initiative run by Social Enterprise UK which aims to get UK companies to open up their supply chains to social enterprises. The overall aim for businesses to spend £1 billion with social enterprises.
Amey is now working with the Wild Hearts charity which helps companies with entrepreneurship, education and microfinance (Picture: Andy Buchanan)
According to Amey, the company had already been working with the likes of the Forward Trust (formerly BlueSky) – a business which helps people break the cycle of crime and addiction – and the Royal British Legion Industries. In May 2017 it joined the Challenge pledging to spend even more with businesses with a social purpose.
Partnerships
Since then, Amey has formed partnerships with bottled water company Belu, which reports to channel all profits to WaterAid; Recycling Lives, which offers accommodation, education and training to homeless and the long-term unemployed; and Wild Hearts, which provides office supplies while helping young people to develop business and employability skills.
In 2017, Amey said it spent £930,000 with social enterprises. This followed work with Social Enterprise UK to identify new organisations for Amey to work with. Work is now under way to secure an even greater spend for 2018, the company said.
Commenting on Amey’s work with social enterprises, the company’s head of social impact, Emily Davies, explained: “Whilst we feel this is the right thing to do, it also helps us to respond to some of the social, economic and environmental challenges faced by our customers.
Amey has shown the impact and added value that can be created through working with social enterprises – whether that is creating jobs for some of the most vulnerable people in the UK or funding clean water projects overseas.
Peter Holbrook
Social Enterprise UK
“Joining the Buy Social Corporate Challenge has focused our commitment, raised awareness to our employees and wider stakeholders, and provided the leadership platform and network that’s needed for organisations to work together and really make a difference.”
‘Impact’
Peter Holbrook, chief executive of Social Enterprise UK, added: “Businesses are increasingly being held to account by their customers and their staff over how they operate, who they work with and the impact they are having on society and the environment. The Buy Social Corporate Challenge has catalysed a movement of large companies who are using their core business spend to create real positive change in the communities they work in and around the world.
“Amey has shown the impact and added value that can be created through working with social enterprises – whether that is creating jobs for some of the most vulnerable people in the UK or funding clean water projects overseas. We look forward to continuing to work with them to further build markets for social enterprises and encourage other companies to also take up the Challenge.”
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