Check out our new course! Introduction to Social Value 102. Access for free
Case Study
The King’s Cross estate introduced a new social value measurement approach in 2023-24, developed with MeasureUp partners PRD, Impact Reporting and State of Life. Since implementing the framework the team has delivered £6.6m in monetised social value in 2023-24.
acres
new & restored buildings
new homes
new public parks & squares
shops & restaurants
acres of open space
An evolving approach to measuring social impact is helping the King’s Cross development reach its full potential as a community asset – substantiating £6.6m in social value in 2023-24.
King’s Cross consciously chose to move away from the built environment’s default measurement frameworks in pursuit of best practice and taking a truly place-based approach.
Working alongside MeasureUp’s partners PRD, Impact Reporting and State of Life, King’s Cross took the lead on exploring more rounded and robust ways of estimating and evidencing impact that focused on wellbeing.
Now on a path of continuous improvement, their revised methodology – utilising MeasureUp within the Impact Reporting platform – is allowing King’s Cross to capture less obvious metrics. This means moving beyond employment and skills and prioritising investment in programmes that are shown to address genuine community needs. This includes a range of partnerships that help engage neighbours and respond directly to the challenges of inequality, access and aspiration.
King’s Cross is the largest mixed-use regeneration site in single ownership to be masterplanned and developed in Central London for over 150 years. It is also one of the most sustainable major projects in the UK, targeted to become net zero carbon by 2035.
Beyond these ambitious environmental goals, the team behind King’s Cross has long made it part of its mission to deliver exemplary social impact for those who live, work, study and visit this vibrant new part of the city.
Some of the activities implemented to-date include youth enterprise programmes, wellbeing campaigns and free and inclusive events and enlivenment activations. Gaining an accurate understanding of the longer term, tangible benefits that these community-oriented initiatives deliver is difficult, and recognising the need to meaningfully measure these more novel activities inspired King’s Cross to do things differently.
In 2023-24, the King’s Cross team set about evolving its approach to social value measurement: they were keen to address known limitations with existing value sets and to help devise better ways of reporting that they could confidently stand behind.
Previously, King’s Cross used a combination of anecdotal feedback, case studies and broad financial proxies to report on social value.
As the team were supporting a growing number of projects focused on improving wellbeing and other softer, more qualitative metrics they sought a framework that would allow them to meaningfully quantify those benefits.
The goal was to better understand what was working by documenting wellbeing outcomes (like access to nature and increased belonging and confidence), not just participation numbers. They also began surveying participants across key projects to track “distance travelled,” enabling a clearer link between interventions and life outcomes, including employment, health and personal development.
With so many overlapping initiatives across recruitment, placemaking, arts and education, the main challenge was structuring the right measurement system – one that recognised the depth of the estate’s activity without diluting meaning through over-claiming.
The team also recognised the risk of relying too heavily on proxies. So alongside monetised values, they wanted to incorporate demographic tracking (e.g. BAME, refugees, disability) and qualitative indicators around community connectedness, safety and access to nature.
Social value reporting needs context, not one-size-fits-all metrics. Read Related Argent’s reflections in the Estates Gazette.
Following 18 months of important discovery work, the project team developed a bespoke measurement framework. Using the values within MeasureUp, this presented an opportunity for King’s Cross to help steer much needed change in the social value space as the first real estate company to adopt this free, game-changing resource as part of its reporting.
Now, using the Impact Reporting dashboard to accurately collate and track both qualitative and quantitative inputs, King’s Cross has a structured, blended and repeatable valuation approach that reflects local priorities and flexes across both grassroots initiatives and estate-wide programmes.
The collaboration between PRD, Impact Reporting and State of Life, also means that the solution has been built on three layers of expertise – encompassing place strategy, valuation and reporting. Aligning with national best practice, it incorporates the Green Book WELLBY methodology and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
In its first year using this system, King’s Cross was able to quantify and articulate its role as a force for social good – generating a total of £6.6m in measurable social value.
An independent assessment carried out by leading impact advisory firm, The Good Economy (TGE), further validated the reliability and quality of the social and environmental data presented. Impact Reporting supported the team with evidence gathering that satisfied TGE of the social value created for every £1 invested, as well as the social impact delivered.
As King’s Cross moves closer to completion, the insights gathered are helping to achieve a better understanding of how the neighbourhood is evolving and where to focus next. The intention is to revisit the MeasureUp metrics every five years to see how the neighbourhood continues to serve its local communities. Are residents healthier and feel more connected? Do young people have more opportunities?
To get a clearer picture, King’s Cross plans to:
Suffice to say the figures reported to-date represent only the beginning.
By being so bold as to move away from established models, to focus on outcomes over outputs and to seek expert third party assurances is not only establishing the delivery team as thought leaders in urban community wellbeing but as placemakers driving genuine progress in a little understood space.
“We didn’t want to simply follow what was already out there - we wanted to be part of building a measurement framework that genuinely reflects the communities we serve.
Adopting MeasureUp has allowed us to be more honest, more intentional and ultimately more impactful in how we design and deliver social value.
This is just the beginning, but it already sets a new benchmark for what place-based social value measurement should look like.”
Sizi Sibanda
Related Argent’s Social Value Manager for King’s Cross
Sign up for The Social Value Tea and be the first to get access to our content, news and upcoming events.
