SOCIAL VALUE & EDI

PUTTING SOCIAL VALUE AND EDI AT THE FOREFRONT OF UKREiiF

Social Value will always be embedded in UKREiiF – working with our event partners, Advisory Group, and supporters to create a knowledge-sharing platform.

From our inception we ran a Social Value stage dedicated to driving the agenda forward – which will return for UKREiiF 2025, whilst adding a D&I stage in 2023, alongside the ‘Social Value Summit’ which launched in 2024 bringing together the key clients, measurement tools and industry leaders focused on social value to tackle some of the biggest issues around areas like transparency and measurement.

We’re leading on Social Value, which the below highlights, and this has led to us our event partners ensuring social value is a key thread across all 60+ stages of the event.

SOCIAL VALUE & EDI PAVILION’S

Since our launch we’ve always had one dedicated stage/area for Social Value at the event – in 2025 this includes a Social Value Stage for content including panels, workshops and hackathons, in addition to the Regeneration Brainery Studio where our Charity Partner will work alongside us to run content include mentoring sessions whilst discussing areas around accessibility and barriers in the industry.

We also saw a 400% increase in CICs attending the event in 2024 and we are set to build on this once again for UKREiiF 2025.

MEASURING SOCIAL VALUE

Since the inception of UKREiiF we have measured the social value UKREiiF has generated and thereafter we can monitor going forward the impact we’re making, with the ability for us to set targets to enhance this over the coming years.

We have worked with Loop (part of the Pagabo Group) to measure this output and calculate the positive social value and community benefit UKREiiF brings which totalled £1.1 million in year one and a huge £2.25 million in 2023. We’re just working through our 2024 figures.

UKREiiF has also generated over £38.5 million in local economic benefit over the course of the three years, reports from Arup found.

COLLABORATION & PARTNERSHIPS

We’re striking up numerous partnerships with organisations who have Social Value at the heart of their operations – ensuring that we’re not alone in delivering a positive outcome from UKREiiF – not just at the annual event, but all year round.

Regeneration Brainery, Black Women in Real Estate, Women in Property, Building People, Young Entrepreneurs in Property, Association of Muslim Surveyors and Real Estate Balance are just a few of the organisations who we’re working with in many innovative ways – those we have entered official partnership agreements with can be seen at the bottom of the page.

SUPPORTING CHARITIES

We’re looking to utilise the UKREiiF platform to raise awareness and funds and so far we have helped raise around £250,000 in the first three years..

In 2022 we raised £40,000 for charity through things such as the LandAid special achievement award, and supporting Club Peloton, the Pagabo Foundation Games and running a fringe event raising funds for Angels for Freedom.

In 2023 this continued with over £100,000 including the continuation of the above, in addition to the UKREiiF Cycle Sportif, Iceni Projects Ride to UKREiiF, NOTAPHASE’s involvement in a Freehold LGBT event and more.

£20,000 donation for the Peabody Trust in memory of Lord Bob Kerslake

In 2024 this grew again, with additional events including ‘ROCK! @ UKREiiF’ raising money for LandAid and a charity comedy night.

WELLNESS ACTIVITY

To help with physical and mental wellbeing we have a number of events at UKREiiF which will fit perfectly with your day.

Some of these include Pagabo’s Feel Good Games, Net-Walking events, tours of the city, morning running clubs, yoga and padel boarding.

On some of our event stages we also have wellbeing activities and workshops which continue to refresh the mind during the day.

ACCOMMODATING FOR ALL

We’re both working with an EDI consultant and gathering attendee feedback to ensure UKREiiF is truly welcoming to everyone from every background.

The forum space will have numerous areas which feed into this and are already planned out – examples being a prayer room a short distance from the main event area, a quiet space that supports the full range of neurodiversity in attendees, wide ranging food options, and more.

From helping to set up fringe activities focused on the LGBT community, to working with the likes of Black Women in Real Estate, we also ensure we’re accommodating on the ‘fringe’ by working with key partners so we’re accommodating for all across the wider city.

BSL INTERPRETERS

Do you require a British Sign Language interpreter at the event?

We understand that people who are hard-of-hearing need support at events like UKREiiF to ensure equal opportunities and that assistance is available.

If you’re in need of a BSL interpreter just let us know via the Contact Us form and we’ll organise, free of charge, an interpreter to support you during your visit – interpreting the content and discussions on the stages, or aiding networking periods to interpret simultaneously as you meet new people.

DIVERSITY CHARTER

Internally we’ve been working to a Diversity Charter for many years – unlike many event operators in our sector we will always have diversity across our panels where possible, and never have all-male panels. This is to ensure society is represented when we discuss the future of our communities rather than the industry.

To do this we have a three-strong content team who are dedicated to procuring speakers from all background, and we utilise relationships with 70+ D&I partners.

In addition to diversity across our panels we’re activity sharing our charter with sponsors to ensure they sign up to our agreed level of diversity.

In 2023 we implemented a change to ensure more minority ethnic representation on our panels – with 45% female speakers and 13% minority ethnic speakers taking to the stage in 2024, with circa 1,000+ speakers in total.

PARTNER FRINGE EVENTS

We will partner with many businesses positively promoting the Social Value and EDI agenda in the industry at UKREiiF – to help them promote their message and fringe events.

This has included LGBTQ+ history tours with Freehold, site visits with Women in Property, evening fringe events with Women in Architecture, a ‘Yes We Can’ fringe event raising money for charity (£7.5k in 2023), LandAid quiz night, Hexa’s Charity Sportif, and much more. These types of fringe events are open to all and inclusive in nature to ensure delegates can attend who aren’t attending UKREiiF, whilst being promoted to those within these groups and associations, but also the wider industry to promote ally-ship.

CYCLING TO AND FROM UKREiiF

Starting in 2022 Club Peloton ran a ride to UKREiiF to raise money for charity – growing in 2023 to more riders, and in 2024 this increased to different rides taking place. Club Peloton ran two rides themselves, one from Oxford and one from Scotland, whilst Iceni Projects ran theirs from London and Edinburgh all raising funds for UKREiiF.

We also promote Hexa Consulting’s UKREiiF Sportif which raises money for Yorkshire’s Children’s Charity – taking place on the Thursday of UKREiiF. All of this promotes wellbeing and sustainability in addition to raising charitable funds.

LIVING WAGE EMPLOYER

By paying the real Living Wage we’re making a voluntary commitment and stand to ensure our employees are earning a wage which is enough to live on. EDI is at the heart of UKREiiF and this demonstrates that we want to bring fairness into our own workplace – going further than the Government’s minimum wage.

It also helps us attract and retain the best and most motivated people – and living wage is an excellent way of ensuring we can do this.

FOOD & DRINK

We’re always looking at ways to ensure UKREiiF accommodates for all – and we’ve had great feedback on the food and beverage offerings we have at UKREiiF.

A large F&B Avenue sees numerous options across the site with vegetarian, vegan, halal, gluten free and many other options available.

We also don’t allow alcoholic drinks on-site until 3pm and later, which has also received great feedback in comparison to other industry events where alcohol is served in the morning until late.

CANAL CONNECTIONS

UKREiiF has supported social enterprise Canal Connections CIC by investing money and time into upgrading a canal barge so it was fit for purpose to enable them to raise more charitable funds. They utilise waterways and its environment to engage individuals, families and communities – and especially support people going through mental health challenges, addiction, bereavement and more

Canal Connections explore the opportunities for social regeneration presented through the waterways and its environs by the innovative engagement of individuals, families, communities and organisations (corporate, statutory and voluntary) whilst enhancing the built and natural heritage of that environment.

AWARDS

We’re delighted to have been celebrated for the work we’re doing across D&I.

This has included being shortlisted by D&I Champion of the Year by Black Professionals in Construction (BPIC) at their annual awards, in addition to being announced as the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champions at the BAME Planners Network annual awards in December 2023. We also won the Best UK Conference Award 2024 and one key reason the judges highlighted was our focus on D&I and Social Value.

We’re looking forward to further successes as we continue to lead from the front in the area of D&I.

EDI PARTNERS WE’RE WORKING ALONGSIDE:

We’re actively working with a multitude of businesses and organisations to create a more diverse and inclusive events – with partnerships ranging from engaging with members to hosting fringe event activity across the city. Here are some of the partners we’re working with:

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