Organisations are increasingly interested in measuring and valuing their social and environmental efforts. Such activities and their associated values can help influence how we manage our negative and positive impacts on people and the planet. Without understanding the relative importance of different actions and outcomes choosing what we do/don’t do comes down to financial budgets, ultimately perpetuating inequality and environmental harm.
The MeasureUp values relate to a set of activities and outcomes that have been developed from primary research on the most common ‘things’ that organisations are trying to measure and value about their social and environmental impact. We are aiming to move towards measuring and valuing social value.
MeasureUp’s methodology is built on a transparent, evidence-based approach that uses economic, social, fiscal, and environmental proxies to assess social value and wellbeing.
Our methodology for MeasureUp is informed first and foremost by the UK Government Treasury Greenbook which is the best Government guidance for undertaking monitoring and evaluation before, during, and after the implementation of policies, programmes, and projects.
We specifically use the Supplementary Guidance on Wellbeing to inform our approach to wellbeing valuation using the WELLBY. The methodology is also guided by best practices in social value and impact management particularly with the emerging discipline of social and environmental valuation. A key piece from this space that guides us is the Social Value Principles as defined and overseen by Social Value International.
Let’s take a look at the methodology and the practice that informs it below.
The MeasureUp partners have defined a set of principles that inform the continuing development of the valuation framework and overall approach. These have been reviewed and agreed with our Advisory Group.
We are representing social value in line with the Government Greenbook definition of social value and, its impact on the wellbeing of the population.
The What Works Centre for Wellbeing define wellbeing as: ‘how we’re doing as individuals, communities and as a nation, and how sustainable that is for the future.’
They include the subjective experiences we have throughout our lives, how we function in society, and the environmental factors that affect us. What this means at the 3 levels of individual, community and nation are outlined as:
The Office of National Statistics has been gathering national wellbeing data for the last 12 years. Through their national dataset, 10 broad dimensions of wellbeing have been identified and are regularly tracked for the UK population through the Measures of National Well-being Dashboard: Quality of Life in the UK. The 10 dimensions are:
To start to measure wellbeing directly from the people affected, there is one set of questions it is important to consider – the ONS4. These questions are the national measures for subjective wellbeing in the UK. The set asks the following four questions on a scale of 0 to 10 (an 11-point scale), where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’:
The questions are:
- “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?”
- “Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?”
- “Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?”
- “Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?”
For more information, you can look at the ONS Measures of National Wellbeing Dashboard.
The MeasureUp values are a combination of economic, fiscal, social/wellbeing, and environmental values. Each value outlines what is included, and how to use and adjust each aspect of the valuation.
Wherever possible, we include a wellbeing valuation, using the WELLBY as outlined in the Greenbook Supplementary Guidance on Wellbeing.
The WELLBY (Wellbeing Year) is a unit of measurement for wellbeing impact as advanced by Frijters and Krekel. The number of WELLBYs can be calculated based on the single survey question noted above: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? – 0 (not at all satisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied).”
1 WELLBY is equal to one person moving 1 point on this 10-point scale for one year as a result of the policy/programme.
The analysis must use a control group and/or techniques such as multivariate regression to ensure that the measured difference in personal wellbeing is causal and not due to self-selection/other reasons.
The Green Book guidance settles at £13,000 as a central, primary value of 1 WELLBY in 2019 prices. This allows us to express the social benefit of the programme in £ and perform a cost-benefit analysis of the programme to assess a) whether the programme was worth the money invested in it and/or b) which programme out of several alternatives delivers the best value for money.
In MeasureUp, all values have been adjusted to 2023 price year. It is recommended if you would like to update the values to your accounting period to use the same inflation adjustments.[KH1]
Economic and fiscal values are uplifted to 2023 prices using the Government GDP deflators. Wellbeing value (using WELLBY or QALY calculations) are uplifted to 2023 prices using the GDP deflators, as well as real GDP per capita growth in conjunction with the marginal utility of income elasticity parameter of 1.3 as recommended by the Green Book Wellbeing guidance.
The original value in its original price year is also shown based on information from the original source.
The Social Value Principles are basic social accounting principles that guide good practice. They can be thought of as the basic underpinning building blocks to abide by when doing social value accounting.
The 8 principles are:
For MeasureUp, these principles act as a guiding checklist to inform the ongoing development of the framework as well as the supporting guidance helping users to use MeasureUp as a part of their overall social value and impact management practice.
Organisations are increasingly interested in measuring and valuing their social and environmental efforts. Such activities and their associated values can help influence how we manage our negative and positive impacts on people and the planet. Without understanding the relative importance of different actions and outcomes choosing what we do/don’t do comes down to financial budgets, ultimately perpetuating inequality and environmental harm.
With so many ways to make a positive difference, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. MeasureUp addresses this by curating a selection of the most practical, common, and useful things to report on. Based on a comprehensive analysis of over 1,000 activities across sectors, we aim to provide guidance that gets you about 75% there. We want to make it easier for beginners to dive in and make an impact, but if you need further support, the team behind MeasureUp is available to assist.
The MeasureUp values have been developed using openly available data sources, generally aiming for national data where possible topic-specific data where not, or a combination of both of these. All sources are listed on each value page.
For the wellbeing values in MeasureUp, we follow the guidelines outlined in the HM Treasury Green Book’s wellbeing guidance from 2021. This approach provides a solid framework for integrating well-being considerations into decision-making processes, offering a simple, open valuation method known as WELLBY.
The “Wellbeing-adjusted Life Year” (WELLBY) is defined as a one-point change in life satisfaction on a Likert scale between 0 to 10, for an individual for one year.
The values can also include fiscal, economic and environmental valuation. These use the best openly available sources and methods.
Our advisory board comprises experienced practitioners in delivering, managing, and measuring social and environmental value, some of whom even contributed to the HM Treasury Green Book in the UK.
In addition, the values can align with the UK Central Government Social Value Model (PPN 6/20) and the Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals).
Overall we are representing social value in line with the Government Greenbook definition of social value and, its impact on the wellbeing of the population. Wherever possible, we include a wellbeing valuation, using the WELLBY as outlined in the Greenbook Supplementary Guidance on Wellbeing. However, we recognise that other aspects of value are available to be counted and useful to understand and represent. Therefore, the MeasureUp values are a combination of economic, fiscal, social/wellbeing, and environmental values. Each value outlines what is included, and how to use and adjust each aspect of the valuation.
The MeasureUp values relate to a set of activities and outcomes that have been developed from primary research on the most common ‘things’ that organisations are trying to measure and value about their social and environmental impact. Overall, we are aiming to move towards measuring and valuing social value in line with the Government Greenbook definition of social value as ‘wellbeing’. The activities are therefore categorised in alignment with the ONS national wellbeing dimensions.
We will continue to develop the MeasureUp values practically based on what is most important from organisations’ perspectives and in line with openly available, national, and topic-specific data that highlights what is most important in impacting our wellbeing.
Anyone! MeasureUp is open to all across any public, private or third sectors – completely for free.
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All values have been adjusted to 2023 price year based on the GDP deflator – the government’s preferred way to measure overall price changes in the economy.
For wellbeing values (using WELLBY or QALY calculations) the inflation adjustments take into account the changing marginal utility of income following the formula included in the Government Greenbook Supplementary Guidance on Wellbeing.
The original value in its original price year is also shown based on information from the original source.
It is recommended if you would like to update the values to your own accounting period to use the same inflation adjustments.
There are numerous factors that should be taken into consideration when claiming the amount of value that is actually caused by a project, intervention, or organisation.
In MeasureUp this is dealt with most fully at the Gold+ level, where there is guidance on undertaking an assessment of ‘what would have happened anyway’ and assessing your impact against a counterfactual and apply a deadweight discount.
At the other levels, Bronze, Silver, and Gold, it is recommended for users of MeasureUp to consider the deadweight in relation to the application of the value in their use case. A very simple application is to estimate your level of confidence that the change that has taken place is all down to your activity, or if some would have happened anyway or is down to someone else, and apply a ‘low: 25%’, ‘medium: 50%’, or ‘high: 75%’ level of deadweight based on your estimation.
Activities and outcomes in MeasureUp are organised into commonly used categories for social and environmental impact reporting:
These 17 global goals serve as a framework for reporting social and environmental work, aiming to create a blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet.
This note outlines how to consider social value in central government contract awards, using the Social Value Model and featuring seven policy outcomes organised by five themes. It’s especially useful for bidding on public sector contracts.
Global Reporting Initiative Standards (GRI Standards): The GRI provides widely used standards for sustainability, CSR, and ESG reporting, often used by large companies for social impact and sustainability reports.
Activities are the actions undertaken to achieve specific outcomes for stakeholders. It’s crucial to verify each value to avoid double-counting impact.
Considers how much an outcome is down to you, and how much is down to other interventions, sources, organisations, people, or circumstances. For instance, if you have a support service for homeless people, they may also be receiving support from other agencies or their families. Any improvements in their outcomes may be in part due to these others and not just your intervention.
The difference between what happened and what would have happened otherwise (the deadweight) is your intervention’s impact. Since it is inherently impossible to know both things, the main challenge for any evaluation is identifying what you can use as a fair counterfactual. If you have a control group, you can use this. If not you may use secondary research as a proxy for the counterfactual.
The amount of the intervention that would have happened anyway. This is normally expressed as a percentage of the total effect. For instance, if your intervention aims to help people into work, you might take the proportion of unemployed people who move into work within a certain timeframe. If on average 70% of unemployed people find a job within six months, then your deadweight might be 70% (unless you are targeting an especially vulnerable group).
Considers whether creating change for a person, group, or the environment, has prevented a positive outcome somewhere else, or for someone else.
Considers how long the outcome lasts, which may be longer than the period of intervention. An organisation will also need to consider how long they are accountable for the outcome.
The change in depth of the outcome over time, which shows how outcomes reduce over time.
A monetary representation of the value of an outcome.
A general term for any project, programme, or action that you take with the intent of affecting someone else.
The amount of change that is down to you. The difference between the amount of change in outcomes for your stakeholder group, taking into account what would have happened anyway, the contribution of others and the length of time the outcomes last.
The changes resulting from an activity. The main types of change from the perspective of stakeholders are unintended (unexpected) and intended (expected), positive and negative change.
The products or services that result from your activities.
An approximation providing representation of the value of an outcome. Financial proxies are one example.
MeasureUp aligns with the Greenbook definition of social value as ‘‘impact on the wellbeing of the population’. The full Greenbook definition is: “Social value […] is based on the principles and ideas of welfare economics, and […] therefore includes all significant costs and benefits that affect the welfare and wellbeing of the population, not just market effects”
Approach to valuation that uses statistical analysis of large and existing questionnaire datasets to value the effect on wellbeing from changes in life circumstances and life satisfaction. This is done by calculating the increase in income that would be necessary for an equivalent increase in wellbeing.
The WELLBY is short for “Wellbeing-adjusted Life Year.” It is defined as a one-point change in life satisfaction on a Likert scale between 0 to 10, for an individual for one year. The WELLBY endorses and supports the widely held view that overall life satisfaction is the best way to measure personal well-being (almost always alongside associated drivers of life satisfaction, e.g. employment, physical activity, volunteering, mental health, community wellbeing, education and skills development and socio-economic status).
MeasureUp is constantly evolving and regularly updated – so if you see something that doesn’t make sense or you have questions about anything, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us to chat!