Over £21 million pounds of social value has been unlocked from LNER’s supply chain and invested back into local communities.
With a mission to be the UK’s most responsible train operator, every decision LNER takes considers the impact on the people and places along its route, plus the planet. But LNER doesn’t stop there. The train operator also works closely with suppliers to drive additional value to customers and communities.
This additional value is measured as Social Local Economic Value (SLEV). In one year alone* over £21 million pounds of SLEV has been unlocked from the LNER supply chain and reinvested back into local economies through job creation, support to small and medium sized businesses, donations to local charity organisations and encouraging innovation.
By working collaboratively with its supply chain and sharing its social value expertise, LNER has enabled suppliers up and down it’s east coast route to create 665 full-time local jobs, spend over £3 million, invest over £37,000 in local community projects, generate 1,362 hours of voluntary work, reduce emissions by nearly 450 tonnes of carbon dioxide and save over 70,000 car miles. Not only that, thanks to other projects still in progress, a further £44 million pounds of SLEV is in the pipeline yet to be delivered.
Anna Barrett, Procurement Sustainability Manager for LNER said, “LNER purchases goods and services from hundreds of suppliers every year. From crumpets for our customers through to the cleaning team who keep our fleet gleaming, the power of our pound is huge. This is the fourth year we have evaluated the social value generated by the LNER supply chain and it’s great to see year-on-year growth in the substantial economic, social, and environmental benefits that have been invested into local communities.”
Joe Clay, Associate Consultant at LNER supplier Zinc Consult said, “As our working partnership with LNER has flourished, this has delivered, and continues to deliver, social value benefits in numerous areas. We’ve created two new full-time roles in our Yorkshire based LNER account team and we’re looking to offer further training opportunities to local students in part time study, something we did previously in 2022/23. We’ve also increased our usage of public transport, reducing car miles, and impacting our carbon generation, carried out local community litter picks and contracted business from a York-based accounting firm. So, the local community directly benefits through the opportunities offered to us in collaboration with LNER.”
Image credit: LNER
