Driving Social Value at NWG Innovation Festival 2025
This week, Bravand took part in the Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival 2025, joining Story Contracting for a week-long sprint focused on delivering greater social value through infrastructure frameworks.
The outcome? A blueprint now backed by the NWG executive team.
What Is the NWG Innovation Festival?
The NWG Innovation Festival brings together utilities, construction, technology and regeneration partners to solve complex challenges through intensive design sprints.
Each sprint compresses months of work into five days - ending with a pitch to senior leadership.
This year's theme centred on:
- Social value in infrastructure
- Regeneration and local economic growth
- Sustainable opportunity for communities
Designing Social Value into Infrastructure
Too often, social value is treated as an add-on.
This sprint challenged that.
The focus
How can infrastructure frameworks embed measurable, scalable social value from day one?
The team explored how projects can:
- Strengthen local supply chains
- Support sustainable employment pathways
- Deliver long-term community benefit
- Create measurable impact
Executive Backing and What’s Next
At the end of the week, the concept was pitched to NWG’s executive team - and received full backing.
The next stage is developing a practical implementation plan.
While we can’t share the full details yet, the direction is clear: social value must be structured, intentional and accountable.
Why This Matters
For organisations investing in infrastructure, regeneration or digital transformation, the message is simple: impact should be designed in - not reported on afterwards.
The Innovation Festival demonstrates that cross-sector collaboration can accelerate meaningful change.
We’re proud to have contributed - and excited to share more as the project progresses.
