Valuing what matters

15th June 2011

Today is International Justice Day for cleaners and security workers. Trade union SIPTU marked the day with a series of events focusing on its Fair Deal for Cleaners Campaign. I attended a session with keynote speaker Eilísh Lawlor from Just Economics in the UK. Provocatively entitled Why cleaners are more valuable to society than bankers, she presented compelling evidence from nef research report A Bit Rich to show how, over the past three decades, social inequality has heightened to (in her words) "feudal proportions". She highlighted that, if social and environmental factors are taken into account, cleaners and those delivering similarly low paid jobs are demonstrably more valuable to society than bankers and those in other professions with highly inflated salary levels. The methodology used to ascertain this was Social Return On Investment (SROI); a tool which is increasingly being used internationally to focus on the overall outcomes and long-term impact of activities, as opposed to a narrow focus on outputs and questionable "efficiencies".

I am going to London next week to be trained in SROI with The SROI Network UK of which I am a member. I am immensely looking forward to it and will keep you updated on how I get on.

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Sandra Velthuis

26-06-2011 22:08

Thank you Aidan. Am happy to do so.
Sandra

Aidan Lynch

23-06-2011 11:42

Sounds interesting Sandra. Would love to get your summary of it. talk soon. Aidan

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