Social procurement for construction, built into every bid.
Social Traders gives contractors and subcontractors a network of certified social enterprises, spend tracking and reporting built for how construction delivers projects.
It's already paying off for members - since 2018, construction members have spent over $340m with certified social enterprises, supporting the creation of over 1,800 jobs and diverting 17.5k tonnes of waste from landfill.
Deliver measurable social value with confidence by becoming a Social Traders member.
Community Construction
Social Traders members meeting their social procurement targets on major projects, including:
Everything you need to win contracts and deliver on targets.
Social Traders simplifies social procurement. In one platform, connect with relevant certified social enterprises, track outcomes and produce reports that satisfy compliance requirements.
Mirvac
A faster path to social suppliers.
Instantly connect with almost 800 certified social enterprises nationally, share your requirements and get direct responses fast. Lock in suppliers that strengthen your next tender.
Project Net Zero
Satisfy reporting requirements simply.
Every dollar tracked and outcomes measured: job pathways, training hours, waste diverted from landfill and more. Get the compliance-ready proof your clients and stakeholders demand.
ASRC Cleaning
Identify gaps, act on opportunities quickly.
See which procurement categories your peers use that you're missing. Get live recommendations of certified social enterprises to hit your targets and sharpen your tender response.
Social procurement is already reshaping construction
46%
of Social Traders members that spent over $1m with certified social enterprises in FY25 were from the construction industry.
$62M
spent with certified social enterprises in building trades in FY25, up from $1.8M five years ago.
71%
of all buyer members increased the amount spent with certified social enterprises in FY25 vs FY24.
Download the latest snapshot on social procurement in the construction industry.
See eight years' worth of insights on where the sector is spending, who's benefiting, and the shifts already tightening reporting mandates.
Social targets now sit inside tenders as standard. Don't fall short on compliance or miss out on contracts.
Get the data that will help you build the case and win the work.
Download the snapshot
When responding to tenders, we can quickly source verified social enterprises from Social Traders live database that align with procurement requirements, making it easier to meet social value weighting with confidence.
Gaia Milanesi
Senior Advisor Industry Capability and Inclusion, Terra Verde
From pilot program to workforce blueprint. This is social performance in action.
In FY25, CPB Contractors spent $34.2 million with certified social enterprises, the highest among Social Traders members. One of their partnerships is with CareerSeekers, a certified social enterprise supporting refugees and people seeking asylum into professional employment.
What started as 10 interns in 2018 is now one of the construction sector's most powerful inclusive hiring stories, with a modest pilot becoming a blueprint for refugee employment - and a 72% conversion to permanent roles.
How social procurement policy shapes your bid, state by state.
Each state and territory takes a different approach to social value in tender requirements, and the policy landscape shifts regularly. Use the links below to go straight to the source, so your bid team is always working from the current version.
Victoria’s Social Procurement Framework governs how the Victorian Government procures goods, services and construction, and is widely regarded as the most mature, highest-expectation social procurement policy in the country.
Depending on spend thresholds and location, buyers must seek out social benefit suppliers, unbundle procurement to improve their access, or set spend targets suppliers must show how they'll meet. Social benefit suppliers include Aboriginal businesses certified by Kinaway or Supply Nation, and social enterprises certified by Social Traders.
Bidding into Victorian construction work without certified suppliers already in the supply chain means starting from behind.
NSW Government procurement policy requires every procurement opportunity to consider social outcomes and sustainability, with requirements for engaging SMEs, regional businesses, Aboriginal enterprises and Australian Disability Enterprises, and social enterprises are named as an encouraged supplier type in the NSW Buyer Guide.
A newer local procurement direction also applies to contracts of $7.5 million or more across goods, services, construction and ICT: agencies must prioritise local suppliers or document why not under an "if not, why not" requirement.
For construction bidders, supplier diversity is already expected to be part of the bid, not something built once asked.
From 1 January 2026, the Queensland Procurement Policy 2026 became the government's overarching procurement policy, built on five strategic pillars, the fifth of which commits to building a diverse supplier base, including social enterprises and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses.
It's a new policy, which means bidders who move on it now will have a head start once agencies start applying it in practice.
The Western Australian Social Procurement Framework applies to all state agencies and sets Community Outcomes that feed into value-for-money assessments under the WA Procurement Rules, across all procurement types including construction.
WA hasn't published detailed supplier-certification requirements the way some other states have, but the direction is the same: social outcomes are now formally part of how value for money gets assessed.
South Australia's Economic and Social Procurement Guideline sets out how public authorities build economic and social outcomes into everyday buying, and explicitly names social enterprises - organisations that reinvest the majority of their profit into their purpose - as a recognised social benefit supplier type.
It's guidance rather than a hard mandate, but it's a clear signal of what SA agencies are looking for.
Tasmania's Buy Local Policy requires an Economic and Social Benefits Test on all open tenders valued at $100,000 or more, weighted at 30% of the overall evaluation criteria, and a Tasmanian Industry Participation Plan is mandatory for contracts of $5 million or more.
That 30% weighting is significant: on a Tasmanian Government tender, the social and economic benefits response carries almost a third of the score.
The ACT's Government Procurement (Charter of Procurement Values) Direction 2020 applies to all new procurements regardless of value, committing agencies to weigh ethical, environmental, economic and social factors.
On top of that, an Ethical Treatment of Workers Evaluation applies to high-risk industries, including construction, for procurements of $200,000 or more, and the Canberra Region Local Industry Participation Policy requires a Local Industry Participation plan for construction contracts of $5 million or more.
For ACT bidders, that's two separate requirements stacking at the $5 million-plus mark.
The NT's procurement framework is built around "Value for Territory", assessing the overall benefit of a purchase, not just price. Its Aboriginal procurement policy gives Aboriginal Business Enterprises structured opportunities to compete. The Territory doesn't yet have a dedicated social enterprise procurement policy the way other states do, which makes it the a jurisdiction where bidders genuinely have first-mover room before that changes.
Ready to make social procurement part of how you build?
Join the contractors and subcontractors already turning tender requirements into delivered social value.