A modern FM contract should not rely on broad promises about ESG, recycling or community impact. Buyers need something much more useful than that. They need outputs, controls, records and reporting that stand up to contract reviews, procurement scrutiny, compliance checks and operational reality.
That matters even more now because the direction of travel is clear. In central government procurement, the updated Social Value Model requires suppliers to set out specific, measurable and time-bound commitments in a method statement and project plan, with reporting against selected outcomes and metrics. From 1 October 2025, use of the updated model is mandatory for in-scope central government procurements.
So the right question for buyers is no longer, “Do you offer social value and sustainable waste services?” It is, “How will this be measured, evidenced and managed through the life of the contract?”
1. Social value should be written as contract delivery, not brochure language
Good social value in FM should look like part of the operating model, not a side promise. The Social Value Model is built around defined outcomes, award criteria and standard reporting metrics. It explicitly expects measurable commitments and, for relevant outcomes, asks suppliers to provide a baseline for the number of people who will work on the contract. It also includes metrics such as employment opportunities created, community engagement activities, and people from under-represented groups employed under the contract.
In practice, that means buyers should expect numbers like these to be contract-specific and reviewable:
new roles created or retained, apprenticeships started, job starts from under-represented groups, outreach or community engagement activities delivered, volunteering hours, and progress against agreed milestones. A supplier should also be able to show who owns delivery, how performance is monitored, and what happens if the commitment slips.
The weak version is: “We support local communities.”
The strong version is: “We will create X roles, deliver Y apprenticeships, run Z engagement activities, report quarterly, and track outcomes against named metrics and escalation points.”
2. Waste control should be visible, documented and hierarchy-led
Waste control in a modern FM contract should also be measurable. In England, workplace recycling rules changed on 31 March 2025. All workplaces must separate dry recyclables, food waste and non-recyclable waste before collection, with micro-firms exempt until 31 March 2027. That means waste service design can no longer be vague. Segregation, signage, collection routines and contamination control now need to be built into daily operations.
There is also still the basic duty of care. For each load of non-hazardous waste removed from site, a business needs a waste transfer note or equivalent document, both parties must sign it, and both sides must keep a copy for two years. Season tickets can be used for repeated transfers, but they still require a schedule showing dates, times, quantities and sites.
And above all that sits the waste hierarchy. DEFRA’s guidance says businesses and public bodies that generate, handle or treat waste should apply the hierarchy, which ranks options by environmental impact.
So in contract terms, waste control should usually be measured through:
segregation compliance, contamination levels, tonnage by stream, recycling rate, food waste capture, collection frequency, missed collections, documentation completeness, and cost or carbon improvements linked to changed routines. Those are the kinds of measures that tell a buyer whether the contract is genuinely under control or just being emptied on schedule.
3. Secure IT disposal should be treated as a control service, not a bin movement
This is where many contracts still fall behind. Secure IT disposal is not just a recycling issue. It is a data-security, custody and compliance issue that happens to end with reuse, destruction or WEEE recycling.
The NCSC says any device that might contain electronic storage media should be sanitised, and that simply pressing delete is not enough. It also says organisations should record the lifecycle of storage media, have a reuse and disposals policy, and understand sanitisation requirements before the device leaves organisational control. Where the risk is higher, physical destruction is required, with the media reduced to particles of 6mm or less, and that particle size should be verified.
The ICO adds a very practical layer to that. It expects organisations to use and document secure disposal methods, store devices awaiting destruction securely, keep a log of those devices and their location, and consider access logs for those areas. It also makes clear that if electronic records are not destroyed securely, they may be recoverable, which can create UK GDPR risk.
And once electrical equipment becomes waste, WEEE rules matter too. GOV.UK says WEEE is regulated to reduce the amount incinerated or sent to landfill and to encourage recovery, reuse and recycling. The underlying UK legislation was amended in 2025.
So a buyer-ready FM contract should not describe secure IT disposal as “collection and recycling.” It should describe:
asset logging, chain of custody, secure storage, erasure route, destruction route, reuse decisions, WEEE-compliant downstream handling, and certificates or reports showing what happened to each asset batch.
4. What good looks like when these three areas are combined
The best FM contracts treat social value, waste control and secure IT disposal as part of one disciplined contract-management model.
That means:
a clear baseline at mobilisation, named owners, agreed KPIs, monthly or quarterly review points, corrective actions, and contract evidence that is easy for the client to retrieve. It also means the supplier can explain the logic behind the numbers, not just send a dashboard.
A modern buyer should be able to ask:
What exactly are we measuring?
Who owns each metric?
How often is it reported?
What evidence supports it?
What happens if it drops behind target?
If the supplier cannot answer those questions cleanly, the service is probably still too reactive. That is not modern FM. That is just activity without enough control.
5. The TPMG view
At TPMG FM, this is the standard buyers should expect.
Social value should be measurable.
Waste control should be documented.
Secure IT disposal should be controlled end-to-end.
Because once a contract is live, confidence does not come from good intentions. It comes from proof.
Ask whether the supplier can evidence social value, waste control and secure IT disposal in a way that is specific, measurable, reviewable and contract-ready from day one.
