My role at Avison Young covers social impact, development, property and regeneration. It is a relatively new defined combination of responsibilities in commercial real estate, and one that doesn’t yet have a settled meaning across the industry. However, it reflects a way of working and thinking that will be familiar to many, even if it has not previously been articulated in these terms.

Jasmine Ceccarelli-Drewry is director of place strategy & social impact at Avison Young and is also on Building’s Regen Connect advisory panel

My job, as I see it, is to bring an awareness of social impact to the way decisions are made about a place.

In practice, this work involves elevating, introducing and translating different skills, experiences, and conversations to the centre of how decisions about places are made – including concepts which are familiar and well understood, such as social value, meanwhile space, community engagement, inclusive-design, and stewardship.

The advice we provide doesn’t stop at social value commitments, valuable as those are. It begins much earlier and runs much further into the life of a scheme.