Community Benefit Agreements
How can construction and infrastructure best create social value for communities?
Community Benefit Agreements
The basics: A Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) is an agreement on infrastructure and development projects to achieve social value outcomes such as inclusive hiring, skills training, local procurement, and social procurement.
More detail: A Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) is a legal agreement or contractual requirement on construction, infrastructure and development projects for specific social value outcomes like inclusive hiring, skills training, or local and social procurement that ensures projects enhance social, cultural, environmental, and economic opportunities for and with community.
Buy Social Canada acknowledges that having community as a signatory on a CBA is an important part of historical and some current CBAs. Our definition is broader than that to acknowledge models that don’t have community as a partner but are designed to benefit community. We encourage all CBAs to work with community as much as possible to ensure outcomes align with community goals and opportunities.
Our tools and resources provide further insights into designing, implementing and succeeding in Community Benefit Agreements & Community Employment Benefits.
Key opportunity areas:
- Employment
- Skills and training
- Social value in the supply chain
- Community development
Examples:
- Infrastructure Canada Community Employment Benefits
- City of Vancouver CBA Policy
- City of Toronto CBA Framework
CBA Introduction Video
Learn about Community Benefit Agreements and hear from municipal and construction sector leaders, the City of Surrey and Chandos Construction.
Resource
Community Benefits in Construction Guide
Construction projects influence our communities beyond the physical structures they build. They also impact local economies and labour markets, whether intended or not. If these impacts are considered with positive intention, the projects bring the opportunity to create long-lasting economic and social benefits with and for the communities in which they occur.
To support learning and implementation, Buy Social Canada created the Community Benefits in Construction: Mandate, Design and Implement Guide.
The Community Benefits in Construction Guide supports community advocates, policy makers and project owners who want to create community benefits in construction, infrastructure, and development projects, and takes you through three stages of community benefits in construction: Mandate, Design and Implement.
Download the Guide
Training
Social Procurement in Construction: Community Benefit Agreements
Participants learn about the concepts of community benefit agreements (CBA) and an overview of the steps to integrate into the design, build and operations phases of development projects.
Suitable for:
- Government teams
- Developers, general contractors and sub-contractors
- Community-based groups learning about or negotiating a CBA
- Infrastructure Canada’s Community Employment Benefits Initiative
Suitable for:
- Community Benefit Agreements Templates for Implementation
- Community Employment Benefits Templates for Implementation
Learn & Implement
City of Vancouver CBA Policy
See the City of Vancouver’s CBA Policy and compliance toolkit developed in partnership with Buy Social Canada
Let’s create community benefits
We work with developers, governments and community to shape CBAs with impact