Social value, built into how the work is delivered.
The SBS Foundation (CIO) is a separate charitable entity running a workforce pathway into the aerial, geospatial and environmental-capture sectors. It is the engine behind our social value, not a bolt-on CSR programme.
A clean
dual-entity
model.
SBS operates as two cleanly separated entities. Sky Based Specialists Ltd is the commercial drone-services business. The SBS Foundation (CIO) is a separate charitable entity that runs the workforce-development pipeline; it contracts SBS Ltd as a specialist deliverer, and its graduates flow into SBS and partner firms.
This Patagonia-style separation means corporates can engage SBS commercially and support the Foundation for documented social value, with a clean audit trail on each side. (This dual-entity model supersedes the earlier single-entity structure.)
A pipeline,
not a
gesture.
The Foundation takes people from underrepresented backgrounds, ex-military personnel and those recovering from life-changing injuries, and trains them into qualified roles in the aerial, geospatial and environmental-capture sectors. These are fast-growing technical fields with a workforce pipeline that is still narrow and hard to break into.
Training covers the route into commercial work: CAA qualifications such as the GVC and A2 CofC, survey and reality-capture method, data processing, and the site discipline that procurement-grade delivery demands. The point is employability, not a certificate that leads nowhere.
Graduates then feed into live commercial projects through Managed Flight Operations, or are placed permanently into partner firms. That direct line from training to paid, real-world delivery is what makes the social value measurable rather than notional.
Engage,
and
support.
Corporates can engage SBS Ltd commercially and sponsor the SBS Foundation (CIO) for documented social value alongside that work, a structure that produces ESG and procurement-ready evidence with a clean audit trail.
- Commercial delivery via Sky Based Specialists Ltd
- Foundation sponsorship and graduate placement partnerships
- Quantified social-value evidence for your reporting
Measured,
not
claimed.
Every commercial engagement can carry quantified social-value evidence aligned to the Procurement Act 2023 and the National TOMs, the same framework your procurement team scores against. That means the value created on your project is reported in the units your evaluators already use.
Typical evidence includes people supported into training and employment, hours of training delivered, and spend retained in the local economy, each traced back to a record. If we cannot show you the audit trail behind a figure, we will not quote the figure.
For public bodies, that evidence also speaks to the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010 (opens in a new tab), because the pathway widens access to the sector for people who are under-represented in it.
For corporate sponsors, the Foundation also reports against recognised frameworks for environmental, social and governance reporting, so a single relationship with SBS can serve both a commercial need and a documented social-value commitment.