In the UK, the economic divide between people, places and institutions has become unsustainably wide. For a nation to hold together, every place and every person needs a stake in economic growth. This paper considers how a new vision for social value can build trust in the social value agenda and help unlock economic opportunities, enabled by technology. 

The UK needs to grow the economy, and to do so in a way that is shared by communities across the country, including by the businesses that have helped to drive it. By encouraging businesses to think beyond profit alone, it's possible to harness the trillions of pounds they inject into the economy to help create transformational social, environmental and economic impact in communities. 

Over half of UK consumers consider the social, environmental and/ or wider economic impact of their purchases, but at the same time a majority of consumers surveyed said they felt companies actively hid such information from the public. Such concerns have real impact - on investors’ willingness to invest in purpose-led businesses, on public trust in social value, and on the ability of public sector contracts to deliver it. 

Building trust that businesses can actually deliver positive social, environmental and economic impact for communities across the UK is paramount, and technology is a crucial tool for enabling this transparency. The report's authors put forward four pillars through which technology can transform social value: 

• standardisation and interoperability
• transparency
• capability and 
• incentivisation. 

The report also makes five key policy recommendations:

• Strengthening legislation on social value
• Standardising outcomes through combined authorities and building trust with citizen participation
• Standardising measurement and encouraging innovation through a Trusted Social Value Data Taskforce
• Publishing information on social value measurement as part of public sector contracts, and
• Capacity building through bigger businesses and social value networks