Abstract
Climate change, deforestation and ecological degradation. Social inequality, poverty, and food insecurity. The problems that confront humanity and our planet are growing, and solutions are complex. No longer are we under the illusion that economic growth, by itself, will solve these problems. Organizations across the world are mobilizing to tackle these social and ecological problems, and with this, our understanding of ‘impact’ and ‘value’ is transforming. This edited collection of chapters from across the world analyses the evolving concept of ‘social value’ and the approaches to identify, measure and report on social value. In addition to deepening our understanding of social value, we examine the concept of Social Return on Investment (SROI) – a common framework that improves the measurement and accounting of social value, and integrates social, environmental and economic aspects into evaluation (Nicholls et al. 2012). In particular, we explore social value and SROI in the context of gender, climate change, environmental stewardship, forest governance and Indigenous peoples, and learn from diverse voices from across the globe. The ambition of this work is to bring insight to theory and practice: illuminating the lessons, and the challenges and opportunities from social value and its evaluation, and with an overall goal of catalyzing and strengthening programs in practice to advance these important issues.
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Nikolakis, W., da Veiga, R.M. (2023). Introduction – Social Value and Social Return on Investment: Theory and Practice. In: Nikolakis, W., Moura da Veiga, R. (eds) Social Value, Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship: Insights from Theory and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23145-2_1
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