At ECI, we believe that building successful businesses means building businesses for the long term. A social value strategy – how a company contributes to the well-being of its people, communities, and the environment – is often part of that growth story when it comes to attracting talent and winning new opportunities. From meeting public procurement requirements to aligning with investor expectations and engaging employees, ECI work closely with our portfolio to think about what is important to them, embedding social value to help to drive long-term, sustainable success. Here’s how to align social value to growth:
1. Tailoring strategies to each business
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to social value. We support our portfolio in developing strategies that reflect their brand, values, and commercial goals.
Many use frameworks like the Social Value TOMs (Themes, Outcomes and Measures) or the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure their approach is aligned with best practice and measurable outcomes.
If you are seeing requests from customers, for example, around Net Zero, we would recommend incorporating this into your SVS. It is also helpful to take a grassroots view, and many companies establish ESG Committees or Employee Resource Groups to engage their people in the strategy right from the start.
2. Attracting and engaging talent
We’ve seen firsthand how a strong sense of purpose can help companies attract and retain great people. According to Deloitte, 89% of Gen Z and 92% of millennials say that having a sense of purpose is important to their job satisfaction—up from the previous year. Having clarity over your purpose can help attract employees and provide a feeling of purpose above and beyond their role. At Ciphr, the company aligned its social value strategy with its brand and values, using it to energise internal teams and attract new hires who are passionate about making a difference through its company goals framework, V2MOM. Since embedding this, they have seen an improvement in their employee NPS (eNPS) of +33.
Social value strategies also often include DEI initiatives like blind CVs or inclusive hiring practices, which not only signal a commitment to equity but also help widen the talent pool so you can be sure you’re recruiting the best talent.
3. Winning business through purpose
A well-defined social value strategy can help businesses stand out in an increasingly competitive market, particularly where customers are placing greater emphasis on ESG.
For example, TAG is responding to growing demand from artists and promoters for more sustainable touring options. By adding emissions totals to route options on their itineraries, TAG is helping clients make more environmentally conscious travel decisions. This means the artists they work with can reduce their environmental impact while maintaining the quality and efficiency of their tours – turning sustainability into a commercial advantage.
Peoplesafe, the global provider of workforce safety technology solutions, has a purpose-led mission to protect lone and at-risk workers through innovative safety technology. This mission not only helped attract new customers but also opened up new markets. As protecting employee safety became part of how their customers demonstrated a strong duty of care, new modules such as Travelsafe, which helps keep employees safe on their commute, were developed. In 2026, Peoplesafe was realised to Summa Equity’s Article 9 Fund, which aims to address critical global issues – in this case workplace safety and risk management.
4. Sustainability-linked loans
A third of our portfolio now have ESG-linked KPIs in their debt agreements, tying financial incentives to sustainability and social outcomes.
Having a clear social value strategy helps companies to define and track these KPIs, aligning teams around shared goals and delivering tangible financial benefits when targets are met. Supporting companies to define those KPIs and key milestones they’re looking to achieve, is a part of ECI’s ESG toolkit.
5. Finding your next investor
Through analysing the scores on our ESG framework, we’ve seen that companies scoring higher on our ESG framework tend to achieve stronger returns. ESG is now a standard part of investor due diligence, and is a good indicator of businesses that understand and mitigate risk. So being able to demonstrate that ESG is embedded in your business and drives growth, either ‘checks that box for them’ or ‘creates a more compelling opportunity’, depending on how important ESG is to their Fund .
While there is evidence that the ever-growing appetite for more ESG data and assessment is slowing in the current era, investors are still seeing demand from the LPs in their fund and regulators. So even as the broader ESG conversation evolves, we believe social value will continue to be a key part of building great businesses.
