Redefining Value: From Outcome-Based Funding to Tradeable Impact

The report argues that traditional social financing—including government budgets, corporate social responsibility, and philanthropy—is insufficient to meet global challenges. It proposes 'tradeable impact' as a system where positive social outcomes are quantified as impact credits (ICs) that can be earned, traded, and invested. The paper outlines the necessary building blocks for such a market, including standardization, valuation, and verification, and presents three future scenarios ranging from the integration of social co-benefits into carbon markets to the creation of a global impact currency. It concludes with a three-phase transition plan to move from pilot projects to full economic integration.

• Traditional social financing models are failing due to a disconnect between social and economic value, exacerbated by declining official development assistance (ODA), which is projected to drop by $74 billion (30%) in 2025.
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is often disconnected from core business operations and vulnerable to budget cuts; for FTSE 100 companies, average procurement spending ($5 billion) is more than 400 times larger than average corporate giving ($23 million).
• Tradeable impact transforms social outcomes into investable assets through impact credits (ICs), allowing companies to earn credits for positive actions and potentially benefit from lower financing costs via impact-linked finance.
• South Korea's Social Progress Credit (SPC) programme serves as a practical example, having engaged over 400 social enterprises and generated more than $360 million in verified social value with $52 million in cash incentives.
• The report identifies six foundational building blocks required for a functional tradeable impact market: demand mechanisms, measurement and standardization, valuation and pricing, market infrastructure, verification and integrity, and governance and inclusion.
• The document presents three potential futures: expanding existing markets for negative externalities (like carbon credits), scaling grassroots community currencies into global markets, or evolving ICs into a complementary global currency.
• A significant risk of tradeable impact is the potential for 'gaming' metrics, where actors prioritize easily measurable outputs over deep, systemic change, or the exclusion of smaller organizations due to high verification costs.
• The proposed pathway to scale consists of a three-phase transition: Foundation (experimentation and ecosystem formation), Institutionalization (market stabilization and mainstream adoption), and Integration (full economic integration and global interoperability).

APA

World Economic Forum (2025). Redefining Value: From Outcome-Based Funding to Tradeable Impact. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Redefining_Value_From_Outcome_Based_Funding_to_Tradeable_Impact_2025.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Redefining Value: From Outcome-Based Funding to Tradeable Impact. 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Redefining_Value_From_Outcome_Based_Funding_to_Tradeable_Impact_2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Redefining Value: From Outcome-Based Funding to Tradeable Impact |date=June 2025 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Redefining_Value_From_Outcome_Based_Funding_to_Tradeable_Impact_2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2025redefining, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Redefining Value: From Outcome-Based Funding to Tradeable Impact}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2025}, month = jun, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Redefining_Value_From_Outcome_Based_Funding_to_Tradeable_Impact_2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }