Social enterprises are an innovative breed of businesses that exist to create a fairer and more sustainable world, and the sector is rapidly growing in Australia.

Social enterprises have existed for hundreds of years but have not always been recognised or understood. The sector is rapidly growing in Australia, and the concept of social enterprise is finally catching on.

Australia has over 12,000 social enterprises, contributing to 206,000 jobs and $21.3 billion to our economy. Social Traders world-leading certification framework assesses businesses against a consistent framework and provides validation of the growing number of genuine social enterprises trading to solve social, cultural and environmental issues. Certification can help you stand out from a crowded marketplace and attract customers and investors who want to support organisations that can demonstrate and genuinely drive positive impact.

If you're considering certification, here are six reasons why you should.

1. Raise your profile and credibility

Social enterprises are united in having purpose at their heart but can be difficult to identify. They come in many shapes and sizes, operate in all industry sectors of the economy, and use many different legal forms. Social and green washing is becoming an increasing concern. Fortunately, social enterprise is clearly defined in Australia, with this definition used to underpin Social Traders certification.

Getting your business certified as a social enterprise provides the external validation that your business is genuinely operating with purpose at heart and creating impact. This will help raise your profile and credibility.

2. Easily explain and quantify your purpose

Purpose and impact can be hard to quantify or explain. Social Traders certification process has been designed to be developmental and supportive. We have a team that works with social enterprises through the application process to help them articulate their social impact model and the activities and costs associated with it.

3. Build connections and grow

By being certified with Social Traders, you'll be able to get expert advice, build connections and learn from an innovative group of social entrepreneurs through various member-exclusive events. You'll be joining a supportive growing community of over 500 certified social enterprises around the country.

4. Certification to help switch procurement spend for good

Government agencies, corporations, and other entities often seek to engage with certified social enterprises for procurement purposes. Our certification framework is world-leading and enables business and government members to easily verify that they're spending with social enterprises that operates ethically and transparently - reducing the risk they take in doing business with you. Start building stronger relationships, collaboration and partnerships.

5. Experience the social enterprise procurement growth

In the last five years since 2018, Social Traders business and government members have spent $607 million with certified social enterprises. And that number is growing at an average of 55% year on year. That’s the fastest and largest certified social enterprise procurement growth anywhere in the world! With Social Traders by your side, we can help you with training, support and make connections to unlock more opportunities and increase your impact.

6. Join a community that's delivering social impact in spades

Our Pace2023 report provides critical insights into our nation's certified social enterprises who are creating genuine social impact. It uses the largest and richest dataset on certified social enterprises in Australia and confirms they’re resilient, accelerating our economy, and growing – fast. With the data we have, we’re advocating among corporate policy makers and government to increase their support for the sector.

Pace23 highlights include the following outcomes generated by certified social enterprises:

• 31K people have been employed by certified social enterprises
• 45% of people employed would usually be shut out of work
• $2.25B total revenue achieved
• $1.74B of total revenue coming from trade activity
• 31% ($690M) of total revenue is reinvested into delivering impact

Thinking of joining this growing community and curious to know if you're ready for certification? Take a short questionnaire to find out.

If you would like more information contact us today certification@socialtraders.com.au