Value Translation is a not-for-profit studio and consultancy. We partner with bold organisations who are ready to do things differently.

Our workflows include areas such as • exploring value perspectives •• visualising and evaluating complex value flows and ••• supporting regenerative business cases.

How we understand and work with value is foundational to every decision we make. This applies at all scales; from leading a single project to governing a whole country. At the same time value is a highly contextual and dynamic concept, needing time and space to understand different perspectives. Instead, our current economy reduces everything to two-dimensional digits of price, profit and money. When this happens we lose touch with what those numbers represent and make decisions that further erode human and living systems. Value translation builds greater awareness and agency to move forward in the difficult times we face.

Value practices

We use practices that expand the language of value and reconnect decision making to the real things that need to happen in the world. •••• As an interdisciplinary team we enjoy intersecting different methodologies drawing from design, accountancy and economics. Our work is centred around three core goals:

1
Discrediting the idea that value and money
are the same thing.

2
Getting enabling capital
to where it urgently needs to go.

3
Giving people the confidence and tools
to express value more fully.

Working with us

We are a small, focused and experienced team that will always meet you where you are. There is a huge amount of information available in the field of systems change and we understand that this can be overwhelming. •••••• We see ourselves as playing a bridging role and translating big ideas into realistic, practical steps. •••••••

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We are always happy to have a conversation to see if we are a good fit for your needs. hello@valuetranslation.org

•

Exploring value perspectives

What is valuable in a specific sector, geography or timeframe is not necessarily valuable in a different context. For example; investors might be most interested in future security, lawyers in the liability of climate inaction, philanthropy in specific causes such as biodiversity or human rights or community wealth builders in strengthening social resilience. Each has a valid perspective on value and we surface how they intersect and could potentially reinforce each other. 

••

Evaluating complex value flows

Most organisations are required to justify their impact, often collapsing highly contextual values into neatly packaged but fundamentally meaningless datasets.We use a combination of numerical, linguistic and visual languages to visualise complex value flows in accessible formats. We do not believe that everything can or should be monetised, but we also recognise that numbers can be powerful as part of a balanced story. 

•••

Supporting regenerative business cases

Many critical initiatives do not generate standard financial returns or satisfy short payback structures (for example; rewilding urban rivers, neighbourhood climate adaptation, social prescribing, active transport and bioregional restoration). This cannot mean that they are blocked from happening. We support regenerative practitioners to clearly communicate the systemic value that they are helping to bring about in the world.

••••

Whole of society decision making

Allowing money to determine what has value is deeply undemocratic and perpetuates structural inequalities. Everyone should have a voice in deciding what is important to increase or decrease in our economy. By expanding the conversation around what value means we aim to spark curiosity and debate across different generations and interests.

•••••

Bridging theory to practice

There is a wealth of brilliant thinking, written content, tools and frameworks available. From system mapping toolkits to impact metric databases and systemic investing strategies. This is great but trying to apply it to everyday working practices is far from straightforward. We have experience on both sides of this dynamic our approach breaks high level theory and intention down into actionable steps. 

••••••

Bespoke partnering

We have chosen to focus on the topic of value because it has such enormous implications for society. How that intersects with your specific context or mission is something only you can know. We will listen carefully to your specific challenge and co-develop a brief that we are all excited to work on together.