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Who We Help

Your Assets Improve Lives. Now Prove It.

Real estate and infrastructure investments shape how people live, work, commute, and connect. Affordable housing reduces financial anxiety. Well-designed buildings improve health outcomes. Transport infrastructure changes access to opportunity. SVT produces person-level evidence of the social value your assets generate for occupants, users, and surrounding communities.

The Problem Investors Face

The market is shifting. Investors, tenants, regulators, and the public increasingly demand evidence that assets contribute to society - not just financial returns. But current approaches to social measurement in real estate are inadequate:

  • Building certification schemes (WELL, BREEAM, Fitwel) measure design features - not actual occupant outcomes
  • ESG frameworks require social metrics but provide no rigorous methodology for producing them
  • SROI estimates use borrowed substitute values from external databases that may not reflect your asset, your occupants, or your context
  • Self-reported satisfaction surveys tell you how occupants feel, but not whether the building caused that result or whether it was already true

The result: ESG reports quote social metrics that cannot be traced to a clear pathway, set apart from competitor claims, or defended under investor scrutiny.

What SVT Does for Real Estate and Infrastructure

Asset-Level Social Value Measurement

We quantify the social value a specific asset generates for its occupants or users - modelled person by person. Not borrowed values from a database. Not averages from another jurisdiction. Evidence built from the conditions, people, and pathways relevant to your asset.

Housing Affordability Impact

For affordable and social housing, we compare occupants' wellbeing - from below-market rents, secure tenancy, and housing quality - with what would likely have happened under market-rate housing insecurity.

Portfolio-Level Social Return

For asset managers with multiple properties: we produce portfolio-level social value evidence showing comparative social return across assets, geographies, and occupant demographics.

ESG and Social Reporting Evidence

SVT evidence meets the rigour required for ESG reporting frameworks. It is quantified, clear about its assumptions, traceable to pathways, and independently verifiable - giving social metrics the same credibility as financial metrics.

Pre-Investment Scenario Modelling

Before committing to a development: model the expected social value of proposed designs, locations, or tenant compositions. Compare scenarios to identify which configurations generate the greatest social return.

Why ONEMODEL Matters for Real Estate

Real estate social value involves multiple interacting domains: housing cost, income, health, commute time, community access, employment, and social connection. These interact - a rent reduction changes disposable income, which changes consumption, which changes stress, which changes health.

Fragmented methods estimate each domain separately and add them up. This creates:

  • Double-counting (the same benefit is counted under two different social value topics)
  • Missing interactions (the health effect of reduced financial stress is invisible if health and housing are modelled separately)
  • No distribution (portfolio averages hide the fact that social value concentrates among specific occupant groups)

ONEMODEL keeps these topics in one model, so it can show how they interact, prevent the same benefit being counted twice, and reveal which groups benefit most. The evidence holds together under challenge because it came from one connected model.

The Competitive Advantage

In a market where every developer claims "social impact":

  • Most cannot quantify it - they describe design features (green space, community rooms) without evidence of occupant outcomes
  • Those who do quantify it use transferred values - numbers pulled from UK databases, applied to Canadian contexts without local calibration
  • None measure social value across hundreds of topics together in one system - meaning their social value claims exist as isolated, single-topic estimates

SVT gives you evidence that is specific to your asset, your occupants, and your context. That specificity is what differentiates a credible social claim from a marketing assertion.

Evidence in Action

Below-market rents in a major Canadian real estate portfolio generated about $12,800 in social value per tenant in 2024 - $45 million across 19 buildings, and about $688 million over 20 years.

Source: Social Value of Below-Market Rents, CANCEA, 2024.

The strongest GTHA public housing pathway generated about $48.3 billion in social value - showing who gains and who is most at risk under each funding choice.

Source: The Public Housing Dividend, CANCEA, 2026.

A proposed Ontario pumped hydro storage project was estimated to create about $450 million in social value for Ontarians, concentrated in rural communities and households with children. Source: Made-in-Ontario Pumped Hydro Storage, CANCEA, 2024.

See Housing & Infrastructure Case Studies

The Cost of Unproven Claims

"Social impact" asserted without measurement reads as marketing, and sophisticated investors discount it.

Competitors using the same transferred database numbers look identical to you - your genuine impact does not stand out.

As ESG and social-infrastructure scrutiny tightens, unevidenced claims become a liability rather than a differentiator.

How to Start

1

Consultation

We assess your asset or portfolio, identify measurement objectives, and review available data.

2

Framework design

We define the occupant population, comparison scenarios, and social value channels to model.

3

Modelling

ONEMODEL estimates how occupants' wellbeing changes over time, compared with what would likely have happened without the asset.

4

Reporting

Evidence report: social value per occupant, who benefits most across groups, the pathways driving the value, and sensitivity.

Common Questions

What is social value in real estate?
Social value in real estate is the measurable improvement in occupant and community welfare that a building or development creates - beyond its market transaction value. It includes effects on financial security, health, social connection, life satisfaction, and access to opportunity.
How is building social value different from WELL or BREEAM certification?
Certification schemes assess design features and operational practices. SVT measures actual occupant outcomes - the difference the building makes to the lives of the people who use it. Design is an input; occupant welfare is the output.
Can SVT measure social value for a single building?
Yes. SVT produces asset-level evidence for individual buildings, developments, or portfolios. The methodology works at any scale where occupant or user data can be obtained or reasonably estimated.
What data is needed for a real estate social value assessment?
Occupant demographic information, tenancy data, rental terms, and ideally occupant survey responses. SVT advises on data collection design where existing data is insufficient.
How does this help with ESG reporting?
SVT evidence provides the quantified, traceable social metrics that ESG frameworks require. Unlike proxy-based estimates, this evidence is specific to your asset and defensible under investor scrutiny.

Ready to Quantify What Your Assets Deliver?

Beyond financial return. Schedule a consultation.

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Externally reviewed methodology, developed over 20+ years400+ engagements (CANCEA, 2002-2026)Featured in the ICPM Social Infrastructure Blueprint (2026)