Record spending with certified social enterprises is not reported by owner identity

Disclosure. Just Gold, which funds and publishes Pride in Business, has been a Social Traders certified social enterprise since 2019. It has also worked with Social Traders as a client, including producing its digital awards and providing photography and video for Convene 2026.

Reported spending in the 2025 financial year

Social Traders reported that its business and government members spent 304 million dollars with certified social enterprises in the 2025 financial year, an increase of 18 per cent on the previous year and the highest single year total on record. Across the eight years from 2018 to 2025 the reported total exceeded 1.4 billion dollars, and the organisation puts average annual growth over that period at about 35 per cent. The 35 per cent figure is a historical average and the 18 per cent figure is the latest annual increase, so the first should not be taken as the current growth rate, and both describe spending captured through Social Traders’ member reporting and do not cover all social procurement in Australia.

Even read in that way, a market that has grown in every one of eight years, measured from reported purchasing, reflects a genuine change in the way large Australian organisations buy, and the composition of spending is consistent with that change. Building trades, repairs and maintenance has become the largest category by volume, which indicates that certified social enterprises have moved beyond the coffee and catering purchases that characterise programs in their first years and are winning core operational contracts.

What a rising total can conceal

The same increase in total spending can describe very different patterns of participation. An increase produced by a single large contract awarded to an established supplier raises the total by the same amount as an increase produced by a dozen smaller enterprises winning their first contracts. A rise can also reflect more members submitting data, existing buyers purchasing more, changes in prices or a different mix of contracts, and the total alone cannot distinguish between these explanations. The method and the breakdowns therefore need to be read closely alongside the headline figure.

The ownership information the figures do not contain

Social enterprise certification describes an enterprise’s purpose and operations and does not classify the identity of its owners. The 1.4 billion dollars therefore cannot show what share went to LGBTIQA+ owned enterprises, and it would be equally wrong to conclude that none did. An LGBTIQA+ owned business may already be certified and trading within the network, counted as a social enterprise and unrecorded in any other respect.

Every dollar in the reported total was counted because the business receiving it could be identified as a certified social enterprise, and buyers can only direct and report spending against a category they can identify. Growth in the social procurement market therefore flows to suppliers in recognised categories, and a group that does not form one remains largely outside it.

Qualifying within an existing category

Social enterprise certification performs its function well, and the pattern reflects the way these markets operate, with spending directed according to the eligibility test. The same pattern indicates the immediate practical route for a business currently outside any recognised category, which is to qualify within an existing category where the business genuinely fits. An LGBTIQA+ owned enterprise that meets the social enterprise standard can be certified and counted today. That route will suit only a minority of businesses, because most are not social enterprises and should not have to become one in order to be recognised by buyers.

Implications for the research

The growth figures show that a certified and reportable category attracts sustained spending. The research needs to establish which businesses fall inside such categories, which fall outside them, and whether those outside are excluded by design or by default. Establishing this without asking owners to disclose more than they should is the central problem in the research design.

Sources

1. Social Traders. FY25 Impact Report, pages 8, 9 and 17.
2. Social Traders. What FY25 reveals about where social procurement is headed, 18 May 2026.
3. Social Traders. Social Enterprise Certification: full guidance notes, August 2025.
4. Victorian Government. Social procurement overview.

Source pages last checked 19 September 2026.