In the context of software engineering, “value” and “waste” can mean different things to different stakeholders. While traditionally value and waste have been considered from a business or economic point of view, there has been a trend in recent years towards a broader perspective that also includes wider human and societal values. This Special Issue explores value and waste aspects in all areas of software engineering, including identifying, quantifying, reasoning about, and representing value and waste, driving value and avoiding waste, and managing value and waste. In this editorial we provide an introduction to the topic and provide an overview of the contributions included in this Special Issue. © 2021