Environmental reporting

We are expecting environmental issues to be a topic of increasing importance in impact reporting by Charities. You will be aware that there are new environmental reporting requirements for large companies, including charitable companies. These legal obligations require energy use and carbon emissions to be reported within annual accounts. Your charity may fall outside the scope of these statutory reporting demands, however voluntarily reporting high level information in relation to your charity’s carbon footprint is likely to be seen positively by your stakeholders. The world’s attention is focused more than ever on every part of society taking responsibility for the environment. If charities work at the forefront of these challenges, together they can have a huge impact.

“You are never too small to make a difference”,
Greta Thunberg

If Greta is able to make the world stage with her message surely then more than 185,000 registered charities in England and Wales have real potential to communicate their positive environmental initiatives. There are likely to be steps you have taken to be more environmentally sustainable without shouting about it. Your annual report is a good place to pull these projects together and let the public know what you have been doing, even if this starts at a very small level in Year One. You could consider amongst other things: how you are embracing recycling; your choice of supplier based on environmental responsibility; whether you are promoting greener travel for your team; and the technology you are adopting to reduce carbon emissions. This is definitely an area we can learn from each other. The more transparent we are and the more we communicate to the public, the more impactful the charity sector will be. Small actions by lots of people results in big change.

“It is our collective and individual responsibility … to preserve and tend to the world in which we all live”,
Dalai Lama.