Free tool to help you manage your Environmental, Social and Governance activities opens on 25th May 2025

To help and encourage better charity management, the Charity Commission updated its guidance for trustees in its latest ‘Charity Annual Return: question guide’. Trustees of charities of all sizes are encouraged to report and explain how their charity is responding to and managing key issues including:

• Governance structures and management: how decisions are made, managed, and reviewed to ensure transparency and accountability
• The handling of your environmental impact including sustainability and carbon footprint reduction
• Management of social impact including community engagement, diversity, and inclusion.

In addition, the proposed new Charity SORP (Statement of Recommended Practice), currently under consultation and expected to take effect from January 2026, introduces several changes to how charities report on these matters.

Last year, in partnership with ACEVO, we launched an innovative, free on-line tool that enabled charities and not-for-profit organisations to analyse and report on their organisation’s Environmental, Social and Governance maturity in support of annual reporting requirements and delivery of best practice operations. Using our free tool to analyse and report on your organisation's ESG maturity could help you fulfil reporting obligations and also gain new insights.

Everyone who completes the survey receives a tailored confidential report for their organisation with benchmark data and an action plan to strengthen their own activities.

If you are interested in completing the survey this time round, you can register here and we will send you a link to log-in when the tool re-opens for completions between 27th May 2025 and 25th July 2025.

Information provided by Eastside People