The UK’s first charity and not-for-profit Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Survey found that the sector is keen to engage but prioritises social and governance over environmental issues.
In 2024, Eastside People launched its ESG Survey for charities and social enterprises in partnership with ACEVO. The survey was created as a developmental tool for organisations to use to assess their ESG progress and to bring knowledge and insight to the sector on an ongoing basis, filling a gap in how charities can track and report non-financial activity.
This blog summarises the key findings from the first year of results, highlighting trends and insights pertinent to the sector.
Interest in ESG
The survey found that while there is a real appetite from organisations across the sector to engage with ESG, most organisations (67%) do not yet have a basic strategy, and very few have a holistic, fully integrated strategy (3%).
Almost half of the participating organisations are considering developing an ESG strategy, indicating engagement with ESG as a concept but not yet defining what it means for their organisation. A significant minority do not see the need for an ESG strategy, suggesting scepticism around ESG as a holistic framework for measuring their impact.
Staff considerations
Staff considerations are a clear priority across the sector, with organisations reporting significant progress in areas such as flexible working practices. Every organisation that answered questions around staff engagement and wellbeing rated these as either ‘important’ or ‘very important and participating organisations consistently rated staff considerations a higher organisational priority than impact on the wider community.
However, there are still significant areas where organisations want and need to do more to understand and improve their impact on beneficiaries and the wider community. Most organisations said that gathering evidence on the difference they make to beneficiaries was ‘very important’ to them, but relatively few rated their progress in this area as advanced.
Organisations are also making use of external accreditations, audits, standards, frameworks, or marks to benchmark their performance and recognise achievements as employers. Notably, almost one-third of participating organisations have signed up as a Disability Confident Employer.
NOTE: Participating organisations rated their progress on a scale of 1-4, with 1 representing ‘starting out’ and 4 representing ‘advanced’.
Governance practices
Governance concerns are a high priority for organisations, with many reporting relatively advanced progress in this area. Activities and issues around board development are a top governance priority, with organisations rating these as more important than issues of reputation, accountability, and public trust. However, many organisations’ governance practices do not fully adhere to the Charity Governance Code.
Of the 60 ‘larger’ organisations with £1m+ turnover, only 48% had undertaken an external evaluation of their board effectiveness in the last 3 years, despite this being Charity Governance Code recommended practice for larger charities. 39% of all participating organisations (30 in total) have at least one trustee who has served on the board for more than 9 years.
While most organisations said having a relevant balance of skills, diversity and experience on the board is important to them, organisations with over £1m turnover were far more likely than smaller charities to consider this a top priority.
Environmental impact
Environmental concerns are important to organisations, but as a lower priority than social and governance concerns. Most organisations are early in their journey in this area but are keen to advance their progress. Only one third of participating organisations undertake any form of carbon footprint measurement, and under half of these have a strategy in place to reduce to net zero. Organisations are primarily focused on monitoring and addressing their own negative environmental impact. Smaller organisations tend to focus on areas of staff travel and digitisation/reduction of paper waste.
Spotlight on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)
In several places across the survey, participants were asked to reflect on the importance of Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) for their organisation, embedding EDI within ESG practices, rather than treating it as a standalone topic.
While participating organisations consistently told us that they are committed to EDI, most rated their progress as ‘starting out’ or ‘developing’. There is a significant lack of representation for Black, Asian, and other racially minoritised communities at senior executive levels, with only 31% of organisations having at least one person from these communities in their executive leadership team.
Organisations reported relatively better representation at board level, with 68% having one or more board members/trustees from these communities.
Download the full 2024 report and sign up for the 2025 round of the Eastside People ESG survey that is open for completion until Friday 25 July 2025.
Notes:
- The tool was open for completion from 26 September to 6 November 2024.
- The 78 not-for-profit organisations that completed this round of the ESG survey ranged in size from micro-organisations to small, medium and large charities. The largest organisation had an income of £151 million, while the smallest grassroots organisation had income of under £100k. Sixty were large organisations with income >£1m.
