ESG Audit and Strategy for Charities

Our ESG group has been helping a range of charities with their ESG strategies. A typical exercise would firstly involve  a wide-ranging audit of the charity’s current ESG measures in order to identify gaps. Areas are ranked as excellent, satisfactory or unsatisfactory using national and international standards and best practice from similar organisations.  

The gap analysis exercise enables areas for improvement to be identified: commonly found issues include banking sanctions (many organisations will not have updated their policies since the Ukrainian war), governance arrangements for board level responsibility of ESG performance and the integration of ESG criteria in investment policies. Quality and consistency of data used for reporting is also an area where there is often room for improvement. Recommendations are established for the short, medium and long term.  

Mills & Reeve works with the client to develop a comprehensive ESG strategy to enable it to deliver on its targets. The ESG strategy is underpinned by the gap analysis and encapsulates materiality risk assessments, stakeholder mapping, communication and engagement strategies, the development of transition plans and monitoring and reporting processes.  

If you would like advice about your charity’s ESG strategy, Mills Reeve’s ESG team would be delighted to help.