How to partner with businesses on ESG goals

Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) goals have fast become a key focus for businesses to ensure they are being sustainable and socially responsible. This offers a key opportunity for charities to partner with corporate businesses to help support their ESG offer, while gaining income or other benefits for the charity.

 

Below we explore a few ideas for how you can partner with businesses to support their ESG goals, while delivering key outcomes for your charity too.

 

 

Work with businesses to help address social issues

 

The ‘S’ in ESG refers to social responsibility. It can link closely with many of the UN sustainable development goals, such as reduced inequalities and improved gender equality.

 

Charities can work with businesses to ensure they are reaching some of these social goals. It could be sharing some of the inequalities they could improve through working with your charity, or using the skills and knowledge your organisation has to offer training and support.

 

 

Help businesses connect with the community

 

Social goals don’t have to just be internal goals, but can also include how a business connects and gives back to the local community it is based within.

 

Charities are well places to support this, from offering volunteering days, to opportunities to volunteer or fundraise for projects within their communities. ESG puts doing good at the heart of any business. Charities always have doing good at the core of their strategies and are well placed to support businesses to make it core of their strategy too.

 

 

Develop a corporate partnership programme

 

Develop longer term support for your charity through developing a partnership scheme. The Peak District National Park Foundation has developed a ‘Peak Partner’ scheme which sees local and national businesses become partners of the charity at Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels.

 

The partner scheme includes benefits for both businesses and the charity, including the business giving a cash donation in exchange for promotion and different support for the business to meet their ESG and CSR goals.

 

It is a win-win relationship for both the business and the charity. Think about how your charity could develop a partner scheme, what it could offer, and how you could link it to a business’s ESG goals.

 

 

Work with businesses to help offset emissions

 

If you are an environmental charity that includes carbon capture projects, tree planting, or other programmes that involve slowing down the effects of climate change, then you could offer this to businesses.

 

Ensuring this is not a ‘greenwashing’ campaign for the business is important and measuring carbon emissions and carbon capture is not easy. With the right systems in place, however, this could be a really beneficial partnership for both you and the businesses you work with.

 

The Woodland Trust uses carbon capture communications to encourage both individual and business donations. 

 

 

Use ESG terminology in your communications

 

If you are looking to partner with businesses on supporting their ESG goals, then make sure you are using terminology they recognise in your communications.

 

Talking about ESG on your website and what you can do for businesses can help you appear in searches on Google and other search engines. It also means if a business is looking at your website they can clearly understand how you can support them. Make your ESG priorities clear, so businesses can see how you can help them achieve their goals.

 

 

Develop your own ESG strategy

 

As charities we are naturally working towards many ESG goals. But the best way to really understand ESG and how you might be able to partner with businesses on their ESG strategy is to make sure you have your own.

 

There are still a range of ways charities can improve by focusing on their ESG goals. You might be a social charity who could do more for the environment, or vice versa.

 

There is also always more charities can do to improve their governance. Work on developing your own ESG strategy. This will both help you better understand the process and also improve how your charity runs and supports all areas of making a better world.