How to write an environmental policy

It is not a legal requirement for UK charities to report on their environmental impact. Yet environmental sustainability is becoming an increasing concern to charities, growing in importance for donors, beneficiaries, and funders alike.  With current sustainability efforts in the sector rated at six out of ten, it can be difficult for charities to discuss their green credentials publicly and harder yet for them to know where to start building them.   

An environmental policy can help charities create a plan of action, detailing their responsibility for environmental sustainability and taking stock of their current efforts. An environmental policy should communicate to employees, volunteers, and trustees their role in contributing to the charity’s sustainability, reinforcing it as a priority to the organisation and encouraging them to include it in decision-making.  

In summary, an environmental policy is a commitment to operating in an environmentally-friendly way, outlining your actions to minimise your environmental impact, and what you plan to do in the future. 

An environmental policy should form part of an organisation’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy. ESG refers to the standards of organisational behaviour in terms of sustainability and social conscience. It includes information around environmental impact, diversity and inclusion, and financial remuneration, with a particular focus on leadership, among other factors.  

ESG has become increasingly important to organisations in all sectors, though reporting on it is only legally required for some. Reporting on environmental credentials is not yet a legal requirement for charities, in the way it is for businesses and public sector organisations, which means there are fewer guidelines for the charity sector in developing an environmental policy.   

But with consumers increasingly concerned about the environmental behaviours of the organisations they support, and 88% of charities themselves concerned about the impacts of climate change, putting an environmental policy in place is still worth doing.  

Below, we explore why it is vital for charities to implement an environmental policy and how it can help them reduce their environmental footprint more effectively.  

Skip to: What is an environmental policy? 
Skip to: Why do charities need an environmental policy? 
Skip to: What is an environmental framework? 
Skip to: What is included in an environmental policy? 
Skip to: Top tips for creating your environmental policy 
Skip to: Examples of existing environmental policies 

What is an environmental policy? 

An environmental policy is a written statement of your organisation’s commitment to environmental sustainability. According to arts and environment charity Creative Carbon Scotland, an environmental policy should explain your approach to tackling the climate crisis, including plans to reduce your carbon footprint and contribute towards climate action goals.  

There are many different forms that your environmental policy can take. A good place to start is by outlining your charity’s environmental aims, followed by a list of actions that will help you achieve these goals.  

Once you have put these together, you can begin to edit it into a concise document that can be shared internally and externally with all stakeholders. Transparency is very important to charity supporters, as well as trustees, funders, and employees, so, although there is currently no legal requirement for charities to do so in the UK, it is worth dedicating a clear space on your website for your environmental policy.  

By sharing their environmental policy openly, charities can communicate that they are taking their environment footprint seriously and share how they place to reduce it. It can also help them avoid “greenwashing”. Greenwashing happens when organisations make claims to be environmentally friendly without taking action to back them up.  

For that reason, an environmental policy should be a work in progress. Identify what is achievable, the immediate actions your charity can take or is already taking, and use these to form the basis of your environmental policy. You should make sure all your goals are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timed – making your environmental policy a framework against which your sustainability can be measured. 

Areas you might like to consider within your environmental policy are:  

Remember: an environmental policy is a fluid document. It is important to regularly review your environmental policy in order to keep it up-to-date and relevant to your mission. Progress should be reviewed to allow your charity to change tactics where necessary and continue with what has been successful.  

For more information on how to create an environment policy, you can listen to our podcast below.

Why do charities need an environmental policy? 

Charities need an environmental policy to help them be more effective in taking climate action. Taking climate action can be difficult and overwhelming, as discussed, so an environmental policy helps charities break down their plans into manageable chunks and measure their progress accordingly.  

An environmental policy is also helpful in communicating how seriously an organisation is taking their environmental footprint. It demonstrates that they recognise how they might contribute to the climate crisis, how this will impact the world we live in, and allows them to take responsibility for mitigating those impacts.  

More than seven in ten charities say they have already been affected by the impacts of climate change or expect to be in the future, so putting an environmental policy in place shows donors, beneficiaries, trustees, staff, and all concerned parties how they are taking steps to address those concerns.  

Since there are no universal reporting standards for charities and their environmental credentials, it can be difficult for charities to know where to start when seeking to take climate action. It can be yet more difficult to know where to start with an environmental policy. There are no regulatory requirements of information to include and each charity may take a different approach.  

But whatever approach charities choose to take, it is the act of creating the environmental policy in the first place that is important. It is the best way to get started on becoming an environmentally-responsible organisation, whether you share it outside the organisation from the beginning or not. The more charities that share their environmental policies, however, the closer the sector becomes to creating its own ESG more environmentally-friendly the sector will become.   

Below, we explore in more detail what charities can cover within their environmental policy and where they can find inspiration from existing environmental frameworks.   

It is not an exhaustive list, as environmental policies should be aligned with the charity’s unique goals and there are many existing frameworks to choose from. But it will hopefully inspire what could be included in the average charity’s environmental policy. 

What is an environmental framework?

There are many excellent environmental frameworks that charities can use to support their environmental policy. They can provide inspiration for the goals you are looking to achieve, suggesting actions that can be taken to address the climate crisis from expert organisations already working in this area. 

For example, many organisations use the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to underpin their environmental policies. The SDGs are a set of 17 goals in all areas affected by climate change, from health to industry and infrastructure. The UN has provided communications materials for organisation’s looking to implement and report

on its SDGs within their own context.  

The SDGs are complex and charities may want to look at more options to base their environmental policy on, particularly during the early stages. Here are three more frameworks that might help charities with their environmental policy:  

It is worth nothing that it is not necessary to use a framework for your environmental policy. It is useful as a starting point, in order to clarify your aims, but there are many other resources online that may help, too.  

Below, we highlight more elements that should go into your environmental policy, and how these can provide a structure, regardless of whether or not it adheres to a specific environmental framework.  

What should be included in an environmental policy?

Opening statement 

Essentially, the opening statement of an environmental policy should be justification of its existence. It should state why your charity is seeking to reduce its environmental footprint and communicate the importance of doing so to all concerned, including employees, trustees, and funders.  

A good example of an opening statement in an environmental policy can be found in Community First Yorkshire’s template. It begins with: “[NAME OF ORGANISATION] acknowledges the connection between the climate and environmental crises; the threat of current and future homelessness, disease, food and water shortages, and poverty for millions of people around the world.” The aim of Community First Yorkshire’s template is that it can be adapted to suit each organisation as needed.  

Commitments you wish to make 

The second stage of an environmental policy should be the commitments you are making, whether that is reducing paper usage, reducing energy consumption, or changing the way you run your fundraising events. In this section, it is okay to not be too detailed or prescriptive about these goals and simply state your overall aims e.g. to reduce carbon emissions. In the third section (Actions), you can outline how you will do this.  

At this second stage of your environmental policy, you should also outline more about how the environmental policy will be used itself. For example, will it be included in employee handbooks? Will it be used to measure performance at board meetings? You can also mention any environmental frameworks you’ve used as a basis for this policy or regulation that you aim to be in compliance with in this section.  

Actions  

An environmental policy should always be actionable. Without action, an environmental policy is meaningless and is arguably worse than having no policy at all due to the data it takes up by existing in the cloud.  Environmental policies exist to make your organisation more environmentally friendly – as we stated above, it is a statement of intent.  

It follows, then, that after sharing your commitments to the environment, charities also share their intent. This means sharing the actions they plan to take or are already taking to reduce their environmental footprint.  

It is okay to use your policy as an outline, particularly in its first iteration. Charities may want to include specific actions and responsibilities within teams, but for the organisation’s over-arching environmental policy, this should comprise one sentence. Too many actions will not look achievable and can lead to overwhelm, which in turn leads to fatalism.  

Fatalism, or the idea that there is simply too much to be done to tackle climate change, defeats the purpose of the environmental policy. Keep it clear, ensure all employees understand their responsibilities, but remember your policy is an action plan – a to-do list rather than a terms and conditions.  

Ensure your actions are aligned with the commitments you have set earlier in the policy. This makes them more measurable and shows how you will work towards your goals, making them seem more achievable. Whatever stage your charity is at on its environmental journey, if the plans are achievable, the easier it is to make progress.  

Date 

At the end of your environmental policy, add a date when the policy will be reviewed (annually, quarterly, for example).

Your environmental policy should be used as a basis for all discussions about environmental sustainability both internally and externally, so it is vital it is fresh in everyone’s mind and maintained in order to be relevant to the organisation as it currently operates.  

Including a review date in your environmental policy will ensure that all stakeholders know when performance is measured and that the policy is not an afterthought. It is a vital piece of documentation and should be maintained as such.  

Top tips for creating your environmental policy

As we mentioned above, it is important that your environmental policy is clear and concise to avoid overwhelming your audiences, particularly those whose job it is to action it. Aim to keep your environmental policy down to one page to make it memorable and engaging for all stakeholders.  

Too many goals and your environmental policy will seem over-ambitious. But a lack of detail will, likewise, seem vague. It is important that all goals are aligned with action, but start small. Take on only what your charity can handle and review progress in the future. Your environmental policy is a roadmap, not the destination itself.  

However long and detailed your environmental policy is, it must be visible and accessible. There is little point in an environmental policy that no one can find or remember. An environmental policy communicates the seriousness with which your charity is taking climate action and, in order to be fully embedded within your operations, it must be easy to refer to when needed.  

Examples of good environmental policies 

There are lots of great examples of environmental policies online, from charities to public sector organisations and businesses. Here we share some of the best examples of environmental policies we’ve found online.  

Charity environmental policies 

• Marie Curie’s Environmental Policy
• Brunel Museum’s Sustainability Policy
• Keep Britain Tidy’s manifesto
• Keep Britain Tidy’s strategy guidelines for local authorities
• Community First Yorkshire Climate Change Toolkit
• Creative Carbon Scotland

Other sector policies 

• PWC
• Haringey Council
• HSBC
• UK Health Security Agency