Charities told to green up their act

That’s the conclusion of work by City Bridge, an independent charitable funding trust, which assessed 12 charities and voluntary organisations working in London.

City Bridge found that only four of the group had environmental strategies in place, seven could not provide energy use figures, and most printed leaflets and marketing materials on unrecycled paper. Only one charity had recycling facilities for glass, cans and plastic bottles.

The details came to light during a free ‘eco audit’ offered to charities by City Bridge. The organisation's trustee, John Stuttard, said that whilst the charities had learned a good deal, they still had ‘a long way to go’:
‘We’ll be visiting them again before the end of the year to see how they got on. Environmental thinking begins with self-awareness and these 12 are setting the pace,’ he added.

This article first appeared in the Ecologist May 2007