Sustainability for membership organisations your goals, and your members’

01/ Your own duties

Three regimes to check, one to watch.

Which rules apply depends on how the body is constituted and how large it is, so check each rather than assuming. Many membership bodies are companies limited by guarantee or charitable companies, which the government’s guidance treats as companies for these purposes.

Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) applies to quoted companies, large unquoted companies (including charitable companies) and large LLPs, which must report UK energy use and associated emissions; for a charitable company the report sits in the combined directors’ and trustees’ annual report (SECR guidance; government guidance, 2019; the size test for “large” is set out on SECR thresholds, and it is not the Companies Act medium-sized limit).

The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) covers a UK company with 250 or more people, or with turnover above £44 million and a balance sheet above £38 million. It “can also apply to not-for-profit bodies” that meet the criteria. For phase 4 the qualification date is 31 December 2026 and the notification deadline is 5 December 2027 (ESOS guidance; government guidance, updated 2 September 2026).

UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, the UK versions of IFRS S1 and S2, are finalised and “available for voluntary use, by any entity that chooses to do so”; government and the FCA will consider whether to require them of anyone (UK SRS guidance; government guidance, updated 25 February 2026). Voluntary today does not mean never, so a body can use them as its reporting frame now.

02/ Your footprint

Where a membership body’s emissions sit.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol sorts emissions into three scopes. Scope 1 is “direct GHG emissions” from sources “owned or controlled by the company”. Scope 2 accounts for emissions “from the generation of purchased electricity consumed by the company”. Scope 3 is everything else indirect in the value chain (GHG Protocol Corporate Standard; the standard itself, 2004).

For a membership body the office is rarely the largest part. Its Scope 3 categories include purchased goods and services (category 1, which covers services as well as goods), business travel (category 6) and employee commuting (category 7) (GHG Protocol Value Chain Standard; the standard itself, 2011). Events, publishing and the venues and suppliers behind them are largely purchases, which is what category 1 covers.

Whether a body counts attendees’ own travel to its events, and under which category, is a boundary choice. Decide it once, write it down and use it every year, so the trend means something.

04/ Bringing members along

Help members improve, and test the case.

Some bodies go beyond their own operations. The Royal Institute of British Architects, for example, encourages chartered practices to join its 2030 Climate Challenge, with targets for operational energy, embodied carbon, water and wellbeing (RIBA climate action; the body’s own campaign page). That is a programme for members, separate from the institute’s own footprint.

Events are where many bodies meet members and where their footprint concentrates. ISO 20121:2024 is a management-system standard for event sustainability that applies to “events of all types and sizes” (ISO 20121:2024; the standard’s publisher page). It sets how to manage impacts, not a carbon calculation.

Be honest about the evidence. We looked for a credible survey showing that members or prospective members value a body’s environmental stance, and for evidence on how bodies are supporting members’ sustainability skills, and did not find one. Treat the link to joining and staying as a hypothesis to test with your own members, not a result.

05/ A policy that supports retention and acquisition

Publish it, mean it, and put it to work.

A sustainability policy helps a body only if it can stand behind every line. The CMA’s Green Claims Code is guidance on meeting existing consumer protection law (Green Claims Code; CMA guidance, 2021), so commit to what you do and measure, keep every claim accurate and clear, and leave out claims you cannot evidence. Our own sustainability policy is written that way.

Once it is published, the policy can do commercial work. Put it where prospective members decide: in the join journey and the case for a grade, which is the work of new member acquisition and membership acquisition. Put it where existing members decide: in renewal communications and the annual report, which is membership retention in practice.

Then measure it. Add one question about it to your exit and renewal surveys, and compare lapse and join rates before and after you publish. That turns a hypothesis into a finding, and it belongs in your wider membership strategy.