ESG and Finance – A New Challenge for Charity Accounting

The ESG Imperative Conference, held at One America Square, London, highlighted a major shift happening across the charity sector: finance teams are increasingly responsible for tracking and reporting on ESG metrics.

As Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles become core to charity operations, organisations must adapt their financial strategies and reporting structures to reflect this growing demand for transparency.

Attending the event was Paul Foden, CEO of Aedon.Accounting, alongside Ryan Dale, UKI Lead for Cloudcoach. Their focus? Understanding how finance teams—and the software they rely on—need to evolve to meet these new requirements.

The New Role of Finance in ESG Reporting

Charities are already embedding ESG principles into investment policies and operational decisions, but a key challenge remains: measuring and reporting ESG metrics efficiently.

Paul Foden explained why this responsibility is likely to fall on finance teams:

The need to measure the carbon footprint is likely to fall on the finance department. We can see the need to include these ESG metrics alongside the traditional financial reporting. Our challenge is to create a structure that is flexible enough to capture this information efficiently and then report on it in a way that informs decision-making.

This presents a huge challenge for accounting systems, most of which are not designed to track ESG data alongside financial performance.

How Finance Software Must Adapt

For ESG reporting to be truly effective, finance software needs to evolve—providing finance teams with the tools to integrate sustainability and governance data into their reporting processes.

At Aedon.Accounting, this shift is already in motion. With a highly flexible data structure, we are working to develop an Environmental Reporting Module that will allow charities to capture, analyse, and report ESG metrics seamlessly—just as they would with traditional financial data.

As charities increasingly prioritise sustainability, responsible investment, and governance transparency, accounting systems must keep up with the demand. The future of charity finance is more than just numbers—it’s about measuring impact in every sense.

Learn more about Aedon.Accounting’s approach to ESG and financial reporting.

Visit Aedon.Charities

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