Climate change. Biodiversity loss. Social inequality. The “great resignation”. The pandemic. The war in the Ukraine. Society and the planet are fraying at the edges. But there are three institutions best placed to put humanity and our environment on a sustainable course: government, investors, and associations—governments because of the regulations they can enact, investors because of their influence on business priorities, and associations because of their reach into professions and organizations around the world.
As associations wrestle with their relevance and value propositions, their members do the same. And the tussle made more complex by the backdrop of societal issues, ticking away in the background.
Those that are forward-thinking and driven to help their members become future-fit establish ESG (environmental, social and governance) programs to steer their professions and industries through the turbulence. They invest in measures to help re-engineer their memberships to be a force for good.
Associations are not only on the front lines of society’s social and environmental challenges, a number of them are leading the way. They are innovating in the absence of a clear roadmap for ESG progress. That is about to change, with the launch of a new guide for associations published by the Canadian Standards Association: SPE116: Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Associations.
