Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

Overview

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), is an international organisation that plays a leading role in advancing sustainability reporting. Established in 1997, GRI has been instrumental in shaping the way organisations worldwide disclose their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts.

Scope & Adoption

GRI's primary focus lies in promoting sustainability reporting, encompassing a wide range of topics such as environmental impact, social responsibility, governance practices, and economic performance. The standards enable organisations to demonstrate their management of ESG impacts to a variety of stakeholders.

The GRI framework is globally adopted, with organisations of all sizes and sectors participating. Over the years, GRI has gained huge traction, attracting diverse stakeholders, including businesses, governments, investors, and civil society. In 2022, more than 10,000 organisations utilised GRI's guidelines.

‍Why it Matters

The first version of GRI guidelines was published in 2000, and the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards launched in 2016, which has since become the premier global framework for sustainability reporting.

Reporting Process

Organisations are expected to report to the GRI in line with their fiscal year. In the 2021 revision of GRI, the Sector Standards program was introduced, which will begin with the highest-impact sectors. There are expected to be 40 Sector Standards that will be developed by the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), who review existing GRI Standards and develop new ones every three years to keep the Standards relevant and up to date.

Alignment with other frameworks

The GRI standards align to the following international sustainability frameworks:

• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): In 2017, GRI provided guidance for corporate reporting on SDG in collaboration with the UN Global Compact.
• CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project): GRI and CDP are aligned in their commitment to advancing environmental transparency. GRI's reporting framework complements CDP's specific focus on environmental data, creating a holistic approach to corporate sustainability reporting.
• The ESRS (CSRD), developed by EFRAG, works closely with GRI and they announced that there will be a high degree of interoperability; the exact alignment between the two is expected after EFRAG ratifies the final version of the ESRS standards.

GRI with Nossa Data

Nossa Data is a GRI licensed software provider. Clients have access to GRI disclosure templates and can produce and download a GRI Content Index to be used in their Annual Report or published on their website - client examples include Accsys & PensionBee. Clients who use Nossa Data are able to seamlessly benchmark their draft responses with their historic data and against best-in-class GRI respondents, as well as map their data to GRI 2021 requirements and from the 2016 indicators.

Start your GRI Journey with Nossa Data 

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Sources:

• https://www.globalreporting.org/about-gri/ 
• https://www.globalreporting.org/about-gri/mission-history/‍
• https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/standards-development/