GRI and UN Global Compact Join Hands for Sustainability Reporting

On the last day of the 3rd biennial Amsterdam Conference on Sustainability and Transparency, Global Reporting Initiative and the UN Global Compact (UNGC) joined hands with an agreement to align their work in advancing corporate social responsibility and transparency.

Over the past ten years, the UNGC has been working with hundreds of companies around the world to align their strategies and operations with the ten United Nations' principles. Being the world's largest corporate responsibility initiative, the UNGC helps businesses in the development, implementation and disclosure of corporate policies. On the other hand, GRI is the most widely used Sustainability Reporting Framework worldwide. This agreement would help alignment the goals of these two leading global organizations.

Ernst Ligteringen, the Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative, identified this move as a means of facilitating easier understanding of the two different reporting practices and more widespread adoption by the different companies worldwide. Over the past few years, GRI and UN Global Compact have worked closely on outreach, training, and research programs for the improvement of the reporting guidelines.

This agreement is being seen as a means to strengthen the adoption and implementation of sustainability reporting in the corporate sector. According to the agreement, Global Compact will use its network of more than 5800 businesses to enhance the adoption of the GRI sustainability reporting guidelines. Simultaneously, GRI will integrate a framework to facilitate transparency and accountability for businesses to include the United Nations' ten principles and key focus areas.

The agreement intends to enhance the combined strengths of the UNGC's strategic advancement of key sustainable issues and GRI's strong reporting framework. George Kell, Executive Director of UN Global Compact, spoke about the importance of such a decision due to the inclusion of corporate responsibility into the mainstream business strategy and operations. Such a move would not only help in developing a framework that could be applicable universally, but also would provide a benchmark for better analysis of risks and opportunities on environmental, social and governance performance.

As reporting continues to be a hot topic amongst the corporate sector, the integration of sustainability reporting with other criterias are becoming increasingly important. This move may ease the burden on many for corporation that blame complicated reporting schemes as an excuse for not disclosing ESG performance.