Global Reporting Initiative turns a new leaf

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has developed a comprehensive framework for corporate reporting. Over the past decade, this GRI framework has been adopted by more than 1,500 companies in over 60 countries. This framework adopts a triple bottom-line reporting approach, in order to cover environmental, social and economic parameters. This is in line with studies that have been conducted which show that in the coming decade the global economy is  set to become radically more transparent.

"Transparency is a key component for companies and governments to manage resources and public expectations. Consequently, sustainability reporting is becoming more mainstream, recognized as the best tool to measure, report and communicate performance in the Environment Social Governance (ESG)  field." says Nelmara Arbex, Director, Learning and Services at GRI. 

With increasing pressure on companies from their stakeholders, reporting on  ESG disclosures is a common trend. Taking this into consideration, GRI proposes that ESG reporting and financial reporting needs to integrate over the coming decade. Furthermore, it advocates that a standard for integrated reporting should be defined, tested and adopted by 2020, which it is currently working on in partnership with leading global organizations in financial markets, accounting, corporate responsibility, and civil society to establish the International Integrated Reporting Committee. The primary aim of integrated reporting is to consider the financial and non-financial performance of a company which would help investors, stakeholders and consumers to make a better choice, not only on the basis of purely financial performance but also on other performance factors such as environmental and social issues.

"The financial crisis has sparked a renewed focus on regulation. The role of governments in sustainability reporting is an important part of this trend, as the state plays a stronger regulatory role in ensuring a minimum level of disclosure and risk prevention," says Teresa Fogelberg, Deputy Chief Executive at GRI. "This means more rigorous sustainability reporting is going hand in hand with regulation." 

Conference participants of 'The Amsterdam global conference on sustainability and transparency' were invited to debate the role that GRI should play in the development of integrated reporting. It is expected that the views gathered from this debate would be discussed at a high level committee on integrated reporting. 

In order to address the gap between the existing framework and the new integrated framework which is expected to be launched by 2020, it was proposed that the themes of  Human Rights, Community, and Gender would be included  in the revised version of G3 Guidelines, so as to make them more relevant, transparent, and specific, without adding further complexity to the reporting process. The proposal has been developed by experts in sustainability reporting from countries such as Australia, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, India, Mongolia, South Africa, the UK, and the USA.