GRI - What is the Global Reporting Initiative

The GRI is an international independent standards organization and currently issues one of the most well-known standards for ESG reporting (GRI Standards).

Some other commonly used ESG standards are the ISO 26000, SASB, and CDP.

ESG reporting standards are a specific category of guidance that provides specific, replicable, and detailed information on best practices for disclosing sustainability information.

Standards are key for sustainability reporting because they provide metrics and regularity to the field, thus creating a common blueprint for making frameworks actionable.

Companies will typically announce the standard that they are using for their reports, but there is currently no universal external verification for whether the standard has been applied well.

Note that the GRI does have a Report Registration System, but this system does not check report content; it only scans for the correct claim language and whether the information through the system process is correctly aligned with the registered report.

The GRI was created in 1997 by two non-profits, Ceres and the Tellus Institute, along with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The aim of the GRI as a standard setting organization is to enable companies or third parties to assess environmental impact in a cohesive, rigorous way that is widely accepted by others.

The GRI Standards were the first globally accepted standard for sustainability reporting, and are set by the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), an independent operating entity comprised of 15 members.

Some key dates for the establishment and growth of the GRI Standard include:

In September of 2020, the GRI joined with the SASB, CDP, CDSB, and IIRC to develop a single set of comprehensive and global reporting standards.

The GRI and SASB also started a joint project in the same year, focusing on communication materials to help stakeholders better understand how to use GRI Standards and SASB Standards concurrently.

They have since published A Practical Guide to Sustainability Reporting Using GRI and SASB Standards in April 2021.

Overall, the GRI Standards are still the most widely used sustainability reporting standard.

The 2020 KPMG Survey of Sustainability Reporting found that across the world’s largest 250 companies (the G250), the GRI Standards is the only sustainability reporting standard with widespread global adoption.

They also report that as of 2020, 73% of the G250 and 67% of the N100 use the GRI Standards.

However, given the trend towards consolidation and collaboration between the leading sustainability reporting standards, in the future we will most likely see standards being used in synergy, rather than in competition.

Since its introduction, the GRI Standards have been extremely influential.

However, as with all sustainability standards, it faces the challenge of creating a universally applicable Standard while keeping the reporting process straightforward.

Some barriers to the widespread adoption of the GRI Standards, as identified by a researcher from the University of Waterloo, include the general lack of cohesiveness among the different sustainability standards and the necessary interdependence among elements of the GRI Standards (meaning that using the GRI Standards only partially may not be that useful).

The GRI is limited in that it is a topic level reporting framework, meaning that despite the modular nature of the GRI Standards, GRI guidance is still less specific than other reporting frameworks such as the SASB.

The SASB provides instruction on things like disclosure topics and accounting/activity metrics on a granular level, while the GRI has a broader but shallower scope.

Controversy around the GRI mainly centers on whether it accomplishes its goal of providing a single standard for sustainability reporting, and people have different opinions in this regard, with the overwhelming majority supporting it as a respected universal standard.