What is expected to be disclosed in ESG reporting Under GLOBAL REPORTING INITIATIVE (GRI) ?

GRI The catalyst for a sustainable world

GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is an independent, international organization that helps businesses and other organizations take responsibility for their impacts, by providing them with the global common language to communicate those impacts. We provide the world’s most widely used standards for sustainability reporting – the GRI Standards.

The GRI Secretariat is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and has a network of seven regional offices?to help ensure we can support organizations and stakeholders worldwide.

It works with businesses, investors, policymakers, civil society, labor organizations and other experts to develop the GRI Standards and promote their use by organizations worldwide with thousands of reporters in more than 100 countries, the Standards are advancing the practice of sustainability reporting, and enabling organizations and their stakeholders to take action and make better decisions that create economic, environmental and social benefits for everyone.?

Investor relations play a critical role in responding to the increasing demand for sustainability information, conveying investor feedback to company management and the board, and addressing communication gaps. Given this, are corporates well equipped to communicate meaningfully and efficiently with investors on sustainability issues? What is the role of investor relations in developing and executing the company’s sustainability agenda?. It discusses the critical role of IR managers in leading the company’s sustainable communications with financial markets and on the flip side, examines how investors approach ESG investment stewardship and the extent to which they factor in ESG considerations in their investment decisions.

A recent Financial Times article referred to the ESG investments sector as ‘rife with greenwashing’. These concerns not only diminish trust in institutions and the system as a whole but, most significantly, pose a danger to the socio-economic and environmental challenges we are trying to solve. From biodiversity loss to climate change, health crises to inequality, sustainable behavior should always begin with the end goal in mind. Responsible business is under the magnifying glass due to the myriad of ways sustainability performance of companies is accounted. The FT mentions that the desire to get beyond ‘greenwashing’ ‘has accelerated the drive for sustainability standards’. However, there is much misinformation around what the distinction is between standards, frameworks, ranking and ratings, and their differences in approach and purpose.?

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is an international independent standards organization that helps businesses, governments and other organizations understand and communicate their impacts on issues such as climate change, human rights and corruption.

The GRI standards are a set of interrelated reporting standards, enabling organizations to report publicly on their economic, environmental and social impacts and contribution towards sustainable development. GRI standards represent global best practice for reporting sustainability information – enhancing its comparability and quality.

Under the increasing pressure from different stakeholder groups – such as governments, consumers and investors – to be more transparent about their environmental, economic and social impacts, many companies have been encouraged to publish relevant reports in various forms to reflect their non-financial performance concerning environmental commitment, social responsibility and corporate governance structure in the management of sustainable development. These reports are also well known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report and sustainability report in different regions of the world. Given the ascending demand from stakeholders and urgency for a unified and standardized methodology for reporting on company’s sustainability performance, the emergence of GRI standards serves as a useful tool, in which the criteria and framework for sustainability reporting recommended helps companies identify, gather and report the relevant information in a transparent and comparable manner that makes for more effective internal control and external comparison.

GRI standards provide companies with a flexible and future-proof reporting structure, that is, the forward-looking and rigorous approach advocated by GRI ensures its process and topics can always remain up-to-date and relevant. GRI standards take policy integration and referencing into consideration, enabling that governments and market regulators are able to easily reference the standards in their policy initiatives. Therefore, GRI standards are the reporting framework that meets all needs for sustainability reporting – from comprehensive reports to issue-specific disclosures. Meanwhile, GRI has been developed with multi-stakeholder contributions and rooted in the public interest, upholding its strong credibility and robustness among companies’ stakeholders.

The GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (the Guidelines) provide reporting principles, standard disclosures, and implementation guidance for creating sustainability reports for all organizations, regardless of size, industry, or location.

An essential part are indicators (for example energy consumption, etc.), which are also mapped in the Umweltdaten-Tool and automatically calculated accordingly.

The guidelines also provide an international reference for corporate governance information as well as environmental, social and economic performance data and implications.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are a set of standards for a company’s behavior used by socially conscious investors to screen?potential investments. Environmental criteria consider how a company safeguards the environment, including corporate policies addressing climate change, for example. Social criteria examine?how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, executive pay,?audits,?internal controls,?and shareholder rights.

Environmental criteria may include corporate climate policies, energy use, waste, pollution, natural resource conservation, and treatment of animals. The criteria can also help evaluate any environmental risks a company might face and how the company is managing those risks. Considerations may include direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, management of toxic waste, and compliance with environmental regulations.

In Nutshell Stakeholders of ESG could have positive footprints under GRI.

Note: The above-provided information is just for knowledge purposes, please consult a professional practitioner for the services.

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