The Global Report Initiative (GRI) was established in 1997 to develop an environmental accountability mechanism for companies. This was later broadened to include social, economic and governance issues. While the GRI initially provided companies with guidelines for companies environmental, social, economic and governance conduct, in 2016 it established the first global standards for sustainability reporting – the GRI Standards. These include three series of standards:
- Universal Standards: guidance for all reporting through the GRI, establishing a high base level of transparency for organisational impacts.
- Sector Standards: sector-specific guidance on identifying significant impacts, managing stakeholder expectations and disclosure.
- Topic Standards: topic-specific disclosure and reporting guidance.
More information on reporting in line with the Standards can be found in the resource: A Short Introduction to the GRI Standards.
The GRI website has further information on their current work programme, as well as a series of online courses to support reporting against the Standards.
