GRI was founded in Boston (USA) in 1997 following public outcry over the environmental damage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Roots lie in the non-profit organizations CERES and the Tellus Institute (with involvement of the UN Environment Programme). The aim was to create the first accountability mechanism to ensure companies adhere to responsible environmental conduct principles, which was then broadened to include social, economic and governance issues.
The first version of what was then the GRI Guidelines (G1) published in 2000 – providing the first global framework for sustainability reporting. The following year, GRI was established as an independent, non-profit institution. In 2002, the GRI’s Secretariat relocated to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and the first update to the guidelines (G2) launched. As demand for GRI reporting and uptake from organizations steadily grew, the guidelines were expanded and improved, leading to G3 (2006) and G4 (2013).
In 2016, GRI transitioned from providing guidelines to setting the first global standards for sustainability reporting – the GRI Standards. The Standards continue to be updated and added to, including new Standards on Tax (2019) and Waste (2020), a major update to the Universal Standards (2021) and the continued roll-out of Sector Standards. Sustainability reporting in an organization’s practice of publishing information on its economic, environmental, and social impacts. As provider of the world’s most widely used framework for sustainability reporting, GRI has a wide range of guidance, information and support, to help companies get started.
The revised Universal Standards represent the most significant update since GRI transitioned from providing guidance to setting standards in 2016.
The Universal Standards strengthen the very foundations of all reporting through GRI, delivering the highest level of transparency for organizational impacts on the economy, environment, and people.
The forward-looking approach that underpinned the revision of the Universal Standards means organizations will be best positioned to use their GRI reporting to respond to emerging regulatory disclosure needs, such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the IFRS plans for enterprise value standards.
The user-friendly modular system enables all reporting organizations to apply the revised Universal Standards alongside the application of the adapted Topic Standards, and the new Sector Standards.
The revised Universal Standards in effect for reporting from 1 January 2023, with early adoption encouraged.
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In March 2022, GRI and the IFRS Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to coordinate their work programs and standard-setting activities as well as join each other’s consultative bodies related to sustainability reporting. By working together, the IFRS Foundation and GRI provide two pillars of international sustainability reporting – a first pillar representing investor-focused capital market standards of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards developed by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), and a second pillar of GRI sustainability reporting requirements set by the Global Standards Setting Board (GSSB), compatible with the first and designed to meet multi-stakeholder needs.
In 2021, GRI responded on the updated strategic direction of the IFRS Foundation and the establishment of a working group. In November 2021, GRI welcomed the announcement of the launch of the ISSB, which included the consolidation of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and the Value Reporting Foundation (which includes the IIRC and SASB) into the ISSB. GRI has previously had long-running collaborations with both the IIRC and SASB, including a 2021 joint report on how to use GRI and SASB standards together.
GRI has hailed the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) as an important step towards implementing the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and holding companies operating in the EU market accountable for their impacts. The first set of draft ESRS was submitted to the European Commission by the Sustainability Reporting Board (SRB) of EFRAG (formerly known as the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group), on 22 November.
GRI has actively engaged in the development of the ESRS, from the initial phase lead by the Project Task Force through to the collaboration with EFRAG, the SRB and Technical Expert Group. The work concentrated on ensuring optimal interoperability between the global GRI Standards, focused on impact materiality, and the European ESRS focused on double materiality. The GRI Standards are already the impact reporting standards used by most large companies, in the EU and around the world.
The CSRD, which mandates the use of the ESRS for some 50,000 companies entered into force on 5 January 2023.
Under the EFRAG-GRI cooperation agreement, signed in July 2021, the two organizations joined each other’s technical expert groups and committed to share information, and for standard setting activities and timelines to be aligned as much as possible.
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is introducing legislation to significantly expand mandatory sustainability disclosure requirements for companies operating in the EU, which will replace the current Non-Financial Reporting Directive.
GRI and EFRAG are pleased to confirm that they have achieved a high level of interoperability between their respective standards in relation to impact reporting.
GRI and EFRAG publish a joint statement on the high level of interoperability achieved between the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and the GRI Standards.
Following the requirement of the CSRD to adopt a double materiality approach and to take account of existing standards, ESRS and GRI definitions, concepts and disclosures regarding impacts are fully or, when full alignment was not possible due to the content of the CSRD mandate, closely aligned.
Existing GRI reporters will be well prepared to report under the ESRS. Entities reporting under ESRS are considered as reporting with reference to the GRI Standards and will therefore avoid the burden of multiple reporting.
