The Global Reporting Initiative (known as 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.
Since its first draft guidelines were published in March 1999, GRI's voluntary sustainability reporting framework has been adopted by multinational organizations, governments, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), NGOs, and industry groups. Over 10,000 companies from more than 100 countries use GRI. According to the 26 October 2022 KPMG Survey of Sustainability Reporting, 78% of the world’s biggest 250 companies by revenue (the G250) and 68% of the top 100 businesses in 58 countries (5,800 companies known as the N100) have adopted the GRI Standards for reporting. GRI is used as a reporting standard by a majority of the companies surveyed in all regions.
GRI thus provides the world's most widely used sustainability reporting standards. Under 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 publish a sustainability report, also known as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) or environmental, social, and governance (ESG) report. GRI's framework for sustainability reporting helps companies identify, gather, and report this information in a clear and comparable manner. Developed by the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), the GRI Standards are the first global standards for sustainability reporting and are a free public good.
The GRI Standards have a modular structure, making them easier to update and adapt. Three series of Standards support the reporting process. The GRI Universal Standards apply to all organizations and cover core sustainability issues related to a company’s impact on the economy, society, and the environment. The GRI Sector Standards apply to specific sectors, particularly those with the highest environmental impact, such as fossil fuels. The GRI Topic Standards list disclosures relevant to a particular topic area. GRI Standards and reporting criteria are reviewed every three years by the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), an independent body created by GRI. The most recent of GRI's reporting frameworks are the revised Universal Standards, which were published in October 2021, and came into effect for reporting in January 2023.
History
The Global Reporting Initiative was developed in 1997 by the United States-based non-profits Ceres (formerly the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies) and consulting agency Tellus Institute. Key individuals were Ceres President Bob Massie and Allen L. White of Tellus. Other influential thinkers who were board members of Ceres included Joan Bavaria of the Social Investment Forum (SIF), Alica Gravitz of Co-op America and Paul Freundlich of the US-based Fair Trade Foundation. The initiative soon gained support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
GRI released an "exposure draft" version of the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines in 1999, and the first full version in June 2000. Work immediately began on a second version which was released at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August 2002—where the organization and the guidelines were also referred to in the Plan of Implementation signed by all attending member states.
As early as 2001, GRI expressed its intention to institutionalize the organization with a headquarters in Europe. In April 2002, GRI was inaugurated as an independent organization in a ceremony hosted at the UN headquarters in New York. Its mission was to provide “stewardship of the Guidelines through their continuous enhancement and dissemination (GRI 2000 Guidelines).” Engineering consultancy DHV (now Royal HaskoningDHV) expressed a strong interest in the initiative following the publication of the draft guidelines, translating them into Dutch and holding its first seminar on disclosing and reporting on 7 December 1999. Influential figures in the Dutch adoption of GRI include Nancy Kamp-Roelands, Johan Piet and Piet Sprengers. DHV approached then-CEO Allen White and set up meetings with the Dutch government. By April 2002, GRI had decided to settle in Amsterdam, Netherlands where it subsequently incorporated as a non-profit organization and a Collaborating Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme. Although the GRI is independent, it remains a collaborating center of UNEP and works in cooperation with the United Nations Global Compact.