A powerful interim step towards a single, coherent global set of reporting standards
Published date: 11 September 2020
Shared vision from GRI, CDP, CDSB, IIRC and SASB
The five global sustainability, ESG and integrated reporting framework and standard setting organizations have today launched a report outlining the elements necessary for more comprehensive corporate reporting. The shared vision is provided by GRI, CDP, Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
GRI was founded almost 25 years ago to help companies to be transparent and take responsibility for their impacts. As interest has increased among many stakeholders in better understanding corporate impacts, different reporting standards and tools have been developed to meet to those needs. This has created confusion and a perception of reporting burden on the side of companies.
Eric Hespenheide, Chair of the GRI Board said:
"As GRI, we believe strongly in a vision of a single, coherent global set of reporting standards. That is why we are pursuing collaboration with these other organizations. We have called on all of them to join in the development of a pragmatic approach to joint standard setting along with fundraising to support such an effort. This would underpin the unique contribution and specific focus of each partner organization.
Such an approach reduces the burden for the reporting organizations as well as ensure that all stakeholders can base their decisions on consistent and comparable information. GRI remains keen to continuing to work together with all interested organizations in achieving greater transparency through disclosure in the weeks and months to come."
Judy Kuszewski, the chair of the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), which has sole responsibility for setting the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards, added:
“The GRI Standards are the most widely-followed framework for corporate sustainability reporting globally. We know from more than two decades of working with thousands of GRI reporting organizations that what issuers want more than anything is a reduction in the complexity and burden of reporting, and an end to the overlapping, redundant or repetitive disclosures that still happen far too often. The GSSB is delighted to build on the foundation that this collaborative effort has provided, to achieve genuine harmonization of reporting standards in the very near future.”
Read the GSSB’s statement in full.
Access the report Statement of Intent to Work Together Towards Comprehensive Corporate Reporting: Summary of alignment discussions among leading sustainability and integrated reporting organisations CDP, CDSB, GRI, IIRC and SASB.
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the independent international organization that helps businesses, governments and other organizations understand and communicate their impacts. The GRI Standards are the world’s most widely used for sustainability reporting.